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, August 28, 2011

News of the Day for Sunday, August 28, 2011

I'll have to work fast today because my power is out due to the hurricane and I'm having to conserve battery power -- it's likely to be a while. -- C

Reported Security Incidents

Tuz Khurmato

Roadside bomb attack on the car of police major Mohammed Taqi injures him, his bodyguard, and a passerby.

Jalawla

Jawad Kadhim, an official of the national security ministry, is killed in a driveby shooting, along with his driver.

Baghdad

Roadside bomb in Shu’ala district injures 2 people. Separately, 3 people are injured by an explosion in Zaafaraniya.

A woman is killed, 3 police and 1 civilian injured in attack on a police checkpoint near Salman Pak.

Three civilians injured by an explosion in Tarmiya.

ammam al-Alil township, south of Mosul

Five Iraqi soldiers and a policeman injured by a car bomb. A civilian is injured in a separate explosion Saturday afternoon.

Mosul

Bomb attack on an army patrol injures 6 civilians and 2 Iraqi soldiers.

Other News of the Day

Former director of MI5, Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, tells an interviewer that Iraq posed no threat to the UK at the time of the invasion, saying "Intelligence isn't complete without the full picture and the full picture is all about doubt. Otherwise, you go the way of George Bush."

Amnesty International calls for investigation of the deaths of seven members of one family who died in a Turkish missile strike on their car in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Twenty five people, mostly women and children, are killed in Kirkuk when a bus catches fire after a collision.

Afghanistan Update

An ISAF member is killed in southern Afghanistan, no further details available at this time.

Taliban claim to have killed 12 people in a suicide car bomb attack on what they say was a "CIA" convoy. However, the Afghan Interior Ministry says the bomb exploded prematurely, killing only the bomber. The Taliban are making other extravagant claims about killing large numbers of U.S. troops, but there is no indication so far there is any truth to these.

Suicide car bomb attack on police and soldiers lining up for their pay kills 4 people, 3 of them children, in Lashkar Gah.

Rockets are fired from Afghanistan into South Waziristan, apparently harmlessly.





Posted by Cervantes at 4:27 AM

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