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


Saturday, August 24, 2013

War News for Saturday, August 24, 2013

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers from a roadside bombing attack in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, August 23rd.
 
NATO is reporting the death of another ISAF soldier from an IED blast in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, August 24th. News reports a blast killed one Polish soldier and wounded two others.
 

Polish soldier killed in action in Afghanistan

Afghan massacre soldier Robert Bales gets life sentence


Reported security incidents
#1: Twenty militants were killed, five wounded and nine others arrested during operations in several Afghan provinces since Friday morning, said the Afghan Interior Ministry earlier on Saturday. "Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) conducted several cleanup operations with the cooperation of Coalition Forces in Laghman, Baghlan, Kunduz, Kandahar, Zabul, Herat, Badghis and Helmand provinces over the last 24 hours. As a result 20 armed Taliban were killed, five wounded and nine others were arrested by the ANSF," the ministry said in a statement.
 

Posted by whisker at 4:14 AM

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