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


Saturday, August 18, 2012

War News for Saturday, August 18, 2012

The DoD is reporting what appears to be a new death previously unreported by the military. Staff Sgt. Eric S. Holman died from an IED blast in Ghazni province, Afghanistan on Wednesday, August 15th.
 
The British MoD is reporting the death of a British ISAF soldier from an insurgent attack in the Nahr-e Saraj district, Helmand province, Afghanistan on Friday, August 17th. Here's the ISAF release.


Reported security incidents
#1: A bomb exploded on Saturday in a bazaar in western Afghanistan crowded with people shopping to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, killing four civilians, an official said. A dozen other people were wounded by the bomb which was placed under a bridge in Shindand district of Herat province, provincial spokesman Mohiuddin Noori told the media. It came after a bicycle bomb on Wednesday wounded at least 14 people at a busy market in Herat city, the capital of the province. “This morning a bomb placed under a bridge in a bazaar exploded and killed four civilians and wounded 12 including three police,” the spokesman told the media, adding an investigation was under way.

#2: A US drone attack Saturday killed at least six militants in the North Waziristan tribal region as local people celebrated Eidul Fitr, security officials said. The drone fired two missiles on a compound in Shuwedar village in Shawal district of the troubled North Waziristan region, considered a stronghold of Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants. “US drones fired two missiles into a militant compound. Six bodies have been recovered from the compound so far,” a security official told AFP.

#3: An Afghan Army officer opened fire on US troops in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar on Friday and wounded two of them. The soldiers returned the fire and killed the officer. Earlier on Friday, an Afghan police officer killed two American servicemen in Farah Province, in the west of the country.

#4: A suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car at a check post in Quetta overnight killing five people including three soldiers, an official said Saturday. Troops from the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) stopped a Toyota car for a security check in Quetta, when it entered the city late Friday, FC spokesman Murtaza Baig said. “They were questioning the driver when he detonated himself, killing three FC soldiers and two officials of the military intelligence,” Baig told AFP.

#5: At least three Afghan National Army soldiers were killed when a national army vehicle struck a road side mine in the Baghlan Markazi District of Baghlan province, the 303 Pamir Zone spokesman Laal Mohammad Ahmadzai said. In the incident, three other Afghan soldiers injured, Ahmadzai said.


DoD: Staff Sgt. Eric S. Holman

3 comments:

Dancewater said...

Iraq attacks kill close to 100

the evil continues from the US war of aggression on Iraq.....

Dancewater said...

US coverup of murdered civilians

Detailed information from the families of those killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and from local sources on strikes that have targeted mourners and rescue workers provides credible new evidence that the majority of the deaths in the drone war in Pakistan have been civilian noncombatants - not "militants," as the Obama administration has claimed.

The new evidence also shows that the statistical tally of casualties from drone attacks in Pakistan published on the web site of the New America Foundation (NAF) has been systematically understating the deaths of large numbers of civilians by using a methodology that methodically counts them as "militants."

The sharply revised picture of drone casualties conveyed by the two new primary sources is further bolstered by the recent revelation that the Obama administration adopted a new practice in 2009 of automatically considering any military-age male killed in a drone strike as a "militant" unless intelligence proves otherwise.

The detailed data from the two unrelated sources covering a total 24 drone strikes from 2008 through 2011 show that civilian casualties accounted for 74 percent of the death toll, whereas the NAF tally for the same 24 strikes showed civilian casualties accounted for only 30 percent of the total.

Dancewater said...

Six more killed by US drone murderers