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


Thursday, February 17, 2011

War News for Thursday, February 17, 2011

Hundreds protest in Iraq over jobs, services

Iraqi trains to stop rolling from Monday

Civilian death study rates "dirty war" in Iraq - snip - U.S.-led coalition forces showed higher rates of indiscriminate killing of women and children than insurgents, a study has found.


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Three missiles landed near the US Embassy in the green zone, sources reported.

#2: Unknown gunmen killed a college professor inside his house in Al Khadraa’ District, western Baghdad.

#3: Gunmen stabbed three women to death inside their house in New Baghdad District.

#4: Security forces managed on Wednesday to defuse two bombs and detonate two others in eastern Baghdad, according to a security source.


Latifiya:
#1: Two members of awakening forces were wounded in a bombing targeting a car in Al Latifiya region, southern Baghdad.


Taji:
#1: Ten Iranian pilgrims were wounded in Al Taji District on Thursday morning.


Mosul:
#1: gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a spokesman for the provincial government in the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, police said.

In Mosul, gunmen shot dead reporter Hilal Al Hamidi as he was leaving his house in Al Wihda District

#2: In a separate incident, armed men gunned down Ali Fakhr al-Din, a Muslim cleric, after they stormed his house in al-Rasheediyah neighborhood in northern Mosul early in the morning, the source said.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A son of the Anbar customs was kidnapped on Wednesday by gunmen in east of Ramadi, according to a security source. "Unknown armed men kidnapped today a son of an employee working for the Anbar Customs in al-Habaniya district, east of Ramadi, and took him to an unknown place after storming his house and stole an amount," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: An Afghan police officer on a bicycle was run over and killed by a NATO vehicle in Kabul, a spokesman for the Kabul police said.


MoD: Private Robert Wood

MoD: Private Dean Hutchinson

13 comments:

Cervantes said...

Department of Well Isn't that Ironic:

Baghdad municipal government demands $1 billion in damages from U.S. for the blast walls.

Cervantes said...

Direct access to the study on civilian deaths here.

amagi said...

> U.S.-led coalition forces showed higher rates of indiscriminate killing of women and children than insurgents, a study has found.

That is not an honest representation of what the study concludes.

Cervantes said...

Agreed, it's a bit tendentious. But coalition forces (i.e., the U.S.) were responsible for a lot of deaths of innocents.

amagi said...

Yes, based on that study, one might say 12% of them.

As opposed to insurgents and 'unknown elements' which were responsible for 85% of the deaths of innocents.

There is plenty to criticize without being disingenuous.

The Wiz said...

amagi; if you are here looking for honesty...good luck. The sole purpose of this site is to paint the US in the worst possible light.

There is no doubt...not even close... that the insurgents were responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths. And they intentionally targeted civilians and rejoiced at their deaths. But they are never criticized here for they are vaunted "freedom fighters"

You see the US is a evil capitalist, imperialistic country raping and pillaging the planet.

Dancewater said...

Well, that last sentence is true, and I think that is the first time ever thewiz wrote something that is true.

But I do not agree that "insurgents" were the biggest killers of innocents.... I think it was the terrorists (most of them not Iraqis) who claimed to be "al Qaeda in Iraq" who killed the most innocents.

But, the total death of innocents from this war is not known - BECAUSE THEY ARE STILL DYING. And while the terrorists are evil shits for blowing up cars and such, I think the poisoning left behind by the US military, especially in Fallujah and Basra, will be killing innocents for generations to come.

I think the majority of innocents who will die from this war are still unborn.

Dancewater said...

U.S. veterans sue Pentagon 'after they were raped and sexually abused by comrades'

* One commander allegedly told Army reservist she 'did not struggle enough or act like a rape victim'
* Another woman 'was told marines don't cry' and 'to suck it up'

Fourteen U.S. veterans who say they were raped and abused by their comrades today accused the Pentagon of ignoring their claims.

More than a dozen female and two male current or former service members will launch a legal action today, claiming that servicemen get away with rape and other sexual abuse.

