The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Monday, May 12, 2008

War News for Monday, May 12, 2008

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier in a roadside bombing in an northwestern neighborhood of Baghdad on Sunday, May 11th. No other details were released.


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: In separate incidents on Sunday and overnight, U.S. troops fired back at militiamen who launched attacks with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, the military said in a statement. A total of three militants were killed, it said.

#2: Officials at Sadr City's two hospitals said they had received the bodies of two people killed and 24 wounded in clashes since Sunday evening.

#3: Around 1 p.m. gunmen killed Colonel Nibras Fadel Abbas, an Iraqi ministry of defense employee.


Sulaimaniyah:
#1: Gunmen in a speeding car shot at Asuda women's organization headquarter, that give residence for women fleeing domestic violence, injuring one woman, yesterday.

#2: Gunmen using a taxi using machine guns attacked and injured one citizen near Qalawa apartments south of Sulaimaniyah.


Kirkuk:
#1: One Iraqi army soldier was killed and two others wounded when an improvised explosive device went off their vehicle during a security crackdown southwest of the city of Kirkuk on Monday, an army source said. "The IED detonated during operations in al-Rashad district, (35 km) southwest of Kirkuk," the source, who asked not to have his name revealed, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.


Mosul:
#1: A bomb was planted inside a civilian car of Hussein Shaban, a former police officer and former Awakening council member in Al Shirqat south of Mosul. The blast killed him.


Kurdistan:
#1: Turkish war planes bombed Kurdish separatist PKK rebels in northern Iraq overnight but there were no casualties, a security spokesman for Iraq's Kurdistan region said on Monday. Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security forces, said the strikes occurred in a remote part of Dahuk province near the border with Turkey. "There were no casualties," Yawar said.



Afghanistan:
#1: Two armored Humvees were missing from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, a military spokesman said Monday. The military was investigating whether the vehicles were stolen, although officials believed they were likely still in the possession of U.S. personnel but simply unaccounted for, said Lt. Col. Paul Fanning. The two vehicles were reported missing on May 6 from U.S. Camp Phoenix in the capital, Kabul, Fanning said.

0 comments: