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


Thursday, August 30, 2012

War News for Thursday, August 30, 2012

NATO is reporting the deaths of Three ISAF soldiers from small arms fire/gun shot wounds from an ANA soldier in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, August 29th. News reports that an ANA soldier shot dead Three Australian soldiers inside a patrol base near Tarin Kowt in, Uruzgan province. Two additional soldiers were wounded in the attack.

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers in a helicopter crash in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, August 30th. News reports these are Australian soldiers.


Australia mourns for 5 soldiers killed in Afghanistan, country's deadliest hours since Vietnam


Reported security incidents
#1: At least 12 villagers have been killed in an airstrike carried out by US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan’s Ghor Province, Press TV reports. Eight people were also wounded in the attack on Wednesday. The US-led NATO confirmed the attack, but it claimed the airstrike targeted militants.

#2: Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Shia Muslim judge along with his driver and police bodyguard on Saryab Road, Thursday, in a suspected sectarian attack, police said. The incident took place in Quetta, the capital of the oil and gas rich province of Baluchistan, as Zulfiqar Naqvi was travelling to his office. “Gunmen were waiting for him at a railway crossing, the moment the car slowed down, the assailants sprayed bullets and fled,” senior police officer Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

#3: An attack on Spanish troops outside the northwestern Afghan town of Ludina left one paratrooper wounded, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The legionnaire paratrooper, identified as J.F.F., suffered wounds in both legs and was initially treated at the Spanish base hospital in Qala i Naw, although his life is not in danger, the ministry said.
 
#4: According to local authorities in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan, unknown gunmen assassinated provincial council chief in this province. The incident took place on Wednesday evening after unknown gunmen opened fire on Ghazni provincial chief in Nawabad area.


3 comments:

Dancewater said...

I read that 15 NATO troops were killed this month in 'green-on-blue' attacks.

Dancewater said...

Still raw wounds greet US medics in Fallujah

In an Iraqi city where US military offensives levelled entire neighbourhoods in 2004, a hospital has turned to American doctors to treat children with heart problems that residents blame on fallout from the fighting.

The decision was not easy for Fallujah, which lies just west of Baghdad and still views the United States with bitterness and extreme distrust.

Residents point the finger at US weaponry for causing a rise in birth defects, mainly congenital heart problems, still occurring years later.

Yet when Fallujah General Hospital opened a new cardiac catheterisation laboratory in July, it was American doctors who helped launch it and test the equipment.

"I am an educated man," said Firas al-Kubaisy, a Fallujah native and one of the hospital's paediatric cardiologists. "So I know the American people are different from their politicians."

But "our population, they feel something in their hearts. They do not understand what is going on. When they hear there is an American team in our city, they are surprised they are helping us."

The six-member team -- two doctors and four nurses -- spent several days here in July, sequestered inside the hospital where the normal Iraqi police guard was boosted during their stay, said hospital director Abdulsattar Kadhim Lawas.

The team's head Kirk Milhoan, a former Air Force surgeon who completed two tours in Iraq in 2005 and 2007, said he was frank with Iraqi colleagues.

"You know, 'How many of your friends, how many of your relatives, have been affected by Americans and coalition forces, and also how many sleepless nights did we give you?'," Milhoan asked them.

Dancewater said...

"The Americans did not bring humanitarianism or democracy, they did nothing good for us," said 28-year-old engineer Omar Abid Ouda. "Even if they brought all of America to Fallujah to help us, what they did was far more cruel than anything we have seen in our lives."