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


Monday, July 11, 2011

War News for Monday, July 11, 2011

The Danish military is reporting the death of a Danish ISAF soldier from an IED blast in an area west of Patrol Base Line in the Upper Gereshk valley, Helmand province Afghanistan on Sunday, July 10th. Here's the ISAF release.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an insurgent attack in an undisclosed area in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, July 9th.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an insurgent attack in an undisclosed area in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, July 10th.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an insurgent attack in an undisclosed area in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, July 10th.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a non combat related injury somewhere in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, July 11th.


US moves toward Afghan guerrilla war


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Six rockets were Monday fired into the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, reported state-run Iraqiya television. It added that the rockets had been launched from a neighbourhood south of the Iraqi capital. The attack caused no casualties, according to the report.

#2: A sticky bomb attached to the car of a member of the government-backed Sunni Sahwa militia exploded, seriously wounding him, in the Ghazaliya district of western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.


Kut:
#1: An Iraqi Army officer has been killed in an explosive charge blast under his car in southern Iraq’s city of Kut on Saturday night, a police source reported on Monday. “The victim, who was killed in a sticking bomb that blew off under his personal car on Saturday night had been a Lt-Brigadier in Iraq’s Defense Ministry,” the police source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Baiji:
#1: An Iraqi police officer, with a colonel rank in Salahal-Din’s Police Command, has been killed, a captain and a policeman, injured in a sticking bomb that blew up under their car north of Tikrit on Monday, a Salahal-Din security source reported. “An explosive charge, stuck under a police car in Beiji township, 40 km north of Tikrit, blew up on Monday morning, killing Police Colonel, Salam Juma’a, wounding a captain and a policeman, along with causing severe damage to the car,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"


DoD: Spc. Nathan R. Beyers

DoD: Spc. Nicholas W. Newby

DoD: Sgt. 1st Class Terryl L. Pasker

Posted by whisker at 3:52 AM

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