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


Saturday, June 19, 2010

War News for Saturday, June 19, 2010

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF soldier from an IED attack in Helmand province province, Afghanistan on Friday, June 18th.

The French DM is reporting the death of a French ISAF soldier in an indirect fire attack at Combat outpost - COP Hutnik Tagab Valley, Kapisa province, Afghanistan on Friday, June 18th. An Afghan interrupter was wounded in the attack.

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers from IED attacks in two separate attacks in undisclosed locations in southern Afghanistan on Friday, June 18th.


French soldier killed in Afghanistan, among 5 NATO troops killed in a single day: Four other NATO troops - three Americans and a Briton - were killed Friday.


Violence Up Sharply in Afghanistan, Report Finds:

Eight Turkish soldiers killed near Iraqi border: military:

Gunmen attack police building in s.Yemen, kill 10:


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Three civilians were wounded when an improvised explosive device attached to a civilian vehicle parked near a café in western Baghdad went off on Friday, a security source said. “The IED went off near a café in al-Harithiya area, western Baghdad, leaving three civilian pedestrians wounded,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: Two civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb went off in southern Baghdad. “The blast occurred yesterday night at al-Saydiya neighborhood, southern Baghdad,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Saturday.


Jibala:
#1: Gunmen sped up to a checkpoint and opened fire Saturday, killing three anti-al-Qaida (web news) Sunni fighters south of Baghdad, officials said. The checkpoint was manned by a local government-backed group known as an Awakening Council, part of a movement that has been key to a sharp drop in violence in recent years. Nobody claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack in Jibala, 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Baghdad.


Basra:
#1: Police forces in Basra opened fire on Saturday targeting hundreds of demonstrators in central the city protesting lack of electricity. “Police random fires left a number of casualties,” an eyewitness told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He noted that the forces are affiliated with the Basra Provincial Council.


Tuz Kuurmato:
#1: Police and hospital officials also raised the death toll to 12 in Friday's car bombing targeting an ethnic Turkomen provincial council member in the northern city of Tuz Khormato.

Casualties from Friday’s earlier car bomb attack in al-Touz district rose to 10 deaths and 50 wounded, according to the assistant director of Kirkuk Police Department. “The blast’s death toll rose to 10 while the wounded to 50, including 10 women received by the Kirkuk Public Hospital for treatment,” Maj. General Torhan Abdulrahman told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Kirkuk:
#1: A sticky bomb attached to a civilian truck went off on Saturday in southwestern Kirkuk city. “The blast occurred before today’s noon, at the Industrial Area of Kirkuk, 10 km southwestern the city,” a local security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Mosul:
#1: A policeman was shot dead by unidentified gunmen clad in Iraqi army uniform west of Mosul city on Friday, a security source said. “Three gunmen in army uniform opened fire on a policeman in front of his house in Hamidat area, west of Mosul, killing him instantly,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: Policemen found the unidentified body of a man in eastern Mosul city on Friday, an Iraqi security source in Ninewa said. “The body, found in the open in the area of Kok Geli, eastern Mosul, showed signs of having been shot in the chest and head,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: Iraqi officials say unidentified gunmen killed seven Iraqi soldiers in Qaim, a town near the Syrian border. Officials say at least one other soldier was wounded in the attack at a military checkpoint.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: A suspected U.S. missile strike killed 13 people Saturday in a Pakistani tribal region where several militant outfits plot attacks on Western troops across the border in Afghanistan, officials said. The missile, apparently fired from an unmanned drone, struck a house in Haider Khel village near North Waziristan's Mir Ali town, said two intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media on the record. Local government official Noor Mohammad said at least 13 people had been killed, while the intelligence officials said some foreigners were among the dead. Their exact identities and nationalities were not immediately clear.

#2: A roadside bomb aimed at police elsewhere in the country's volatile northwest killed a civilian and wounded eight people. The roadside bomb in Dera Ismail Khan, which lies near the tribal belt, showed that Islamist militants continue to be active despite U.S. missile strikes and Pakistani army offensives against them. Senior police official Aslam Khatak said the attack happened as the patrol vehicle traveled through the gritty town and that among the wounded was an area police official who played an important role in arresting militants, he said. Six policemen and two civilians were wounded, while the one fatality was a passer-by.

#3: Also Saturday, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying an area police chief, Abdul Wahab, in the southwestern city of Quetta, wounding him critically, said Hamid Shakeel, a senior police official.

#4: Five persons including two police were killed as a roadside bomb went off in Uruzgan province south of Afghanistan on Saturday, provincial police chief Juma Gul Humat said. "A roadside bomb organized by militants struck a police van in the bazaar of Deh Rawad district this morning as a result two police constables and three innocent passersby were killed," Humat told Xinhua.

