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 8, 2013

War News for Friday, February 08, 2013


UN body "alarmed" by US killings of Afghan children - snip - The Geneva-based Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said the deaths were "due notably to reported lack of precautionary measures and indiscriminate use of force".


Reported security incidents
#1: At least six people were killed Friday in a blast near a security check-post in Kalaya, the agency headquarters of the restive northwestern Orakzai tribal region, officials said. According to local administration official Fazl-i-Qadir, 15 others were also injured in the remote-controlled bombing, which appeared to target a gathering of the anti-Taliban Ferozkhel tribesmen near the busy Ferozkhel Chowk in Kalaya. An army check-post is also located near the site of attack and some officials said it could also be a possible target for the bombing.

#2: At least two people were killed and seven others injured on Friday afternoon as a bomb blast hit northwestern Pakistan, local media reported.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't back down keep on fighting