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, November 4, 2013

War News for Monday, November 04, 2013

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a small arms weapon attack in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, November 3rd.


As U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan, poppy trade it spent billions fighting still flourishes

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Reported security incidents
#1: Suspected militants hurled grenades at a tribal meeting in northwest Pakistan Sunday, killing at least four Shia Muslims and wounding two others in an apparent sectarian attack, officials said.

#2: Seventeen Taliban militants have been killed, 10 others have surrendered in two days of counter- insurgency operations, and three employees of the government- backed election commission sustained injuries over the past two days in conflict-ridden Afghanistan, officials said Monday.

#3: However, a mine planted by anti-government militants, presumably by Taliban militants struck a vehicle of the election commission on Sunday in Ghor province with Cheghcheran as its capital, 360 km west of Kabul, injuring three workers of the election body.

Posted by whisker at 4:52 AM

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