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, June 21, 2010

War News for Monday, June 21, 2010

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF Marine from an IED attack in a hospital in Birmingham, UK, on Sunday June 20th. He was originally wounded in the Sangin district, Helmand province, Afghanistan on Saturday, June 12th.

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers in separate IED attacks in unidentified locations in southern Afghanistan on Monday, June 21st.

NATO is reporting the deaths of four ISAF soldiers in a helicopter crash in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Monday, June 21st. The Australian DM announced that three of the four were Australian soldiers and the fourth is an American according to a U.S. spokesman. seven other Australian soldiers were wounded. There's no statements on the other four passengers of the helicopter but we assume they were Americans and wounded in the crash.


Here's an amusing video on the BP oil spill.


Reported security incidents

Baiji:
#1: One civilian was seriously wounded when a bobby-trapped motorcycle went off on Monday in central Baiji district. “The blast occurred today noon in central Baiji, 40 km north of Tikrit city,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Six civilians were wounded when explosives attached to a motorbike detonated in a market in Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Mosul:
#1: One civilian was killed on Monday by gunmen’s fire west of Mosul city. “Armed men around noon today gunned down a civilian before his house at al-Zenjeeli area, west of Mosul,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Elsewhere, a spokesman for the Wardak provincial police, Wakil Sherzai, said the Taliban beheaded the acting chief of the province's district of Sayyed Abad. Gunmen seized the man at his home four days ago and his body was found Monday.

#2: Two Afghan policemen were killed and two were wounded Monday by a roadside bomb in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, the Interior Ministry said.

#3: A dozen militants ambushed a Pakistani military patrol in the northwestern tribal badlands Monday, killing three soldiers and sparking deadly clashes, officials said. The incident took place in Kasha village in Orakzai, the district where the military said on June 1 that major combat operations as part of an anti-Taliban offensive were over. "Three soldiers of the Frontier Corps were killed and five others wounded in the attack," an official from the paramilitary told AFP. Around a dozen militants attacked the convoy, triggering a gunfight which killed more than 10 rebels, the official added.

#4: Six Afghan soldiers were killed and four wounded in explosions in southern Zabul and eastern Nangarhar provinces, the Defence Ministry said.

#5: One Afghan civilian was killed and another wounded when an old landmine exploded in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan on Saturday, the Interior Ministry said.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blog posts about am I more a black or white queen. :).

Ego-manical thuggery homeland security beats criminal poverty

Iranian aid ships for Gaza delayed | Ya Libnan | World News Live ... - Ya Libnan - 10 hours ago

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Anonymous said...

"I guess"... it is a fear of obtaining similar technology that causes Iran to be held under a bad name although they do things different from us and would fit into a bad category.. yet why take away from the good they could do cause of this gift of American jc, his everlasting paranoia.