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, March 15, 2010

War News for Monday, March 15, 2010

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier in a vehicle accident in an undisclosed area of southern Afghanistan on Sunday, March 14th.


Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants:

Declining morale of US troops in Afghanistan:

U.S. struggles to track arms in Afghanistan:

New US troops to join Poles in Afghanistan:


Reported security incidents

Mosul:
#1: A policeman was killed by gunmen in an attack west of Mosul city on Sunday, according to a security source in Ninewa. “Gunmen opened fire on the policeman, who was on a leave of absence from duty and inside his vehicle, in the suburb of Tal Abta, killing him instantly and escaping to an unknown place,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: A policeman was wounded in a hand-grenade attack that targeted a police patrol in central Mosul city on Sunday, according to a local police source in Ninewa province. “A hand-grenade blast targeted a police patrol in the area of al-Maydan, central Mosul, leaving one policeman wounded,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#3: An Iraqi soldier was wounded in a thermal bomb blast in western Mosul on Sunday, a local security source said. “The bomb blast targeted an Iraqi army patrol in the area of Wadi Akkab, western Mosul, leaving one patrolman wounded,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#4: An improvised explosive device went off, killing one civilian, in the centre of the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#5: Armed men killed a prison guard in front of his home in the western part of Mosul, according to the police.

#6: Gunmen killed an off-duty policeman as he was driving his car in a town west of Mosul, police said.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A suicide car bomber killed four people and wounded 29 others when his vehicle exploded in a busy street during the morning rush hour in western Iraq. The blast took place shortly before 9 a.m. in a central street in Fallujah, 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad. The blast went off during the morning rush hour as the street filled with pedestrians, stalls selling tea and day laborers gathering for work, a Fallujah police officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

A car bomb in Iraq's western Anbar province killed seven civilians and wounded 13 on Monday, police said. The bomb exploded in a car parked near an army patrol in the city of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: An early morning rocket attack on the largest U.S. military hub in Afghanistan killed one person Monday, NATO said. NATO confirmed that the sprawling Bagram Air Field, north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, came under attack on Monday, but a spokesman disclosed no details other than the death. Abdullah Adil, the police chief in the Bagram district of Parwan province, says one rocket was fired onto the base's grounds at about 4 a.m. A Taliban spokesman told The Associated Press that two rockets were fired on the base.

#2: On Monday in eastern Afghanistan, police said Afghan security forces killed three suicide bombers in Paktika province before they could launch an attack on security posts in Barmal district.

#3: Separately in Ghazni province, Afghan police say three civilians were killed and three others were wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside mine while they were moving household goods.

#4: Also Monday, the U.S. military confirmed that an unmanned Predator drone aircraft crashed on takeoff in southern Afghanistan. The crash late Sunday night was not caused by enemy fire and the site was quickly secured, an Air Force release said.

#5: Twelve suspected militants were killed in military airstrikes in Pakistan's tribal region, two Pakistani military officials told CNN. Pakistani jet fighters launched the airstrikes around 2 p.m. (5 a.m. ET) Sunday against militant hideouts in Kalaya, a village in Orakzai, one of seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border, the officials said.

At least 13 militants were killed and a number of their hideouts and camps destroyed in air and artillery attacks in Orakzai Agency on Sunday. Intermittent shelling by helicopters and artillery also destroyed a large food storage facility. A spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan denied the official claims about casualty and said that three militants had been injured and a house damaged in the attacks. Military planes pounded suspected training camps and hideouts in Merobak area where the houses of Haji Nasrullah, father-in-law of militant ‘commander’ Aslam Farooqui, and Akhtar Jan, were razed. A girls’ school where Taliban had set up a camp was also destroyed.

#6: A roadside bomb killed a Pakistani construction worker and wounded six of his compatriots on Sunday when the device hit their vehicle here, a provincial police officer said.

#7: Twelve civilians, including women and children, were killed in two separate operations by foreign troops in Kandahar and Kunar provinces, the presidential palace said in a statement. The statement did not give any further details and palace officials could not say when the incidents took place. A spokesman for the Nato-led force said he was not aware of the incidents and would look into the allegations.

10 comments:

Cervantes said...

We now have Blogger commenting. Trolls and spammers will be deleted and blocked!

Comments on the commenting are welcome, but we are not going back to JSKit.

