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, December 9, 2011

War News for Friday, December 09, 2011

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF soldier at the Queen Elizabeth NHS Hospital in Birmingham, UK, on Thursday, December 8th. He was originally wounded in an IED attack in the Deh Adham Khan region of Nahr-e Saraj (North), Helmand province, Afghanistan on Tuesday, December 6th.


Pakistan army believes NATO attack planned - reports

U.S. drone shot down by Iran unveiled on TV -- photos


Reported security incidents

Diyala Prv:
#1: Gunmen killed a member of a government-backed Sunni militia in front of his house and wounded one of his guards on Thursday in the northern outskirts of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

#2: A roadside bomb wounded a tribal leader on Thursday in a town west of Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

#3: A sticky bomb attached to the car of a government employee at the citizenship department, killed him and his cousin, in a town west of Muqdadiya, on Thursday, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: At least 42 oil tankers and containers were torched by group of armed men on Thursday. The vehicles were carrying fuel and military hardware for NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan. The incident was happened in Kharotabad area on Airport Road, suburbs of Quetta. According to the CCPO, Ehsan Mehbob, at least 32 oil tankers and 10 containers were destroyed in the attack. According to the owner of terminal, where the trucks and containers were parked, a group of armed men appeared on motorbikes and fired two rockets hitting oil tankers.

#2: Bombers killed three Pakistani soldiers Friday as firefighters battled to control an inferno at a NATO trucking terminal attacked two weeks after Pakistan shut the Afghan border to US supplies. The roadside bomb exploded alongside a vehicle carrying members of the Rangers paramilitary in Karachi, Pakistan's port city used by the United States to ship the bulk of supplies needed by 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan. The powerful explosion badly damaged the vehicle and wounded four other soldiers in the eastern part of the city after daybreak, officials told AFP.

#3: Gunmen on motorcycles killed Zarteef Afridi, the local coordinator of the non-government Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, in the northwestern Khyber tribal region near the border with Afghanistan, local officials said.

#4: Three people including a district police chief were killed and six others were injured Friday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque during Friday prayer in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, police said.


DoD: Sgt. 1st Class Clark A. Corley Jr.

DoD: Spc. Ryan M. Lumley

DoD: Spc. Thomas J. Mayberry

6 comments:

Dancewater said...

it won't be long now before every country has it's drones.... and uses them.

Cervantes said...

I have no love for Ron Paul, believe me, but he's right about this:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul said Thursday evening that Bush administration officials were gleeful after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because it gave them a pretext to invade Iraq.

"Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq," the Texas Republican told a group of mostly young backers in Iowa. He went on to suggest officials are now setting the stage for an invasion of Iran.

Anonymous said...

Iran and Pakistan

Dancewater said...

some pictures of the Iraqi people's reaction to Biden's recent visit on my blog

Faces of Grief

Dancewater said...

I don't think there will be an invasion of Pakistan or Iran - they are too cowardly to do that. They will just keep on bombing them, from a safe distance.

Dancewater said...

Exxon's deal with the Kurds inflames Baghdad

The great Iraqi oil rush has started to exacerbate dangerous communal tensions after a major oil company ignored the wishes of the central government in Baghdad and decided to do business with its main regional rival.

The bombshell exploded last month when Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, defied the instructions of the Baghdad government and signed a deal with the Iraqi Kurds to search for oil in the northern area of Iraq they control. To make matters worse, three of the areas Exxon has signed up to explore are on territory the two authorities dispute. The government must now decide if it will retaliate by kicking Exxon out of a giant oilfield it is developing in the south of Iraq.

Political leaders in Baghdad say the company is putting the unity of their country at risk. Hussain Shahristani, the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of energy matters, told The Independent in an interview in Baghdad that any oil or gas field development contract in Iraq "needs the approval of the federal government, and any contract that has not been presented to the federal government has no standing and the companies are not advised to work on Iraqi territory in breach of Iraqi laws".

++++++++++++
Exxon does not give a shit if they are putting the unity of a country at risk.