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, January 3, 2012

War News for Tuesday, January 03, 2011

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an IED attack in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, January 2nd.


Panetta to Offer Strategy for Cutting Military Budget


Reported security incidents
#1: A suicide bomber driving a motorcycle killed four civilians and a police officer in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar city on Tuesday, police said. Gen. Abul Razaq, Kandahar provincial police chief, said the attack also wounded 16 people, including three police officers and six children. The bomber detonated his explosives at a police checkpoint, he said.

A suicide bomber on a motorbike attacked an Afghan police patrol in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, killing a girl and injuring a dozen people, officials said. The attacker drove into several police in Kandahar city, the capital with of the province with the same name, police chief General Abdul Razzaq said.

#2: A bomb exploded in the basement of a building on the busy Arbab Road of Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The chief of Khyber Teaching Hospital said it had received 24 injured victims

#3: A mortar shell was also fired at a busy market in Khyber, one of seven tribal districts near the Afghan border. District official Rehman Shah said three people were killed and another three injured in the attack.

#4: According to local authorities in north-eastern Afghanistan, at least two Taliban militants were killed following armed clashes in Kapisa province. The officials further added, the incident took place in Nejrab district of Kapisa province and at least four other militants were also detained during the incident. Nejrab district security chief Ata Mohammad Nazari on Tuesday said, the clashes between the militants and Afghan security forces started after the Taliban militants ambushed a convoy of the Afghan National Army.

3 comments:

Dancewater said...

FACTBOX - Security developments in Iraq

Jan 3 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq as of 1715 GMT on Tuesday.

* MOSUL - A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol, killing one soldier, on the western outskirts of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

* MOSUL - A gunman opened fire on a police checkpoint and wounded two policemen and one civilian in western Mosul, police said. Police said the gunman was killed in the incident after other policemen at the checkpoint retaliated.

KIRKUK - A sticky bomb attached to the car of an off-duty Peshmerga guard seriously wounded him when it went off in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, a local police source said.

MOSUL - A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing one policeman and wounding another on a main road near Mosul, police said.

MUQDADIYA - Gunmen opened fire at the house of a member of the government-backed Sunni Sahwa militia, killing him and wounding his wife in the town of Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, wounding three policemen and one civilian in Baghdad's southern Saidiya district, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb went off near a police patrol and wounded three civilians in Baghdad's northern Shaab district, police said. (Compiled by Baghdad bureau)

Dancewater said...

Tensions continue to rise in Iraq’s political crisis, with State of Law MP Hussein al-Asadi calling for President Jalal Talabani to be charged as a “terrorist” on the grounds that Vice President Hashemi, who is also being charged as a terrorist, is hiding in Talabani’s home region of Kurdistan.

Link here.

Dancewater said...

photo caption from today (I have not seen a news story on this):

Handcuffed suspects seen in the state Terrorist Combat and Organized Crime department in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012. Iraqi officials say they have arrested a ring of insurgents allegedly involved in attacks in Baghdad, the 21-person cell is linked to the outlawed Baath party and was responsible for about 300 terror attacks against government employees and security forces. The alleged leader of the cell, Abdul-Khaliq Abdul-Sattar, told a press conference organized by the ministry that he received orders from Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest-ranking member of Saddam Hussein's regime still at large. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)