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


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

War News for Wednesday, December 19, 2012


UK to withdraw 3,800 troops from Afghanistan during 2013


Reported security incidents
#1:  Four Afghan policemen were shot dead and three wounded after being poisoned by a colleague in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said. The attack happened in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province and is the latest in a series of insider attacks by Afghan security forces on their local and foreign colleagues. "There were eight border police in Shero area check post, one of them poisoned the others' food and then shot them," provincial spokesman Jawid Faysal told.

#2: Gunmen shot dead a woman working on UN-backed polio vaccination efforts and her driver in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, just a day after similar attacks across the country killed five female polio workers. In Wednesday's attack, the woman and her driver were gunned down in the northwestern town of Charsadda, said senior government official Syed Zafar Ali Shah. He said gunmen targeted two other polio teams in the same town, but no one was wounded in those attacks. Earlier in the day in the northwestern city of Peshawar, gunmen shot a polio worker in the head, wounding him critically, said Janbaz Afridi, a senior health official. There were also attacks Wednesday on polio workers in the cities of Charsadda and Nowshera, but no casualties were reported there.

#3: Six Taliban militants were killed as their explosive device went off accidentally in Helmand province 555 km south of Kabul on Wednesday, spokesman for provincial administration Ahmad Zirak said. "A group of Taliban rebels were busy planting mine on a road in Gereshk district Wednesday morning but the device exploded accidentally, killing six insurgents including a group commander Mullah Mohammad Shah on the spot," Zirat told Xinhua.

Posted by whisker at 4:55 AM

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