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, May 29, 2013

War News for Wednesday, May 29, 2013


Reported security incidents
#1: A pair of suspected U.S. missiles fired from an unmanned aircraft killed four alleged militants early Wednesday near the Afghan border in Pakistan, intelligence officials said, the first drone strike since Pakistan's nationwide elections earlier this month. Wednesday's strike came in the North Waziristan tribal region, a stronghold for militants in the mountainous stretch of land bordering Afghanistan to the west. Pakistani intelligence officials said the missiles hit a house in the town of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.

#2: Seven insurgents wearing police uniforms and bomb-laden vests attacked a government compound in a usually secure province in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing one police officer, officials said.  Governor Kramuddin Karim said the attack targeted the government complex in the provincial capital of Bazarak, and that all seven militants were killed. 

#3: Afghan army and police supported by the NATO-led coalition forces have eliminated 29 armed Taliban militants and detained 45 others during different operations started on Tuesday, the country's Interior Ministry said Wednesday. "Afghan National Police (ANP), army and the coalition forces conducted several clearance operations over the past 24 hours, killing 29 armed Taliban and detaining 45 other armed suspects," the ministry said in a statement. Eight other militants were wounded during the operations conducted in Baghlan, Kapisa, Badakhshan, Sari Pul, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Paktiya and Helmand provinces, it noted.

#4: Earlier on Wednesday, four people, including three school girls, were wounded when two back-to-back Improvised Explosive Devices ( IEDs) went off near a girl school in Ghazni city, the provincial capital of eastern Ghazni province 120 km south of capital Kabul. However, a militant, who used a remote-control device to initiate the blasts, was killed by ANP in a exchange of fire shortly after the explosions, the provincial deputy police chief Assadullha Insafi told Xinhua.


DoD: Spc. Christopher R. Drake

Posted by whisker at 4:25 AM

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