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


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

War News for Tuseday, August 20, 2013

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a direct fire attack in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, August 20th.


After almost fourteen years the UK DoD re-release the names of fourteen people killed in the September 2nd Nimrod crash.
 
MARSOC sergeant killed in Afghanistan ATV accident, investigation says
 
In Afghanistan, redeployed U.S. soldiers still coping with PTSD


Reported security incidents
#1: Up to 11 militants were killed, 11 injured and 37 others detained in cleanup operations in different Afghan provinces within the past 24 hours, said the country’s Interior Ministry Tuesday morning. “Over the last 24 hours, Afghan National Police (ANP) in collaboration with the army and NATO-led coalition forces conducted several clearance operations in Nangarhar, Kunduz, Balkh, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Ghazni provinces. As a result 11 armed Taliban were killed, 11 wounded and 37 others were arrested,” the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.

Clash between militants and Afghan security forces left 18 Taliban fighters and two police dead in Zana Khan district of Ghazni province on Tuesday, a local official said.

#2: update A dozen police and 70 Taliban are dead after insurgents attacked a convoy in the western Afghan province of Farah, the security forces said Monday. Twenty-two other officers were wounded and five vehicles destroyed in Sunday's assault, a police chief in neighbouring Herat province, Abdul Hamid, told Afghan news agency AIP on Monday.

#3: A Taliban planted Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) killed a 70-year-old man in Panjwai district of southern Kandahar province early Tuesday morning, an official said.

Posted by whisker at 4:39 AM

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