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, July 27, 2010

War News for Tuesday July 27, 2010

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF soldier from an IED blast in the Sangin area, Helmand province, Afghanistan on Monday, July 26th. Here's the ISAF statement.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier who went missing in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, July 25th. News reports that he was an American sailor named Justin McNeley.


Hit list draws fire after US documents leaked

Document Leak May Hurt Efforts to Build War Support

Iraqi Militants Stealing Blood for the Injured


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: One civilian was killed on Tuesday and four other people wounded when a roadside bomb went off in western Baghdad. “A roadside bomb went off today targeting a police patrol in the al-Ghazaliya area, western Baghdad,” a local security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. He noted that two policemen are among the injuries.

#2: Iraqi police forces seized on Tuesday a car bomb parked near one of the Green Zone’s (GZ) gates in Baghdad. “The forces defused the car bomb,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Karbala:
#1: Two car bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims during a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala killed 25 people yesterday, Iraqi police and hospital officials said. Sunni extremists are suspected. Militants detonated two parked cars filled with explosives about two miles apart as crowds of pilgrims passed by. Police and medical officials in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, said 68 people were injured in the attacks. The pilgrims were on their way to Karbala to take part in an important religious holiday, known as Shabaniyah, that attracts devout Shiites from around the country.


Kirkuk:
#1: Two policemen were wounded on Tuesday when a roadside bomb went off in Taza district, southwest of Kirkuk city. “The blast targeted a police patrol in the district’s Industrial Area, 10 km southwest of Kirkuk city,” a local police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Mosul:
#1: Attackers hurled a hand grenade into a busy market in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, and the explosion wounded 12 people, police said.

#2: Gunmen shot dead two women in an alley in eastern Mosul, north of Baghdad, on Monday, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Afghan security forces backed by NATO-led troops, in efforts to root out militants in the northern Kunduz province, kicked off a three day offensive that concluded on Monday, killing five Taliban militants and injuring 10 others, a statement of Interior Ministry said Tuesday. "A joint cleanup operation launched by Afghan National Police, Army and Coalition troops was launched on Saturday and ended on Monday in Nahri Sufi area of Chardara district. As a result five enemies of peace and stability were killed and 10 other enemies were injured,"the statement said. It said that no casualties were inflicted to combined forces.

#2: Insurgents killed six Afghan civilians and abducted a government official in Parwan province northwest of Kabul on Monday, the NATO-led force said.

#3: Rescue operation with the involvement of Afghan and NATO-led troops for the recovery of the missing U.S. soldier has expanded to Ghazni province as three militants have been killed, police said on Tuesday. "The rescue operation launched Monday in Andar district and so far three Taliban militants have been killed and two others sustained injuries,"deputy to provincial police chief Nawroz Ali Mahmoudzada told Xinhua. He also said that intelligence reports indicate that the insurgents had taken the U.S. soldier to Andar district.


DoD: Lt. Col. Mario D. Carazo

DoD: Maj. James M. Weis

DoD: Staff Sgt. Conrad A. Mora

DoD: Sgt. Daniel Lim

DoD: Spc. Joseph A. Bauer

DoD: Pfc. Andrew L. Hand

DoD: Lance Cpl. Frederik E. Vazquez

12 comments:

Cervantes said...

This is too precious for words:

"The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96% of the money. Out of just over $9bn (£5.8bn), $8.7bn is unaccounted for, the inspector says.

The US military said the funds were not necessarily missing, but that spending records might have been archived. In a response attached to the report, it said attempting to account for the money might require "significant archival retrieval efforts".
Reconstruction money

Much of the money came from the sale of Iraqi oil and gas. Some frozen Saddam Hussein-era assets were also sold off.

The funds in question were administered by the US Department of Defence between 2004 and 2007, and were earmarked for reconstruction projects.

But, the report says, a lack of proper accounting makes it impossible to say exactly what happened to most of the money."

I can guess.

Cervantes said...

Try to refudiate this:

"Britain and the United States should have realised that their intelligence about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction was suspect, the former head of the United Nations weapons inspectors said today.

Giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, Dr Hans Blix said it should have set alarm bells ringing in London and Washington when the inspectors repeatedly failed to turn up any evidence that Saddam Hussein still had active WMD programmes.

“When we reported that we did not find any weapons of mass destruction they should have realised, I think, both in London and in Washington, that their sources were poor,” he said.

“They should have been more critical about that.”

Dr Blix said that he had privately confided to Tony Blair in the autumn of 2002 - before the inspectors returned to Iraq – that he thought it was “plausible” that Saddam did have WMD.

However in the weeks leading up to the invasion in March 2003 – after the inspectors had failed to uncover anything significant – he said that he had cautioned Mr Blair that there might not be anything. . . .

He accused the administration of US president George Bush of being “high on military” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001.

“They felt that they could get away with it and therefore it was desirable,” he said.

He also condemned claims by Britain and the US that Iraq had tried acquire raw uranium for its supposed nuclear programme from Niger, based on a forged document.

“That was perhaps the first occasion I became suspicious about the evidence,” he said. “I think that was the most scandalous part.” . . .

Dr Blix said he was of the ``firm view'' that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

“I think the vast majority of international lawyers feel that way,” he said.

He criticised the way the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, had “wriggled” in order to provide the legal authority for British troops to invade.

“He was not quite sure it would have stood an international tribunal,” he said. “Nevertheless, he gave the green light to it.”

Dr Blix dismissed the finding of the Iraq Survey Group – set up by the Americans at the end of the war to try to find the WMD – that Saddam had the intention to reconstitute his weapons programmes.

“I think this is a straw that Washington and London tried to grab in order to get an absolution from it all,” he said.

Cervantes said...

Tom Engelhardt on the wondrous strangeness of our ways. Indeed.

The Wiz said...

What you fail to mention is that Hans Blix complained loud and often that Saddam was not cooperating as he was required to in 2003. Saddam failed to give full documentation, delayed inspections for days, removed materials from sites before inspection, and refused to allow independent interviews with weapons scientists.

Saddam had used the same tactics throughout the 1990's. UNSCOM once went 18 months without finding anything and then found a large cache of deadly gases. It was this obfuscation that led to the withdrawal of the weapons inspectors in 1998 and the subsequent bombing in '98.

Oh wait, scratch that. We all know it was those evil NEOCONS that started the '98 bombing. My bad.


.

Cervantes said...

I wasn't "mentioning" stuff -- Hans Blix was. The story just quotes him. Actually the regime's cooperation with the inspection program was steadily improving until Bush kicked the inspectors out so he could start bombing -- and they weren't finding anything. That's what Blix was telling Blair and Bush, as Blix himself says.

What the Wiz thinks is of no consequence.

Anonymous said...

Israel News - Breaking World Israel News - The New York Times Israel's military announced disciplinary and legal action in the Gaza ... It's time for Israel not just to ease the siege of Gaza, but to drop it once and for all. ... MORE ON ISRAEL AND: PALESTINIANS, ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS, LEBANON, GAZA ...
topics.nytimes.com › World › Countries and Territories -

Ken Hoop said...

What thewiz fails to mention is Scott Ritter's pre-war revelation that the inspections themselves were corrupted and being used for purposes, let us say, the dual loyalist neocons approved of.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06cyB2aZ59s&feature=related

tahitian song

Good Luck Lebanon. Even a loss will be a win for the children of Gaza. These Turks are amazing people.

The Wiz said...

"What the Wiz thinks is of no consequence.

lol You've been waiting two months to say that!

But yer right, its all said and done. The history is already written.

Cervantes said...

Far from it. They'll be writing the history of this atrocity for centuries, if we last that long.

Observer said...

Indeed: that history shall judge the US - and its allies in this war crime - harshly.
The US started this war, because they figured they could "get away with it".
How wrong they were-and are!

Hey Wiz up for another fifty years of war?

Because a lot of people are.
And not your people, either.

Anonymous said...

I knew for sure that there would be no WMDs found in Iraq.... and two facts really pointed this out:

1. people like Cheney and Rumsfeld saying they KNEW where the WMDs were

2. they would not tell the UN inspectors what they "knew"

Combined, they pointed to this logical conclusion:

THEY WERE LYING.