A nearby theater is playing a movie about Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the infamous “Pentagon Papers” to the New York Times, which critics claimed helped end the Vietnam War. The film, which portrays Ellsberg as a heroic figure, has an “A” rating from Yahoo critics. A copy of the book version of the leak resides on my shelf.

Perhaps Julian Assange from Wiki-leaks hopes for similar fame and fortune as his website posts a massive amount of classified U.S. military documents, labeled “the Afghan War Diary.” But instead, his great “intelligence coup” may be nothing more than providing the Taliban with a hit list of Afghan civilians.

When one reads excerpts from both documents, you’ll find a surprising similarity: there’s nothing really new in them. The difference is that at the time, the truth about the Vietnam War wasn’t as well-covered by the media, so information that’s common knowledge today was breaking news back then.

So far, there’s nothing really new or shocking about what we’ve learned in the “Afghan papers.” The war’s not going as well as we’d like it to go. Officials have discussed negotiating with the Taliban. Civilians have been caught in the crossfire. Some in Pakistan are helping the Taliban. We’re searching for an end game. Unless you are hiding in a bunker waiting out that “Y2K bug calamity,” you already know all of this.

Yet within these documents are thousands of names of Afghan civilians who have cooperated with NATO forces. And, according to Philip Shenon’s article “WikiLeaks’ Cry for Help,” published in the Daily Beast on Aug. 3, the Taliban is drawing up a hit list from these documents.

Perhaps aware that he’s lost the high moral ground, Assange is offering a host of excuses. He claims that posting these names was “unintentional.” His supporters claimed that they didn’t have enough time to go through all 76,000 documents before they posted them. Clearly, the rush to fame and fortune was first on his mind in getting the documents online, while concerns about who it might get killed didn’t receive a second thought.

On his site, Assange claims he’s engaged in a “harm minimization” when it comes to listing names, which sounds like the military euphemisms he condemns. It probably means the Afghan informant gets a 30-second head start before the Taliban opens fire.

The Shenon article cites an interview Assange gave when he claimed that some of the names were warlords and criminals who deserved it. “But that is what happens in war, that spies or traitors are investigated,” Assange said in the interview. It’s a bit like leaking a Mafia or drug gang informant’s name, and then justifying that person’s murder by saying he’s a criminal so it’s OK.

Any Taliban member who realized that bombing a girl’s school isn’t part of the Koran’s teachings and alerted NATO forces can look forward to a gruesome fate. And who will tell us of some future attack on innocents, knowing their cover could be blown? Assange and his Pentagon source can delude themselves into thinking they are doing something noble. But all they are doing is prolonging the war and upping the body count.