Uncover the Truth of The Afghan War - An Analysis of The Afghan War Diary

by Vincent Jin, 9th Grade, University High School

Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary, released on July 25, 2010, provides many shocking details about how the war is progressing in Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East. Many reports came from soldiers on the fields; a firsthand source of information about what is going on in the Middle East. The total size of the reports is no more than seventeen megabytes, or 8500 pages of text.  By using statistical and sorting programs, a more complete picture was created.

Using the CSV file provided by The Afghan War Diary at www.wikileaks.org, I developed a Java program to process the file and found out the number of enemy actions each month and also where each action was taking place. The regions “rc east” and “rc south” had the most actions, suggesting that the enemies (Taliban, Al Qaida, etc.) are located southeast of the capital.  Here are some preliminary findings:

A monthly breakdown shows that the number of “Enemy Action” reports have been rising, with August being the month with the most “Enemy Action” reports.

Another correlation was found: both the number of “Enemy Action” and “Explosive Hazard” reports increased over the years.

As you can see, the number of both “Explosive Hazards” and “Enemy Actions” reports increases significantly from year 2008 to year 2009.

Another interesting fact is that the most reported “Enemy Actions” happen during the month of August, which is also the month of Afghanistan’s Independence Day.