#5: Afghan and NATO troops killed 12 suspected Taliban early Saturday near the capital of Kunduz province, governor Mohammad Omar said. Taliban field commander Mullah Abdul Razaq was among those killed, he said. Razaq was blamed for several roadside attacks in the province, including two that killed three US soldiers this month.

#6: The relative of a powerbroker in Kandahar has been killed in southern Afghanistan where insurgents have been targeting individuals and companies allied with the Afghan government and international force. Kandahar Police Chief Sher Mohammed Zazai said Saturday that Hamayun Khan, who was involved in the construction business, was fatally shot outside his home Friday night. He is related to Gul Alai, a major contractor in Kandahar who once served as chief of intelligence in the southern city. Gul Alai was a mujaheen commander against the Soviets and one of the Pashtun warlords who drove the Taliban from Kandahar in 2001.


DoD: Spc. Benjamin D. Osborn

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are no limits to the practice of American double standards. Over the past four months, the White House recurrently attacked Iran over the incarceration of the three American hikers who entered Iran illegally and are now awaiting trial in Iran over their action. Did the same American officials say a single word in protest to the killing of Furkan Dogan, the 19-year-old American-Turkish high school student whom the Israeli forces killed in what they called the ""Operation Sea Breeze""? Did they protest when the IDF troops boarded on the Freedom Flotilla and arrested Edward Peck, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Mauritania? Would they react similarly if Iran had arrested a former U.S. ambassador?

Israel attacked the citizens of 37 countries in a vicious attack that outraged the international community and once again showed the inhuman nature of the Zionist regime.

Anonymous said...

Americans are hypocrites.

It is very interesting what comments get censored on this blog. Different standards for males vs. females, I think.

yet another American hypocrisy!

Anonymous said...

the date on this post should be June 19th.

And the bombing in Kirkuk yesterday killed 8 and wounded 80, but never made it on the front page.

Anonymous said...

to Anonymous: so very sorry your 2 nephews were killed.

America has killed so many innocents..... it is beyond regular evil and truly horrific how selfish and unaware and stupid and violent Americans are.

Anonymous said...

MY error:

the bombing was not in Kirkuk, it was in Tuz Kuurmato and did make the front page.

Sorry! I read a report it was in Kirkuk, but I think that was an error.

Anonymous said...

*BAGHDAD - Three roadside bombs exploded in the Baghdad's northwestern district of Hurriya, killing two people and wounding 14, an Interior Ministry source said. The first bomb exploded in a largely empty street, drawing a crowd and police, and the other two then detonated.

MOSUL - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two policemen in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Gunmen hurled a hand grenade at a police patrol, wounding two civilians, in central Mosul, police said.

KIRKUK - Iraqi police found the body of a man, handcuffed and shot, in southern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Anonymous said...

Fuck aye.. learn to take care of your own imature terrorist children before you go around killing people who defend their country from an illegal occupation. You will have no friend's left America cause you cant even do the basics right.

Anonymous said...

London, June 15 (DPA) The Bloody Sunday shootings that left 13 civilians dead in Northern Ireland 38 years ago were the result of “unjustified and unjustifiable actions” by the British army, a report published Tuesday said.
Prime Minister David Cameron, presenting the Saville Inquiry to parliament, said the soldiers of the parachute regiment who fired on protesters in Londonderry Jan 30, 1972, had “lost their self-control”.

Amid a “widespread loss of discipline”, they fired the first shots without warning in what Cameron described as “shocking and tragic events”.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/politics/british-army-blamed-for-bloody-sunday-killings-lead_100380904.html


Fresh on the heels of commission reports that water really IS wet and the Nazis did "bad things", this shows the UK legal system is really adept at getting to the bottom of incidents as long as they occur in the distant past. Of course, prosecution of the murderers isn't on the table but hey the Prime Minister did say he was sorry. Good enough for me; can't understand why the families of those shot down won't also take such a concilatory attitude. After all, the British slaughtering the Irish has been a "dog bites man" story for about 500 years.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes the truth is pretty simple.

Anonymous said...

MAP 4.5 2010/06/20 13:34:58 27.779 54.278 10.0 SOUTHERN IRAN

Anonymous said...

Was the recent earthquake in Haiti the result of innocent machinations between two tectonic plates in the earth's crust? Or was it the result of evil machinations within the US government?

That's what observers of a top secret defence project, known as High Frequency Active Auoral Research Program[HAARP], want to know. The program is supposedly a joint attempt by the American army and the nazy to harness the power of weather and use catastrophic storms as weapons.

It's no secret that the US has been covertly attempting to destabilise the government of Haiti for years. Suspicions that the January earthquake was a HAARP operation were aroused by the fact that the epicentre was extremely close to the capital Port-au-Prince- so close that it was almost as though it had been targeted.

200,000