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


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

War News for Tuesday, October 11, 2011

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an unreported cause in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Monday, October 9th.


U.N. Finds ‘Systematic’ Torture in Afghanistan

U.N.: Detainees tortured in Afghanistan

Afghan opium poppy cultivation jumps

Many lost NATO tankers ‘have not reached checkpoint’


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: A string of explosions targeting security officials — and people who rushed to the scene to help the injured — killed at least 10 people in western Baghdad Monday evening, officials said. The first explosion came from a roadside bomb in a Shiite neighbourhood, targeting an Iraqi army patrol, a police official said. Minutes later, a second bomb exploded nearby, targeting a passing police patrol. As firefighters arrived on the scene of the first blast, the third bomb went off, an official said. He said 19 people were wounded in the attacks. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.

#2: Four soldiers and a civilians were wounded by an explosion south east Baghdad, police sources said here today. The source told Aswat al-Iraq that the bomb was directed against a military patrol.


Mosul:
#1: Two soldiers were killed by weapons equipped with silencers east of Mosul, security sources said today. The source told Aswat al-Iraq that unknown gunmen fired against a military patrol and fled away.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Suspected militants fired two rockets at a rally led by the governor of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding four, but the governor was unhurt, security officials said. Governor Masood Kasur was to address the tribesmen when the rally was attacked in Kalaya, a large town in the Pashtun tribal region of Orakzai, the officials said. “The governor was receiving a briefing before the start of the function when the rockets struck. He is safe,” senior government official Fazal Qadir told Reuters. “One rocket fell near the helipad while the other landed inside the ground where the rally was being held.”

#2: Six people were killed in a double bombing targeting Afghan road construction workers near the country's eastern border with Pakistan, officials said. Police initially said a bomb struck a truck at around 9:50 am (0520 GMT) in the Dangam district of Kunar province. But officials later clarified that a second bomb also detonated as the rescue effort from the first attack was underway. "Four people were killed in the first explosion," said Wasifullah Wasifi, a spokesman for the Kunar governor. "In the second attack, two people were killed, including an Afghan soldier and a civilian, and two other civilians were wounded," he added.

#3: A trailer truck and an armoured vehicle of the US troops stationed in Afghanistan were burnt in an explosion at Landikotal bypass road on Pak-Afghan Highway in Khyber Agency, Khassadar sources said on Monday. The trailer truck (PT-0244), carrying two US-made armoured vehicles, hit a roadside bomb planted on the bypass road. The vehicle caught fire, which also engulfed one of the armoured vehicles on it, the sources said. Soon after the blast, fire fighters rushed to the site and extinguished the fire. They could, however, save only one vehicle on the trailer.

A bomb exploded in a truck carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Monday, killing one person, local officials said. The incident occurred in the Landi Kotal area of the northwestern Khyber tribal region, about 6 km (3.7 miles) from the Afghan border.

#4: Four Afghans working for a French development organization in northern Afghanistan have been abducted, officials said Tuesday. The team was driving back from a training session in Faryab province Monday afternoon when they were ambushed by a man on a motorcycle and seized, said Abdul Satar Barez, the province’s deputy governor. Barez said the captors were Taliban militants.

#5: A remote-controlled bomb exploded next to a convoy of security forces on Tuesday, injuring three soldiers, security officials said. The bomb was planted on the main road in the town of Wana in the South Waziristan tribal region.

#6: An insurgent improvised explosive on Monday killed three Afghan civilians and seriously wounded a child in southern Zabul province, the NATO-led coalition said. It gave no further details of the incident.

#7: Afghan and NATO forces killed one insurgent and wounded another on Sunday in Zharay district in southern Afghanistan after their patrol came under fire. ISAF said initial reports showed two civilians may have been accidentally killed in the incident after coalition forces called in an air strike and mortar fire. The NATO-led force was investigating.

#8: One Afghan civilian was killed when the vehicle he was traveling in hit an IED in Khost province. ISAF said the victim was a construction worker engaged in a project at a NATO combat outpost

#9: Security forces during operations have killed four insurgents and detained 12 others in different parts of the Afghanistan over the past 24 hours, Afghan Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. "Afghan National Police (ANP), backed by army and NATO-led Coalition forces, launched four joint operations in surrounding areas of the Kandahar, Helmand, Logar and Paktika provinces over the past 24 hours, killing four armed insurgents and arresting 12 other suspected insurgents," the ministry said in a statement that provides daily operational updates.


DoD: Capt. Joshua S. Lawrence

DoD: Capt. Drew E. Russell

2 comments:

Dancewater said...

Report: Iraq agrees to keep 5,000 US trainers after deadline

Oct 11, 2011, 10:48 GMT

Baghdad - Iraqi politicians have agreed to keep 5,000 US soldiers in the country after 2011 as trainers - without granting them immunity - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was quoted in press remarks published on Tuesday.

The Iraqi government is waiting on the United States for an official response to the proposal, Talabani told the state-run Al Sabah daily.

The president said all army units had reported that they were unable to operate recently imported modern weapons, making it necessary for some US soldiers to stay behind as trainers.

However, influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has repeatedly threatened that US troops staying on after the 2011 deadline will be dealt with as occupation forces and face armed resistance.

The US Department of Defence has also expressed concerns about the lack of an agreement protecting its troops from prosecution in Iraq, after their current immunity expires at the end of the year.

Around 50,000 US soldiers remaining in Iraq are supposed to leave the country by the end of 2011, under a Status of Forces Agreement negotiated in 2008.

Dancewater said...

Iraq's Sadr condemns U.S. 'occupiers'
Published: Oct. 11, 2011 at 10:23 AM

BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The presence of U.S. military trainers in Iraq beyond the Dec. 31 deadline is an organized occupation, Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr said.

Baghdad last week said thousands of U.S. military trainers would stay behind to help the Iraqi military. U.S. forces, under the terms of a bilateral status of forces agreement with Baghdad, are required to leave Iraq by Dec. 31.

Sadr, an anti-American cleric, said in a message published by the Voices of Iraq new agency that the continued U.S. military presence was "an organized occupation in new attire."

Sadr was the target of U.S. forces in Iraq during the early stages of the war. Following a stay in Iran to pursue clerical studies, he's emerged as a major political force in post-war Iraq.

Baghdad said it wouldn't give remaining U.S. forces immunity from prosecution. Critics of the American presence in Iraq point to the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and the actions of some U.S. security contractors as a reason to be suspicious.

U.S. forces are offered some legal protection under the status of forces agreement. Pentagon officials have said that's customary protection in most bilateral military arrangements.


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