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, June 15, 2010

War News for Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF Marine from small arms fire at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Selly Oak, UK on Monday, June 14th. He was originally wounded Sunday, June 13th.

The DoD is reporting a new death previously unreported by the military. Spc. Christian M. Adams died from a non-combat related incident in Kandahar, Afghanistan on Friday, June 11th.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from small arms fire in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, June 15th.


Military intelligence fatalities twice CIA's:

Afghanistan: another 30 years?:

Expert on Afghanistan questions anti-Pakistan blusters:

Setbacks Cloud U.S. Plans to Get Out of Afghanistan:


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: An officer and a policeman were killed and four more were wounded in an improvised explosive device blast on Monday in southern Baghdad, according to a police source. “The bomb exploded on Monday afternoon (June 14) targeting a police vehicle patrol near al-Rashied marketplace in southern Baghdad, killing a colonel and a policeman and injuring four others,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: A bomb attached to a car wounded three people in central Baghdad on Monday, police said.


Balad:
#1: Iraqi army forces seized a bobby-trapped vehicle, detonate it, and arrested its driver at a checkpoint in Balad district, 70 km south of Tikrit city. “The checkpoint seized the bobby-trapped pickup vehicle last night,” a local security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency on Tuesday. He noted that bomb squad detonated the vehicle so that it cannot be remotely controlled.


Dujail:
#1: A farmer was wounded on Tuesday when a roadside bomb went off south of Tikrit city. “The bomb hit the farmer’s car at the al-Dijail area, 90 km south of Tikrit,” a local security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Kirkuk:
#1: Iraqi police found an unidentified body with multiple bullet wounds on Monday north of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said


Kurdistan:
#1: Peshmerga forces denied on Monday Iranian shelling of border regions in Kurdistan during the past two days. “Iranian forces did not shell border regions in the past two days and the shelling is suspended,” General Halukord Khedr, commander of the 43th unit of the Peshmerga forces, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. Press reports had said on Monday that Iranian forces resumed shelling border regions in Kurdistan.


Mosul:
#1: At least seven people were killed in clashes in Iraq’s turbulent city of Mosul. The clashes broke out in Bou Saif village on Monday night to the south of the northern city after suspected al Qaeda militants stormed a home and killed a civil servant working for Iraq’s Trade Ministry. The family of the victim set off to seek vengeance, attacking the nearby homes of residents suspected of being associated with al Qaeda. They killed six people including two women, police sources said, asking not to be identified. “An initial investigation found that the violence was triggered by the killing of a civilian by suspected al Qaeda terrorists overnight,” a police officer investigating the incident told Reuters.

#2: Separately, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi military patrol killed two soldiers in western Mosul

#3: and a mortar round landed at a police checkpoint, wounding a policeman, in the east of the city.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: a remote-controlled explosive that killed four people in Helmand,

#2: and the second a roadside bomb that killed two others (civilians) in western Herat province, the Interior Ministry said.

#3: Militants attacked a police checkpoint in eastern Ghazni province before dawn Tuesday, killing five officers and wounding one, said Ghazni Deputy Police Chief Nawroz Ali Nawroz. He said the attackers overran the checkpoint north of Ghazni city and made off with weapons.

#4: On Monday, militants attacked Afghan and NATO forces outside of Jalalabad city in the east. The resulting firefight left two police officers and five attackers dead, the Interior Ministry said.

#5: Roadside bombs killed four police officers in Wardak province and one in Kandahar province, the ministry said.

#6: An Afghan-international force killed several armed insurgents in northeast Afghanistan on Monday evening, NATO announced on Tuesday. The NATO-led ISAF alliance said the force went to a compound west of Adiza'i in the Tagab district of Kapisa province after intelligence information confirmed insurgent activity. "Fleeing insurgents armed with automatic weapons and grenades fired on the security force which returned fire killing the insurgents," ISAF said in a statement.

#7: A Dutch soldier has been hurt after a blast in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the Dutch Ministry of Defense told. The blast happened around 7 a.m. local time in the Deh Reshan area of Orūzgān Province, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) north of Tarin Kowt. The Ministry said the explosion happened during a foot patrol and was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED). The soldier was transported to Role 2 hospital at Camp Holland and is in a stable condition. He personally informed his family of his situation.

#8: Taliban insurgents were killed and six other injured when Pakistani fighter jets bombarded militant hideouts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)'s Orakzai Agency. According to reports, the Pakistan Air Force' fighter jets targeted several Taliban hideouts in Shahdala, Ghandai Mela, Badam Kiley and Nek Kot areas of the Orakzai Agency. Three hideouts of terrorists were also destroyed during the bombardment in the Upper Orakzai Agency, The Daily Times reports.

#9: A NATO oil tanker was destroyed in a blast in Chaman, a town in the southwest Pakistani province of Balochistan near the border with Afghanistan on Tuesday, official sources said. Due to difficult terrain near the border area, reporters are trying to reach the area to collect details about the incident, a local journalist told Xinhua on phone from Quetta, the provincial capital city.


DoD: Sgt. 1st Class Robert J. Fike

DoD: Staff Sgt. Bryan A. Hoover

DoD: Sgt. Israel P. Obryan

DoD: Spc. William C. Yauch

DoD: Spc. Christian M. Adams

1 comments:

Dancewater said...

Petraeus has done something I have never done: fainted.

what a wimp.