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, November 27, 2010

War News for Saturday, November 27, 2010

Iraq’s October Oil Export Revenue Reaches Highest Level in Year

Iraq’s Troubles Drive Out Refugees Who Came Back


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: A police major was killed by unknown gunmen using mute weapons as he was driving his car in Al Tawbaji region, western Baghdad.

#2: A bomb stuck to a civilian car wounded a woman and a child in Al Attar Street in Al Karrada.

#3: A roadside bomb went off near an Iraqi police patrol wounding two policemen and two civilians in Baghdad's southern Doura district on Friday, police said.


Hilla:
#1: Two mortar shells landed on a U.S. forces camp in the city of al-Hilla on Friday but there was no information on damage or casualties, a local police source in Babel said. “A camp of U.S. forces, which is the house of a senior member of the dissolved Baath Party in central Hilla, came under attack today (Nov. 26) with two mortar shells,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Basra:
#1: The Basra airport came under attack with four Katyusha rockets on Friday but no casualties were reported, according to a security source in the province. “The airport was attacked with four Katyusha rockets today (Nov. 26) but the attacks left no casualties,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Tarmiya
#1: A bombing targeting a police patrol in Al Mushada region in Al Tarmiya District wounded a policeman.


Tuz:
#1: Two persons, including a Kurdish Asayish (security) man, have been killed by unknown gunmen in Tuz, to the south of Kirkuk on Friday, according to a Tuz police source. “Two armed men opened fire from a fast car on two persons riding a motorcycle, killing both men in Tuz township, 80 kms to the south of Kirkuk, and escaped to an unknown destination,” the police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Hawija:
#1: In another incident, a Kirkuk Joint Coordination Center’s spokesman said that a rocket had been fired from the industrial district in Hawija, some 65 km to the southwest of Kirkuk, but its destination was not known.


Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Provincial spokesman Mukhlis Afghan in Paktika in southeastern Afghanistan told AFP on Saturday that four policemen were killed and eleven other soldiers were injured when a disguised militant blew himself up inside a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan. "The suicide attack caused 15 casualties to the police force. Four of the 15 wounded died in hospital and the rest are receiving treatment," he said.

At least eight people were killed Saturday when two suicide bombers attacked the police headquarters in southeastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, a police official said. The first attacker detonated his explosives around 11:30 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) and the second attacker struck half an hour later, said Gen. Daud Andrabi, director of the Police Coordination Center in southeastern Afghanistan. There were other reports of more casualties, Andrabi said, and it was also not clear how many of the victims were police officers and how many were civilians.

#2: Earlier today, a guesthouse shared by US contractors in east Afghanistan has come under grenade attack amid a surge of violence against Western firms and foreign troops.

Meanwhile, the provincial chief of police for Nangarhar, Ali Shah Paktiawal, stated that a number of foreign contractors were inside the compound when the attack took place, adding that no one was hurt during the strike.

#3: Overnight, Afghan and NATO-led forces killed more than 15 insurgents after they came under fire when they approached a compound in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan. In Nangarhar's Sherzad district, close to the Pakistan border, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said a patrol had come under small-arms and machinegun fire as it approached a compound in search of a Taliban leader. It said "more than 15 armed insurgents" were killed in the subsequent engagement overnight.

#4: Three civilians were killed and one seriously wounded in two separate improvised explosive device (IED) blasts in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province Friday. A press release issued by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in Zharay district, three civilians, 10, 15 and 20 years old, struck an IED and got killed. An Afghan National Army and ISAF patrol responded to the scene of the blast to investigate the incident, said the press release. In Kandahar district, a private vehicle struck an IED which resulted in one Afghan civilian seriously injured, said the ISAF press release.


DoD: 1st Lt. William J. Donnelly IV

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