One woman claimed that two male colleagues raped her in Iraq and videotaped the attack, circulating it around the base.

THIS IS TOTALLY DISGUSTING


I wonder how many Iraqis got raped in the last 8 years by US military or contractors.

Dancewater said...

I think the US should pay for the damage to Iraq.... and pay in FULL.

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Dancewater said...

Iraq has had many non-violent protests over the years, and they were quite a bit larger than current ones. Those protests were mainly to tell the US to "GO OUT" as they like to say.

On April 9, 2004, the protest was MASSIVE in Baghdad, even though traffic was totally stopped.

There are pictures of that protest here

They burned Blair, Bush and Saddam in effigy at that protest.

The first known non-violent protests in Iraq were in Fallujah, but the US responded with violence, and the insurancy took off. And the locals said they were afraid to protest any more.

Some pictures of that further down on this page

Dancewater said...

Bush has nothing to do with the protests across the Middle East, and neither does Obama.

Bush brought Iraqis the freedom of the grave and the democracy of death, and will be forever hated by the people of Iraq and the Middle East for his orgies of violence that he visited on them.

There is one man who has had an influence on the non-violent demonstrations, especially in Egypt.

Few Americans have heard of Mr. Sharp. But for decades, his practical writings on nonviolent revolution — most notably “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” a 93-page guide to toppling autocrats, available for download in 24 languages — have inspired dissidents around the world, including in Burma, Bosnia, Estonia and Zimbabwe, and now Tunisia and Egypt.

When Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around “crazy ideas” about bringing down the government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian movement Otpor, which he had influenced.

*******
Side note: Bush did not support the April 6th Youth Movement at all. His talk about freedom and democracy was hypocritical bullshit, and Obama and H. Clinton are hypocritical bullshiters too.

Dancewater said...

Recalling the Slaughter of Innocents

By Ray McGovern

Twenty years ago, as Americans were celebrating Valentine’s Day, Iraqi husbands and fathers in the Amiriyah section of Baghdad were peeling the remains of their wives and children off the walls and floor of a large neighborhood bomb shelter.

The men had left the shelter the evening before, so their wives would have some measure of privacy as they sought refuge from the U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign, which was at its most intense pre-ground war stage.

All of the more than 400 women and children were incinerated or boiled to death at 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 13, 1991, when two F-117 stealth fighter-bombers each dropped a 2,000-pound laser-guided “smart bomb” on the civilian shelter at Amiriyah.

It was one of those highly accurate “surgical strikes.” The first bomb sliced through 10 feet of reinforced concrete before a time-delayed fuse exploded, destroying propane and water tanks for heating water and food.

Minutes later the second bomb flew precisely through the opening that had been cut by the first and exploded deeper in the shelter creating an inferno.
Fire rose from the lower level to the area where the women and children were seeking shelter – and so did the boiling water. Those who did not burn to death immediately or die from the bombs’ impact were boiled or steamed to death in the intense heat.

The bombs hit toward the end of the month-long bombing campaign to “soften up” Iraq before the U.S.-led ground invasion to drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
The aerial bombing had begun on Jan. 17, 1991; the coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs. U.S. government documents show that the bombs were targeted on civilian as well as military infrastructure. They were very accurate.

....
Human Rights Watch noted later in 1991:

“It is now well established, through interviews with neighborhood residents, that the Amiriyah structure was plainly marked as a public shelter and was used throughout the air war by large numbers of civilians.”

A BBC correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, was among the first TV reporters to arrive on the scene. He was given access to the site and found no evidence of military use. The Pentagon later admitted that it had known that “the Amiriyah facility had been used as a civil-defense shelter during the Iraq-Iran war” from 1980 to 1988.

.....
This item was first posted at www.Consortiumnews.com

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There won't be any trumpets blowing, come the Judgment Day -- on the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.......

Black Friday said...

That is so right dancewater, and in my opinion, there is no difference between a Stealth Bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill without pity and both kill the innocent. Only wish idiots like "The Wiz" could witness these things in person instead of his armchair.