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, April 3, 2012

War News for Tuesday, April 03, 2012

The New Zealand DM is reporting the death of a New Zealand ISAF soldier from a non-combat related after an injury at Forward Patrol Base Romero, Bamiyan province, Afghanistan on Tuesday, April 3rd. It is being investigated as a suspected suicide.


U.S. Offers $10 Million Reward for Pakistani Militant


Reported security incidents
#1: The Taliban militants have set fire to a convoy of NATO tankers carrying fuel for US-led foreign forces in southwestern Afghanistan, Press TV reports. Afghan officials said the militants destroyed at least six fuel tankers in an ambush in Dilaram district of Nimruz province late on Monday. This is while the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that the militants destroyed nine tankers along with seven escorting vehicles. Dilaram governor Abdul Karim Barahawi said at least four Taliban militants were killed in an airstrike fallowing the attack. A similar ambush last week destroyed five NATO fuel tankers. Dozens of Taliban militants were gunned down in the ensuing clashes.

#2: Four policemen and two civilians were poisoned and killed in a police check point Monday night in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, a provincial government spokesman said on Tuesday. "Four policemen with Afghan National Police and two civilians were poisoned and killed in a police check point in Panjaw Qala area of Nahri Sarraj district," spokesman Daud Ahmadi told Xinhua. Three policemen in the same check point were also missing, Ahmadi said.

#3: Three policemen were killed and 11 others were missing following an attack launched by Taliban militants in northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, a provincial government spokesman said on Tuesday. "An unspecified number of armed militants launched an attack on a police check point in Wardoj district Monday night leaving three policemen with Afghan Border Police dead,"spokesman Abdul Maruf Rasikh told Xinhua. The missing policemen may have been kidnapped by militants in the mountainous province, 315 km northeast of capital Kabul, the spokesman said.

#4: At least four people were killed and 40 others including several policemen injured in exchange of fire between police and protesters of a religious group in northern Pakistani city of Gilgit on Tuesday, local media reported. The clashes broke out when the activists of a Sunni Muslims group protested against detention of its top leader by police on March 28 on suspicion of firing on a rally of Shiite Muslims injuring three people including a soldier earlier last month, local Urdu TV channel Dunya reported.

#5: According to a statement released by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force on Monday, an International Security Assistance Force helicopter made a forced landing in eastern Afghanistan today.

Posted by whisker at 4:18 AM

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