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


Friday, February 1, 2013

War News for Friday, February 01, 2013


Czech PRT ends Afghanistan mission


Reported security incidents
#1: A detained Taliban fighter snatched a gun, opened fire and killed two policemen in Takhar province 250 km north of Kabul on Friday, police said. “Police arrested a Taliban rebel on Thursday and kept him in a temporary lockup but the arrested insurgent snatched a gun from police, opened fire and killed two policemen on the spot Friday afternoon,” police spokesman in the province Abdul Khalil Asir told Xinhua. He said that the man was injured in return fire by police and re-arrested.

#2: A suicide bomber killed 19 mostly Sunni Muslims and wounded 45 on Friday in a crowded market outside a mosque in Pakistan's restive northwestern town of Hangu, police and officials said. Hangu, part of Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan, has been racked by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'ite tribes.

Posted by whisker at 4:35 AM

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