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, July 25, 2013

War News for Thursday, July 25, 2013


Gunmen shoot dead 13 police, soldiers in Iraq strikes

Militants ‘executed’ drivers in Iraq

Watchdog critical of State Department contracting in Afghanistan

National Guard (in Federal Status) and Reserve Activated as of July 23, 2013


Reported security incidents
#1: The first attack took place in Kunduz city, the capital of Kunduz province 250 km north of Afghan capital Kabul, killing three people and injuring four others, police said. "A vehicle of National Directorate for Security (NDS) was running in Bandar-e-Kabul area of the city when a sticky bomb attached to the vehicle by militants went off at 07:00 a.m. local time, killing one NDS personnel aboard and two civilian passersby on the spot," a police official told Xinhua but declined to be named. Four more people sustained injuries and several shops and houses were damaged nearby in the blast, he added.

#2: Hour later in a similar bombing in Aqcha district of Jauzjan province 390 km north of Kabul, two people lost their lives and 10 others got wounded. "A bomb planted by the armed militants in Aqcha district and detonated at around 08:00 a.m. local time left two people including a police dead and injured 10 others including four policemen," a local official told Xinhua but declined to be identified. The police chief of Aqcha district Jawad Jahid said the enemies of peace, a reference to Taliban militants, planed explosive device on a rickshaw and detonated it next to a police vehicle inflicting casualties.

#3: Two persons were killed when unknown gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying the Frontier Reserve Police (FRP) official in Gulbahar area of Peshawar Thursday morning, Geo News reported. "The deputy commander of Frontier Reserve Police (FRP) Gul Wali Khan was going to his office from home when four people on two motorbikes lay in wait on both sides of the road," police official Imran Shahid said. "They opened fire on his vehicle. His bodyguard and his driver have been killed," Shahid told. A spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar said the commander was in critical condition.

#4: The attack came hours after suicide gunmen and car bombers targeted the headquarters of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the southern town of Sukkur, sparking a shootout that left seven people dead, two officials and five attackers.

 
 

Posted by whisker at 4:37 AM

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