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, April 27, 2010

War News for Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Whisker is still having technical difficulties, so I posted this for him. -- C

An ISAF service member died as a result of a small-arms attack in eastern Afghanistan today.


Official Calls Wounded Warriors Report ‘Unrepresentative’

Iraq oil exports via Turkey resume after sabotage.

Pentagon Wounded Warrior care official forced out.

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint.

At Iraqi border outpost, a U.S.-Iran game of 'spy vs. spy'




Baghdad:
#1: Two Iraqi soldiers were killed Tuesday in an overnight mortar attack on a security station in a Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, police and hospitals officials said. Another 14 people were wounded in the 1 a.m. attack on the joint Iraqi army-police office in the capital's Hurriyah area, the officials said. Three mortars hit the security station, according to two Iraqi police officials, and an army colonel was among the wounded.


Hilla:
#1: unknown gunmen attacked a US military camp in Hillah, the capital of Babil Province, destroying some of the buildings, earlier on Sunday.


Qadisiyah Prv:
#1: a roadside bomb went off as a US patrol vehicle was passing on the Diwaniya-Shoumli road in Al-Qadisiyah Province.


Amarra:
#1: An Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Amara city opened fire on a civilian who was passing through the point on his motorcycle, killing him instantly. “The civilian died instantantly,” a local security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Tuesday.


Kirkuk:
#1: Gunmen shot dead two students and wounded another outside a college dormitory in the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Tuesday, a provincial police source said. "Unidentified armed men in a car opened fire on students while they were leaving the dormitory of the College of Education in the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, killing two students and wounding another before they fled the scene," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.



Afghanistan:
#1: Three children were killed and four people were injured when a bomb hidden in a donkey-drawn cart exploded in southern Afghanistan, officials have said. The cart was abandoned in front a tribal chief's residence in the centre of Kandahar city Monday afternoon and was then remotely detonated, said Zalmai Ayoubi, spokesman for the provincial governor of Kandahar province. Haji Fazelluddin, the former governor of Spin Boldak district, was not hurt in the attack, but three of his nephews, aged 12 to 14, were killed, he said, adding that two police officers guarding the residence and two civilian passers-by were injured.

#2: Continuing their crackdown in the restive tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani security forces in an operation today killed five Taliban fighters and captured 18 others, including two commanders, official sources said. The militants were killed and captured during an operation conducted in Akakhel area of Khyber Agency, the sources said.

#3: Three rockets fired by militants hit residential areas in Afghanistan's northern province Kunduz, claiming the lives of three civilians and injuring four others, the Interior Ministry said in a statement Tuesday. "The enemy launched rocket attacks late Monday night in Nahri Sufi and Zaman Shahir villages of Dasht-e-Archi district in Kunduz province. As a result, three civilians were killed and four others injured," the statement said.

#4: In separate incident, a woman and a child were injured in country's southern Ghazni province on the same night as an explosive device went off, according to the statement.

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