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, November 23, 2010

War News for Tuesday, November 23, 2010

North and South Korea Exchange Fire Near Border


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Two Iraqi soldiers were wounded in a bomb explosion in western Baghdad on Monday, according to a security source. “An explosive charge went off in al-Aamal al-Shaabi street in al-Aameriya region, western Baghdad, targeting an army vehicle patrol, wounding two soldiers and damaging the vehicle,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: “Another bomb exploded near an elementary school in al-Doura region, southern Baghdad, targeting a police vehicle patrol, without causing casualties,” he added.

#3: An Iraqi soldiers has been injured due to two Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts in western Baghdad. Two IED charges blew up targeting an Iraqi Army patrol in northwest Baghdad’s Ghazaliya district, wounding a soldier and damaging the patrol’s vehicle,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#4: Two other citizens were killed and two employees from Iraq’s Municipalities & Works Ministry have been wounded in an attack using a gun with silencer attached north of Baghdad, according to a security source on Tuesday. The source said that “a group of armed men had shot dead two employees of the Municipalities & Works Ministry, wounding two of their other colleagues with silenced guns. The victims were in a Ministry car close to Ibn-Hayan square in northern Baghdad’s Kazimiya district on Monday night.”


Samarra:
#1: A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol wounded a policeman late on Monday in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Baiji:
#1: Two policemen have been seriously injured in a booby-trapped car explosion north of Tikrit, a police source said on Tuesday. “A police force discovered a booby-trapped car prepped for explosion, parked on the main road passing through Beiji town in Salah al-Din Province, 40 km to the north of Tikrit. The car detonated when police experts tried to dismantle it, seriously wounding two policemen,” the police source said. He added that a number of shops close to the location of the explosion had been seriously damaged.


Tuz:
#1: An Iraqi soldier has been killed in two explosive charges in northern Kirkuk’s Tuz township on Tuesday, a Tuz police source said. “Two explosive charges blew up, pinpointed against an Iraqi Army checkpoint close to the Industrial district in Tuz township, some 80 km to the north of Kirkuk, seriously wounding one of its soldiers,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq News Agency, adding that the soldier has died on the way to the hospital.


Kirkuk:
#1: Police forces found an unknown body in al-Khadraa neighborhood behind the gas station in southern Kirkuk,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “The body, belongs to a young man, bore signs of gunshot wounds, and was sent to the morgue,” he added, without giving further details.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A roadside bomb wounded a civilian late on Monday in central Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: A suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated an explosives-laden suicide vest in the Bahsood district of eastern Nangarhar province but there were no casualties apart from the bomber, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

#2: Two missiles fired by a U.S. drone aircraft struck a vehicle in Mirali town, about 24 km (15 miles) east of North Waziristan's main town of Miranshah, killing five militants, intelligence officials in the region said. There was no independent confirmation of the incident, and militant groups often dispute official accounts.

#3: Two separate air strikes left 20 Taliban insurgents including eight militant commanders dead in Afghanistan's southern restive Helmand province, a statement of provincial administration released to media on Tuesday said. "Several Taliban fighters had gathered in a house in Kajaki district on Sunday but international forces targeted the location by air strike that resulted in killing of Mullah Abdul Qauom Tandar a Taliban shadowy governor for Sangin district and two more commanders namely Mullah Khan Muhammad and Mullah Yunas along with 13 armed insurgents," the statement said. According to the statement, four other Taliban leaders were killed in similar raids in Nad Ali district on the same day Sunday.


DoD: Sgt. Jason T. Smith

DoD: Staff Sgt. Loleni W. Gandy

DoD: Sgt. David J. Luff Jr.

DoD: Spc. David S. Robinson

Posted by whisker at 2:42 AM

1 comments:

Cervantes said...

This is incredibly fuckin' funny, or maybe not.

"For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.

The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said."

November 23, 2010 at 7:23 AM

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