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, November 15, 2012

War News for Thursday, November 15, 2012


A lost civilisation: 3,000-year-old cemetery discovered in Swat


Reported security incidents
#1: Unknown armed men attacked an oil tanker and two food-laden trucks in Samangan province 215 km north of Kabul late Wednesday night, a local official said Thursday. “Unidentified armed men, possibly Taliban militants attacked and destroyed an oil tanker and two trucks carrying food stuffs to Kabul late last night,” Ghulam Mohammad, head of the police’s crime investigation department in Samangan, told Xinhua.

#2: Afghan police during series of operations have killed eight Taliban militants and arrested a dozen other across the country over the past 24 hours, Interior Ministry said in a statement released here Thursday. "In the operations conducted in Kabul, Kunar, Balkh, Faryab, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Maidan Wardak, Logar, Ghazni, Paktiya, Farah and Helmand provinces, eight Taliban rebels have been killed, 12 detained and three others wounded," the statement added.




Posted by whisker at 3:04 AM

1 comments:

Dancewater said...

Bombings in Iraq

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens wounded in bombings across Iraq, on the eve of the Islamic new year and the holy month of Muharram.

Six car bombs and roadside devices exploded in the capital, Baghdad, and four other cities, the AFP news agency cited officials as saying.

In the deadliest attack, at least three bombs went off simultaneously in Kirkuk, killing at least five people.

Muharram is an important part of the Shia Muslim religious calendar.

November 15, 2012 at 2:51 PM

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