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, January 21, 2014

War News for Tuesday, January 21, 2014


Reported security incidents
#1: Pakistani jets and helicopter gunships bombarded suspected Taliban hideouts in a northwestern tribal district Tuesday, killing at least 25 people, in response to two major bombings targeting the military. The focus of Tuesday's operation was North Waziristan tribal district, a stronghold for Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants on the border with Afghanistan.

#2: Separately fighters pounded suspected Taliban hideouts in Tirah valley, part of Khyber, another of the seven tribal districts, killing four militants.

#3: Unknown gunmen on Tuesday seized more than 60 Afghan workers clearing Soviet-era anti-tank mines in western Herat province, the largest mass kidnapping undertaken in an economically important area now beset by security problems.

#4: Three members of polio vaccination teams were shot dead Tuesday in the southern city of Karachi, in the latest attack by Islamic militants on health workers trying to inoculate children against the crippling disease. At least two other health workers were injured when gunmen on motorbikes opened fire in the city's southern Qayuumabad residential area--close to the city center.

#4: Units of Afghan police backed by the army have killed more than a dozen Taliban militants during series of operations across the country over the past 24 hours, Interior Ministry said in a statement released here on Tuesday.

#5: A roadside bomb struck civilian car in Taliban former stronghold the southern Kandahar Province on Tuesday, killing three civilians and injuring another, spokesman for Kandahar's provincial government Jawed Faisal said.

#6: A senior Taliban was among three militants who were killed following clashes in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan, local officials said. The militants were killed in restive Andar district of Ghazni province following clashes with the Afghan security forces, Andar district chief Qasim Desiwal said.

#7: According to local authorities in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan, at least 21 mortar shells landed in two separate districts in the latest wave of cross-border shelling from Pakistani soil. Provincial security chief, Abdul Habib Syed Kheli confirming the report, said the artillery shells landed in Dangam and Kunar Khas districts on Monday night.

Posted by whisker at 4:03 AM

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