What is WikiLeaks?

Wik­iLeaks has done it again. This week­end, the whis­tle-blow­ing web­site released 92,000 mil­i­tary doc­u­ments that vivid­ly illus­trate why the US mil­i­tary cam­paign in Afghanistan has achieved so lit­tle suc­cess. Among oth­er things, the release shines a light on Pak­istan’s intel­li­gence appa­ra­tus, which has pro­vid­ed strate­gic sup­port to the Tal­iban, help­ing it coor­di­nate attacks against US troops and assas­si­nate Afghani lead­ers. (Mean­while, Pak­istan offi­cial­ly claims to be an ally of the US.) The founder of Wik­iLeaks, Julian Assange, called this release “the near­est ana­logue to the Pen­ta­gon Papers” pub­lished dur­ing the Viet­nam War. “It pro­vides a whole map, if you like, through time, of what has hap­pened dur­ing this war.”

This is not the first time that Wik­iLeaks has made news late­ly. In April, the site released footage show­ing US troops launch­ing a seem­ing­ly unjus­ti­fied air strike in Iraq, killing 12 peo­ple, includ­ing 2 Reuters jour­nal­ists. (Click here and scroll to bot­tom for video.) And last year, Wik­iLeaks helped get “Cli­mate­gate” rolling when it pub­lished mem­os from cli­mate sci­en­tists – mem­os that gave con­ser­v­a­tives ammo to argue that glob­al warm­ing is a fic­tion.

So what is Wik­iLeaks all about? On July 14, NPR’s Fresh Air inter­viewed Philip Shenon, an inves­tiga­tive reporter pre­vi­ous­ly at the New York Times, and now con­tribut­ing to The Dai­ly Beast. Dur­ing the 35 minute con­ver­sa­tion, they enter the secret world of Wik­iLeaks and answer your ques­tions. You can stream the inter­view here, grab it on iTunes, or lis­ten below.

[gplay­er href=“http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/fa/2010/07/20100714_fa_01.mp3” ] [/gplayer]

Sources for this post: The New York Times, The Wash­ing­ton Post, and The Guardian