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


Monday, March 12, 2012

War News forMonday, March 12, 2012

Reported security incidents
#1: According to local authorities in southern Afghanistan, at least 2 Afghan National Police forces were shot dead by an individual in southern Uruzgan province. The officials further added, the incident took place at Khas Uruzgan district on Sunday evening.

#2: Afghan Interior Ministry on Monday announced, at least 6 insurgents were killed and injured and 16 others were arrested by Afghan security forces. According a statement issued by Afghan Interior Ministry, the militants were killed, injured and detained by Afghan National Police forces during the past 24 hours in 6 separate operations. The operations were jointly conducted by Afghan Police, Afghan Army, Afghan Intelligence and International Coalition Security forces at Nangarhar, Kunar, Kandahar, Helmand, Khost and Farah provinces of Afghanistan. At least 3 armed insurgents were killed, 3 militants were injured and 16 others were arrested during operations, officials added.


pakistan:
#1: Two people were killed and 17 others wounded when a homemade bomb exploded next to a bus on the outskirts of the town of Sadda in the northwestern Kurram tribal region, near the Afghanistan border, local government officials said.

Two persons were killed and nearly 20 others injured when a bus was targeted with a roadside bomb in the restive Kurram tribal region of northwest Pakistan today, security officials said. The incident occurred in Pir Qayyum area of the tribal district. The bus was going from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa capital Peshawar to Parachinar, the main town of Kurram Agency. Two persons were killed instantly and 17 injured persons were taken to a hospital in Parachinar, security officials told TV news channels.

#2: A bomb exploded at a funeral on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 13 people and wounding 31 others, police officials said. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Darra Adem Khel faction claimed responsibility for the attack.

#3: A homemade bomb exploded next to a house in the North Waziristan tribal region, near the Afghanistan border, killing two local tribesmen, security officials said.

7 comments:

rob said...

Hello folks.Glad to see the blog till running.
Things could get a lot worse over there with Syria etc etc etc.

Cervantes said...

Absolutely, the possibility exists of some serious chaos in the ME. The question is whether we can keep the U.S. military from going in and making matters worse.

Cervantes said...

Robert Drefuss in The Nation says what we have always said. The "mission" in Afghanistan, whatever it is, is now completely hopeless. He adds: "Although only one soldier, a staff sergeant, is in custody, Afghan eyewitnesses say that several troops were involved in the massacre, and that they were “drunk and laughing.”"

We will probably never know the truth.

Cervantes said...

Pajhwok has video of the aftermath of the massacre. Not for the squeamish -- but this is what Afghans are seeing. I expect we will reap the whirlwind.

Cervantes said...

I can't believe that I would actually link to Little Green Footballs but Charles Johnson seems to be semi-reformed. This must be seen to be believed -- commenters on wingnut blogs and Fox News are praising the mass murder in Kandahar.

"I’ve looked at about a dozen right wing sites this morning to see how they’d react to the news from Afghanistan, and the comments at every single one of them were full of people celebrating the killings, praising the soldier who allegedly committed them, and denying there was any crime, while at the same time frantically trying to blame the crime on President Obama." His innumerable examples are sickening.

That's your Republican base.

Dancewater said...

I got into a discussion on Facebook about the shootings - with two cousins arguing with me that the Americans are better than the Taliban, even with this mass shooting. The first one argued that the Taliban are being hypocrites to denounce the US violence (which is true, the Taliban are quite violent themselves). Then the other one of them - a true nutcase - suggested that the US military should carpet bomb the country and then dump pig's blood all over the country and bomb them again.

And thereby proved that the Taliban are actually less hypocritical and less violent than Americans.

rob said...

Here is a vets take on the Afghan incident.

Murder in Afghanistan, the Coverup Begins (updates)