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Last Updated on July 26, 2010.

UPDATE 10:39 pm EDT: ACT NOW! Oppose the war funding bill in Congress giving the Pentagon another $33 billion. Click Here.

UPDATE 11:40 am EDT: The New York Times points out that while the military is increasingly relying on unmanned drone aircraft to strike at enemy targets, leaked documents show that their “performance is less impressive than officially portrayed.”

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The whistleblowers at Wikileaks have yet again pulled back the curtain to reveal how the US military is waging war abroad. Revealing 92,000 pages of classified material on the war in Afghanistan, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says the documents “show the true nature of this war.” Here’s your quick reference guide to all the best coverage as this story unfolds.

Wikileaks gave advance access to the documents several weeks ago to three international newspapers who first broke the story yesterday:

New York Times – The War Logs: Pakistan Spy Service Aids Insurgents, Reports Assert
The Guardian [UK] – Afghanistan: The War Logs
Der Spiegel [Germany] – The Afghanistan Protocol: Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War From Those Fighting It

Following their release, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has defended his decision to reveal the documents, which are mostly from the relatively low “secret” classification level.

NPR – Leaked Reports Paint ‘An Unvarnished And Grim Picture of the Afghan War’
Wikileaks – Statement on the Afghaistan Papers

The Guardian [UK] – Julian Assange on the Afghan War Logs: “The show the true nature of this war.”

The White House has unsurprisingly pushed back, issuing a statement from National Security Advisor Gen. Jim Jones condemning “the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk.”

The White House – Statement of National Security Advisor General James Jones on Wikileaks

Progressive bloggers are starting to point out, however, that much of the information revealed in these documents – Pakistan’s alleged support of the insurgency and the high rate of civilian casualties caused by our counterinsurgency operations – isn’t new to those of us who have been following the war.  Instead, this story serves, in the words of Matt Yglesias at ThinkProgress, as “a potent reminder that there’s far too much classification and secrecy in the United States government.”

ThinkProgress – Too Many Secrets

July 26, 2010