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, July 10, 2013

War News for Wednesday, July 10, 2013

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an insider shooting from an ANA soldier in an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, July 9th. Various news reports that American, Chezh republic and or Slovakia soldiers were killed or wounded in the attack. News also reports that the attack was at Kandahar airport which also wounded up to nine additional soldiers. At this time we believe that the deceased was an American pending on a DoD release.


Reported security incidents
#1: Seventeen villagers were killed Tuesday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in western Afghanistan. In the attack in the western province of Herat, Taliban militants fleeing a joint Afghan police and army patrol placed a roadside bomb along a village road in an attempt to kill the government troops, local police Lt. Sher Agha said. But the bomb went off instead next to a makeshift vehicle carrying 12 women, four children and one man, killing all of them, Agha said.

#2: Meanwhile, five people sustained casualties in the mine explosion in Khanshin District of Helmand Province southern Afghanistan. Omar Zwak, spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province, has said that the mine targeting a vehicle of civilians went off in the Wazirabad area of Khanshin District and three people were killed and two others injured as a result.

#3: In another incident, three people were killed in a foreign forces' unmanned aircraft attack in Khogiani District of Nangarhar Province eastern Afghanistan. Residents of Khogiani District said the foreign forces' unmanned aircraft attacked the Tatang area in this district at noon today, 9 July, and three people were killed as a result. He added that the killed people were residents of the Wazir area in this district and said: "I do not know whether or not these people were Taleban." Officials in Nangarhar expressed unawareness about this incident.

Posted by whisker at 4:56 AM

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