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


Friday, July 29, 2011

War News for Friday, July 29, 2011

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an IED attack in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, July 27th,


BBC reporter among 21 killed in Afghanistan attacks

Censorship of war casualties in the US

Talks on long-term Afghan-U.S. partnership stalled


Reported security incidents

Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: At least 18 Afghan civilians have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province, police say. They were travelling in a minibus through Nahr-e-Saraj district when the blast happened. They are thought to have been heading for the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. He said insurgents had fired at police who responded to the blast, but no officers had been wounded.

#2: update Seven suicide attackers killed at least 21 people in near-simultaneous assaults Thursday in a provincial capital in southern Afghanistan. The victims included 10 children and three women who died when an assailant crashed a vehicle into a hospital maternity ward and set off a cargo of explosives, officials said. Afghan officials said that at least 38 people, including at least three police officers, were wounded in six hours of mayhem in Tarin Kot, the capital of Urozgan province, north of Kandahar.

#3: Border guards in Tajikistan have shot dead eight gunmen trying to smuggle drugs into the ex-Soviet republic from neighbouring Afghanistan, a senior Tajik security official told Reuters on Thursday.

Posted by whisker at 3:28 AM

1 comments:

Dancewater said...

yes, there is extensive censorship of war casualties - especially civilians.

and the American people piss me off for allowing this horrific evil to take place, and then ignoring it.

may they rot......

July 29, 2011 at 4:06 PM

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