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, February 14, 2013

War News for Thursday, February 14, 2013


Reported security incidents
#1: A roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying members of an anti-Taliban militia in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing seven militiamen, a police spokesman said, according to The Associated Press. Nine members of the militia were also wounded in the attack in Stanzai village in the Orakzai tribal region bordering Afghanistan, said Fazal Naeem. The militiamen were on their way to a meeting to discuss strategy against the Pakistani Taliban at the time of the attack, he said.

At least nine people were killed Thursday in two explosions in the northwestern tribal region of Orakzai. The blasts also wounded 23 others Lower Orakzai tribal region. The first explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED) and targeted a passenger van traveling from Hangu towards Kohat. The second explosion took place at a location near the area of the first blast incident. Separately, fighter jets attacked militant hideouts in Upper Orakzai, killing six militants.

At least four people were killed and 13 others injured on Thursday afternoon when a bomb ripped through a busy market in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region of Orakzai Agency, local media reported. According to the reports, the explosion took place in the Hassan Dara bazaar area when people were busy shopping or doing their jobs, killing four on the spot and leaving 13 others injured.

#2: The latest attack came hours after five suicide bombers attacked a police station in the country's northwestern city of Bannu, wounding one police officer. The city's police chief Nisar Tanoli said three of the bombers detonated their explosives vests while the police shot dead the other two.

#3: Up to 23 Taliban militants have been killed and 13 others detained in operations in different Afghan provinces within the past 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said on Thursday. "Afghan National Police (ANP) supporting by army and the NATO- led coalition forces conducted nine cleanup operations in Kunar, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunduz, Uruzgan, Wardak, Helmand and Khost provinces, killing 23 armed Taliban insurgents and detaining 13 others over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement.

#4: According to reports unknown gunmen attacked a staff member of the Iranian consulate in northern Mazar-e-Sharif city of Afghanistan on Wednesday night. The incident took place around 8 pm local time after gunmen riding motorcycles opened fire on Mohammad Ewaz Khalili in Khurasan area in Mazar-e-Sharif city while he was on his way from University to his home. A close source to Mr. Khalili, Mohammad Nasir Ahmadi said his health condition is satisfactory and is currently under the treatment in Mazar-e-Sharif civilian hospital. According to Mr. Ahmadi, Mohammad Ewaz Khalili was injured from his chest and stomach after four bullets fired by unknown gunmen hit him.

3 comments:

Dancewater said...

Tomorrow, February 15th, is the tenth anniversary of THE DAY THE WORLD MARCHED.

"But a decade on from the debate about dodgy dossiers, WMDs, 45-minute warnings and various clauses and subclauses of UN Resolution 1441, those of us who marched against the war stand vindicated. We were right; the hawks were wrong.

It isn’t the size of our demonstration that those of us against the war should be proud of, it is our judgement. Our arguments and predictions turned out to be correct and those of our belligerent opponents were discredited. Remember the rhetoric? There was “no doubt” that the invaders would “find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam’s weap­ons of mass destruction” (Blair) as well as evidence of how Iraq had “provided training in these weapons [of mass destruction] to al-Qaeda” (Colin Powell); the foreign troops would be “greeted as liberators” (Dick Cheney); “the establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East” would be “a watershed event in the global democratic revolution” (George W Bush).

It was a farrago of lies and half-truths, of delusion and doublethink. Aside from the viewers of Fox News, most people are now aware that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no ties between secular Saddam and Islamist Osama. The fall of the Ba’athist dictatorship failed to usher in a democratic or human-rights revolution. Every argument advanced by the hawks proved to be utterly false."

Link Here

Dancewater said...

The hawks were wrong, they always are.

They are the evil shits of the world, with no conscience and no morals and no regrets for the massive suffering they have caused. May they burn in hell forever.

Dancewater said...

As to whether Iraq is better off without Saddam, Riverbend said it best:

“Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts,” wrote the Iraqi blogger known by the pseudonym Riverbend on her blog Baghdad Burning in February 2007. “It’s worse. It’s over. You lost... You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out... You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power...”

We also lost our souls. We lost any right to claim decent treatment by any other person or country on the planet. We, Americans and Brits, deserve nothing by horseshit for food and a culture of widespread violence.... which is what we are developing for ourselves.