Dancewater said...

lost all the comments again... but this is from yesterday:

* MOSUL - An improvised explosive device went off, killing one civilian, in the centre of the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

* MOSUL - Armed men killed a prison guard in front of his home in the western part of Mosul, according to the police.

MOSUL - An Iraqi soldier was wounded when gunmen threw a bomb at his checkpoint in Mosul, police said.

MOSUL - Gunmen threw a hand grenade at a police checkpoint near a church, wounding a Christian civilian in Mosul, police said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed an off-duty policeman as he was driving his car in a town west of Mosul, police said.

BAQUBA - A U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded on Saturday in an attack on their base in Diyala province, the U.S. military said in a statement.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62D01K.htm

Dancewater said...

this is from today:

FALLUJA - A car bomb killed seven civilians and wounded 20 when exploded near an army patrol in the city of Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A sticky bomb wounded three members of Iraqi civil defense forces and four civilians in Baghdad's western Mansour district, police said.

KHALDIYA - Imam Abdul-Rahman al-Karbouli was killed by a bomb planted near his home in the town of Khaldiya, 80 km (50 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - A roadside bomb killed one civilian in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - A bomb targeted a police patrol, wounding one policeman and two girls in western Mosul, police said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM543513.htm

Dancewater said...

The U.S. military handed over a $107 million prison and nearly 3,000 inmates to the Iraqi government on Monday as it prepares to leave Iraq seven years after ousting Saddam Hussein.

The formal transfer of the detention centre at Camp Taji, a sprawling U.S. base north of Baghdad, is part of a plan to unwind a U.S. detention programme in Iraq that cost $500 million a year at its peak.

U.S. forces had taken into custody about 90,000 people since the 2003 invasion. By August, there will only be about 100 in U.S. custody, said Major General David Quantock, head of detention operations.

"At one point our guard force was over 10,000 and now we're going to go to a guard force of around 100 by the first of September, all part of the responsible drawdown plan to get U.S. forces down to 50,000," he said.


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62E1I3.htm

Cervantes said...

Yeah, sorry, the changeover means all previous comments are lost. But there was no other solution to the problem. Not much sense keeping legitimate comments in the midst of all that garbage anyway, in my view.

BTW we generally try to catch up with late reports the following day. Bound to miss a few though.

Dancewater said...

"The Cowboys in Iraq"

This is hard to watch, but should be required viewing for every American who ever supported the war on Iraq. They should see what they have done to their fellow Americans. They should also take note that the resistance in Iraq was/is inspired by the comments of Bush & Blair (mostly Bush) not by anti-war protesters.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march152010/iraq-resistance-tk.php

Dancewater said...

The lead paragraph of an article by Jalal Ghazi, for New America Media (1/6/10), is blunt:

"Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al-Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer. Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment."

Ghazi reported that in Fallujah, which bore the brunt of two massive U.S. military operations in 2004, as many as 25 percent of newborn infants have serious physical abnormalities. Cancer rates in Babil, an area south of Baghdad, have risen from 500 cases in 2004 to more than 9,000 in 2009. Dr. Jawad al-Ali, the director of the Oncology Center in Basra, told Al Jazeera English (10/12/09) that there were 1,885 cases of cancer in all of 2005; between 1,250 and 1,500 patients visit his center every month now.

no link

Dancewater said...

Survivors Of Family Killed In Afghanistan Raid Threaten Suicide Attacks

Jerome Starkey, Times of London, March 15, 2010

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7061709.ece

Afghanistan - A family whose members were killed in a botched night raid in eastern Afghanistan have rejected "blood money" from the Government and vowed to carry out suicide attacks unless the perpetrators are brought to justice.

Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a policeman and his brother were shot dead on February 12 by unidentified gunmen. Eight men were arrested in the raid on the village of Khataba in Paktia province. They have all been released.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings. A US official in Kabul refused to identify the force involved, citing "utmost national and strategic security interests".

++++++++

I think the special forces or mercenaries carried out this raid.

And this is how violent resistance and so-called "terrorism" starts.

Dancewater said...

A local veteran talks about local troops recently sent to Iraq:

http://vfpchapter099wnc.blogspot.com/2010/03/sending-troops-off-to-war-when-will-we.html

Observer said...

Thank you for disabling the spam.