The recent leak of classified Afghan war documents on Wikileaks has been compared to Daniel Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers. For me, a U.S. historian often faced with undergraduates with little or no historical understanding, the case is interesting for a variety of reasons. If this had happen in September, I’m sure a really bright first year student would have asked me about it. There is always one really bright fresh person in the survey class. I always feel sorry for them, stuck in a class of non-history majors who wish they could escape☹. Still the reality of the Wikileaks incident would be a great “teachable moment” and I would stress that from historical standpoint the emphasis on Wikileaks story is more complicated than the narrative being offered by many commentators.
First, the comparison with the Pentagon Papers incident is wrong. Like many historical comparison, it rests on an incomplete understanding of the events in question and surface identification of specific actions. The similarities between the two events are in my mind minor. Yes, both deal with the leak of government documents related to an unpopular conflict. That is where the similarities end. Daniel Ellsberg, a government insider, copied and release a finished government report prepare by experts for consumption in policy circles. In contrast, Julian Assange, the director of Wikileaks has published 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The difference between the information presented is stark. In the case of the Afghan Diaries, we have a series of army after action reports, raw intelligent analysis, and field interviews. While I cannot commitment on the depiction of the war effort in these documents, the reality of the different between the Pentagon Paper and Wikileaks is an important one that touches on how students will be forced to navigate the information saturated world of the future.
Wikileaks, like so many web-based information sources, excite users with vast quantity of information. I don’t want to argue about the morality of the leak. The reality of our new information reality is highlighted by the event. I don’t know how many people will read all the documents. The reality is that most people will go to some source they trust and allow that source to frame the meaning of the information. The result is of course the exact opposite of what the Internet is suppose to promote. Instead of greater individual awareness based on primary source analysis, people have facts, but often do not put in the time necessary to create a balance holistic picture. From my own experience in the classroom I know the difficulties students experience while trying to create a coherent narrative from studying primary document.
For many of my students (and adults), having information is knowledge. This is not true. Many people don’t have strong sense of information judgment, meaning having been expose to a specific fact, they can apply that information in a balance way considering multiple variables to achieve a logical conclusion. At Rollins, we constantly discussing the nature of liberal art education in 21st century and as a result, I have made a deliberate effort to make research and writing using primary sources a big part of survey classes. I have done it through my own digital history projects and by participating in with national collaborative project such as the History Engine initiative. Sponsored by the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Arts Education (NITLE), the History Engine Project allows students to write “episodes,” short narrative based on primary documents. These episodes are complied in a searchable database. In both cases, these projects force students to contextual raw data into a narrative form. In doing so, the student must make judgments about facts, identify key issues, and apply a reasonable analysis of causal links and societal consequences. These assignments are great learning experience for students. They are forced to slow down and try to think in-depth about raw unfiltered information. As a result, they asked questions about bias, they are confronted by the important of individual perspective shaping data and they see how easily minority views can be omitted or suppressed. It makes them more careful readers of historical texts and make them more invested in understanding the past.
What do I take from these experiences? I think it highlights that the people who benefit the most for the vast amount of information available on the web are those people who have the motivation, skills, and resources to comb through the information. The difference between the Pentagon Papers and Afghan Diaries is stark in this regard. If you have read the Pentagon papers, you immediate recognize the report strives to provide contexts and analysis. In contrast, the information in Afghan Diaries is raw data. This information is useful to people or organizations who are willing and capable of put in the time to comb through it and shape the raw data into actionable information. That process, my student complain, is time-consuming and painstaking. Ironically, the groups that will do the most with the information are the people motivated by bigger issues beyond simple awareness. The Taliban will scan it looking for names of people who have given assistance. Pundits on both side will read it to flush out the establish narrative from their perspective and news organizations will reference it for a fuller picture of the war. In every case, people invested for very specific reason will process the data and act on that information to further an establish agenda.
I could be wrong, perhaps millions of people are pouring through the information offered in the Afghan Diaries and getting a better sense of the realities of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Still, unless they have been primed by an educational experience developed the habits and skills need to do that, they probably aren’t putting the time in to get the full picture. Many education professionals lament the Wikipedia effect on society. I know that I threaten students with major point deductions for citing Wikipedia in a formal paper. Yet, I recognize now that the battle over Wikipedia is loss. The key now is to teach students how to navigate sources on the web, how to judge the merit of the information and how to find supplemental information to provide context for raw primary documents on the web.
