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


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

War News for Wednesday, December 14, 2011

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." Muntazer al-Zaidi 12-14-08


The DoD is reporting a new death previously unreported by the military. Sgt. Christopher L. Muniz died in an IED blast in Kunar province, Afghanistan on Sunday, December 11th.

The DoD is reporting another new death previously unreported by the military. Spc. Ronald H. Wildrick Jr. died in an IED blast in Kunar province, Afghanistan on Sunday, December 11th.


Sheriff: Fort Bragg soldier killed wife, himself

NATO: Pakistan talking again to US-led coalition

Iraq Speaker: Keeping 15000 employees at US embassy in Iraq is illogical

Arc of Iraq war told in images



Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two police officers and wounded three policemen and two civilians near Baghdad hotel in the center of the Iraqi capital, a police source said.


Diyala Prv:
#1: In Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, gunmen with assault rifles shot dead a civilian outside his house near the city of Mqdadiyah, some 100 km northeast of Baghdad, a source from Diyala' s operations command anonymously told Xinhua.

#2: Separately, an Iraqi soldier was wounded when a roadside bomb went off near his patrol in the town of al-Nada, some 115 km northeast of Baghdad, the source said.


Basra:
#1: The Iraqi Oil Ministry says production at the country's largest oil field has been cut in half by bomb attacks on domestic oil pipelines. Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said Wednesday that pumping from southern Iraq's Rumaila field fell after Tuesday night's two explosions to 700,000 barrels per day, down from 1.4 million barrels. He says that Iraq's oil exports were not affected, and that the pipelines should be repaired in about a week.


Ishaqi:
#1: A sticky bomb attached to a car killed two passengers and wounded three others, on the outskirts of Ishaqi town, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Mosul:
#1: Gunmen killed a Christian man and his wife in their car in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: A roadside bombing has killed a local government official who was prominent in battling drug smuggling and two of his bodyguards in southern Afghanistan. A spokesman for Helmand province, Daoud Ahmadi, says the Reg district chief was returning from a visit to a neighboring district when his vehicle struck the bomb. The chief, Massoud Khan, had been meeting tribal elders and other officials of the Dishu district on efforts to curb drug trafficking, Ahmadi says Wednesday's blast also wounded three other bodyguards who were traveling with Khan.

#2: Afghan forces, backed by NATO-led Coalition troops, have killed three insurgents and detained 22 others in military operations launched over the last 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said on Wednesday morning. "During the past 24 hours, the Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan National Army (ANA) and Coalition Forces launched 12 joint and independent operations in areas surrounding Kabul, Badakhshan, Kandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, and Khost provinces," the ministry said in a press release.

#3: The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force killed three insurgents and detained four in an airstrike and land operation in Sayed Abad district of Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, on Tuesday, said Wardak police chief Abdul Qayom Baqizada.

#4: A bomb blast in a video shop wounded nine people in the northwestern city of Kohat, police said.

#5: Militants killed two Pakistani soldiers and wounded six in an overnight attack on a security post in the northwestern Mohmand region on the Afghan border, a paramilitary force spokesman said.

#6: Gunmen attacked a Sufi shrine and shot dead two of its caretakers on the outskirts of Peshawar, police said.


DoD: Lance Cpl. Christopher P. J. Levy

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

US/obaminator is fleeing Iraq with his ´head high´

Cervantes said...

Richard Engel tells the story of Iraq in simple language, aimed apparently at semiliterate TV watchers but a clear, methodical review of the sectarian divide and current and historic situation vis a vis Iraq and Iran. He does not address the Kurdish issue, just sectarianism in Arab Iraq. He is pessimistic.

Cervantes said...

Camp Victory is now closed, though not, I would say, victoriously.

Dancewater said...

the pictures linked to in the main post - Arc of Iraq war told in images - have at least one error in them. The children lying on a stretcher in Fallujah are not being transported for medical treatment. They are dead.


And the Brits on fire is not because of some Iraqis being disappointed in not getting security jobs.... that was the time that two Brits in Iraqi street clothing were caught and jailed by the Iraqi police and the Brit military broke into the jail to free them. Some Iraqis then attacked the soldiers, and set them on fire. The arrested Brits were caught in a car full of explosives, per the Iraqi police, however the British military denied it, took away the car, and would not let anyone see the car again.

And, if the Brits were telling the truth, it would have been easy to prove - just show the world the car.

fucking liars.

Dancewater said...

Accounts of a Massacre, Saved From Junkyard Flames

“I mean, whether it’s a result of our action or other action, you know, discovering 20 bodies, throats slit, 20 bodies, you know, beheaded, 20 bodies here, 20 bodies there,” Col. Thomas Cariker, a commander in Anbar Province at the time, told investigators as he described the chaos of Iraq. At times, he said, deaths were caused by “grenade attacks on a checkpoint and, you know, collateral with civilians.”

The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp.

+++++++++

It seems the US military was too stupid to destroy the evidence, and left it behind.

And then the NYT gives the "classified" evidence back to the military instead of publishing it.

Dancewater said...

Hundreds celebrate the US military leaving Iraq by burning the US flag

Seems like they burn a lot of US flags over there in Iraq.