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


Sunday, January 30, 2011

News of the Day for Sunday, January 30, 2011

Reported Security Incidents

Baghdad

Gunmen using silenced weapons kill an Interior Ministry officer in Mansour. In a similar attack, a police officer is killed in Uteifiya on Saturday night.

Baghdad Operations Command says it has discovered 63 rockets in the past 24 hours.

Other News of the Day

Claiming inspiration from the uprising in Egypt, Kurdistan's opposition Gorran Party calls for the Kurdistan government to resign. The two parties which have long divided power in Kurdistan -- Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party -- rebuffed the statement.

Iraq offers to evacuate any of its citizens who care to leave Egypt. AP notes, "Sunday's offer is a role reversal since many of the Iraqis living in Egypt fled their homeland because of rampant violence, with near-daily attacks still continuing."

AP's Bushra Juhi and Kim Gamel discuss Iraqis' view of the uprising in Egypt. They look at scenes of looting with foreboding but also admire people for rising up against corruption, unemployment, and undemocratic rule. Hmm.

U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stewart Bowen expresses reservations about the readiness of Iraqi security forces as the U.S. prepares for final departure. "Though advances continue to be made, corruption, lack of capacity to handle logistics and an absence of realistic planning threaten to undermine the security infrastructure and equipment introduced into Iraq by U.S.-led forces. . ."

Afghanistan Update

Suicide bomber on a motorcycle kills the deputy governor of Kandahar province, Abdul Latif Ashna and injures three of his bodyguards.

Gunmen in southwest Pakistan attack three trucks recently returned from delivering supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Department of Hmmm, okay: Afghanistan will sign an agreement with the UN to end recruitment of children as police, and end the practice of child sex slavery by military commanders. This apparently represents the first official acknowledgment that keeping boys as sex slaves is a problem in Afghanistan. It turns out to be a long-standing tradition. (We have noted it here before, but it gets almost no attention from the U.S. corporate media. Obviously it is not consistent with the mythology of our noble Afghan allies.)

Posted by Cervantes at 5:50 AM

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