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


Monday, June 24, 2013

War News for Monday, June 24, 2013

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a roadside bombing in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, June 23rd.

NATO is reporting the death of a second ISAF soldier from a roadside bombing in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, June 23rd.


Reported security incidents
#1: Twenty-three militants have been killed in different provinces within the last 24 hours, said the Afghan Interior Ministry on Monday morning. "A series of cleanup operations in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand provinces claimed the lives of 20 armed Taliban. Two Taliban wounded and four other armed Taliban were arrested," the ministry said in a press release providing daily operational updates. Afghan National Police (ANP), army, intelligence agency personnel and NATO-led coalition forces were involved in the raids, it noted.

#2: In addition, three Taliban members, including a local leader named Qari Dad Mohammad, were killed early Monday morning when an IED they were placing along a road in Langari area of the Kunduz city, the provincial capital of northern Kunduz province, went off prematurely, a police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Husainni told Xinhua earlier Monday.

#3: A senior police officer and his driver have been shot dead in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials say. Amanullah Khan, a deputy superintendent, was in charge of traffic police in the city, the Associated Press news agency reports.

AU/DoD: Corporal Cameron Stewart Baird

Posted by whisker at 4:48 AM

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