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, March 5, 2014

War News for Wednesday, March 05, 2014


Reported security incidents
#1: A roadside bomb on Wednesday killed six soldiers in Pakistan's troubled northwest, officials said, the latest violence to hit the country since a ceasefire between the government and Taliban insurgents began. The remote-controlled device hit a convoy of the paramilitary Frontier Corps as it was moving from the town of Hangu to Kurram district, one of seven tribal areas along the Afghan border where militants have strongholds. A security official in Peshawar, the main city in the northwest, told AFP the blast killed six soldiers and wounded eight.

#2: About seven policemen were killed following a Taliban armed attack on a security checkpoint in northern Afghanistan's province of Faryab overnight, sources said on Wednesday. "Militants numbered 10 or 12 launched an attack on Afghan Local Police (ALP) checkpoint in Unbiggi area of Qaisar province at midnight, leaving seven ALP cops killed," the district governor Abdul Jamil Seddiqi told Xinhua.

#3: Two civilians were killed and 10 others sustained injuries in two blasts in Faryab province with Maimana as its capital on Tuesday evening, provincial police chief Toryali Abdyani said Wednesday. "A mine planted by anti-government militants went off in Badghisi village of Khaja Sabzposh district Tuesday evening, and when people gathered to know what happened there, the second blast occurred killing two civilian villagers and wounding 10 others," Abdyani told Xinhua.

#4: A roadside bomb struck police vehicle in Uruzgan province with Trinkot as its capital 370 km south of Kabul on Wednesday killing two police and wounding another, a local official said. "A mine planted by Taliban rebels in Sarakala area outside provincial capital Trinkot hit a police vehicle at 10:10 a.m. local time today leaving two police dead and injured another," the official told Xinhua but declined to be identified, saying authorized officials would brief the media after investigation.

Posted by whisker at 4:03 AM

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