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


Tuesday, September 29, 2009

War News for Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Washington Post is reporting the deaths of two U.S. Navy service personal in a roadside bombing on Jolo island. Philippines on Tuesday, September 28th. One Philippine marine was killed and two others were wounded in the blast. We believe that these are OEF casualties but are waiting for conformation pending from the DoD before adding these to the count.


No ISAF service members were killed over the past 24 hours.


Sept. 25 airpower summary:

Sept. 26 airpower summary:

Phased withdrawal is best option for Afghanistan, says US expert:

Taliban not the enemy in Afghanistan: Polish aide:

What Pakistan's spies say:


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: Monday Security forces killed two suspected militants in central Baghdad, security sources said. According to one police source, the gunmen had shot and killed a man before being chased and killed by police.

#2: A bomb attached to a car killed its driver in southwest Baghdad's Amil district, police said.

#3: An Iraqi police force detonated a car bomb driven by a suicide bomber before he could manage to reach a security checkpoint in southwestern Baghdad, the Baghdad Operations Command (BOC) said Tuesday. “The incident took place at the entrance of al-Amil neighborhood, at the side close to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP),” General Qassim Atta, the BOC’s official spokesperson, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He said that the bomber was killed instantaneously.


Riyadh:
#1: Monday A mortar round wounded three people when it landed in a village southwest of the city of Kirkuk, police said.


Kirkuk:
#1: Unknown gunmen have kidnapped a girl from her house in Kirkuk city, a security source said on Tuesday. “During a late hour on Monday evening, a girl was kidnapped from her house in Wahed Hozayran area, southwestern Kirkuk, by three men driving a red Mazda,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.An investigation is currently underway, the source noted.


Mosul:
#1: Two policemen were killed and two others were wounded in a bomb blast in eastern Mosul, a security source said Monday. “An improvised explosive device went off on Monday afternoon (Sept. 28) targeting a police vehicle patrol in Dourat al-Hamam, eastern Mosul, killing two policemen and injuring two more,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: A disabled policeman was wounded on Monday by gunmen in eastern Mosul, according to a police source. “Unknown gunmen opened fire on the policeman near his house in al-Khadraa neighborhood in eastern Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#3: A bomb attached to a car killed cleric Basheer al-Jihaishi, a member of the al-Hadba Sunni Arab local political party in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#4: Police said they found the body of a man who had been hanged, with the rope still around his neck, in southwest Mosul.

#5: A roadside bomb wounded three policemen when it exploded near their patrol in western Mosul, police said


Tel Afar:
#1: Monday Two suspected insurgents were killed and a third was wounded in an explosives accident in Tal Afar, 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: Monday A suicide bomber driving a water tanker packed with explosives blew himself up near a police station, killing seven policemen and wounding 10, said Hussein Ali, a police major in the area west of the city of Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

#2: Gunmen booby trapped and blew up the house of an intelligence employee, Mohammed Khudhaiyir, in Saqlawiyah, 15 km to the north of Fallujah before dawn, Monday. The explosion destroyed the house but caused no human casualties because the family had recently received threats and moved to live with relatives.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: A missile killed six Taliban fighters in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, intelligence officials said, apparently the latest strike in a covert U.S. program that American officials are considering intensifying. An unmanned U.S. drone targeted a Taliban compound in the South Waziristan tribal region and killed six insurgents, including two Uzbek fighters, and wounded six others, two Pakistani intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The missile attack occurred in Sararogha village, the base of former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in an Aug. 5 strike by an American drone.

#2: At least 30 civilians were killed when a bus hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday in an attack blamed on the Taliban, the interior ministry said. The dead included 10 children and seven women, the ministry said, revising an earlier toll from the local governor's office. "Thirty people were killed," the ministry said in a statement, adding that 39 others were wounded. The governor's office said the bus was travelling from the western city of Herat to Kandahar when it hit an improvised mine in Maywand district, the Taliban's weapon of choice which has claimed hundreds of lives.

#3: In Waziristan, the militants attacked security check posts in Nawazkot, Spin Qamar and Razmak during clashes with security forces in which 16 militants were killed.

#4: Meanwhile, according to an Associated Press report, one Pakistani soldier was killed and seven others were critically wounded in a militant rocket attack on an army camp in the northwest. The military responded by firing heavy artillery on the Razmak, Ladha and Makeen areas, killing 18 insurgents, the AP quoted two intelligence officials as saying.

#5: Separately, in the Orakzai tribal region, helicopter gunships pounded militant positions, killing 10 insurgents and wounding several others in three villages, intelligence officials told AP.




MoD: Private James Prosser

DoD: Spc. Kevin J. Graham

MoD: Yann Hertach Warrant Officer

MoD: Brigadier Gabriel Poirier

MoD: 1st Class Kevin Lemoine

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