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


Thursday, May 22, 2014

War News for Thursday, May 22, 2014


Royal Marine found guilty of murdering Afghan fighter has sentence reduced



Reported security incidents
#1: Taliban fighters kidnapped 27 police officers during an assault on a northeastern province in Afghanistan, authorities said today. Gen Fazeluddin Ayar, the police chief in Badakhshan province, said that the 27 officers were hiding in a cave during the Taliban attack yesterday in Yamgan district. The Taliban took the officers hostage and police have launched an effort to try and find them, Ayar said.

Insurgents ambushed several police checkpoints in Badakhshan province, killing at least six police officers in Yamgan district, Ayar said yesterday. The fighting started late Tuesday and lasted till yesterday. Reinforcements were sent to the site, but the police were forced to pull back from the area and were fighting the Taliban forces from surrounding mountains as army helicopters flew overhead, Ayar said. Five insurgents also were killed, and three policemen were wounded, he added.

#2: Pakistani forces on Thursday launched their first major offensive in years against Taliban militants near the Afghan border after several rounds of government-led talks aimed at ending an insurgency in the remote region failed. The offensive targeted the Matchis Camp near the capital of North Waziristan, an area set up to house Afghan refugees but now a hub for local and foreign militants, Siraj Ahmed, the highest government official in the region, told Reuters by telephone.

#3: Gunmen on Wednesday killed a teacher and five members of his family in Balochistan province, officials said, adding that separatist rebels were believed to be responsible. The attack happened in the Panjgour district. Balochistan is home to a long-running separatist conflict that was revived in 2004, and teachers are reportedly targeted both by nationalist organizations and security forces on suspicion of spying.

#4: Villagers in the southern province of Zabul Tuesday found the decapitated bodies of eight local policemen who were seized two weeks ago, deputy provincial governor Mohammad Jan Rassoulyar told AFP. The policemen were snatched by militants after an attack on their convoy. "Their bodies were discovered in Nawbahar district and we have sent elders to bring them to Qalat (the provincial capital)," he said, adding they were beheaded on Tuesday and found soon afterwards.

#5: Eleven insurgents and four army troops were killed on Wednesday evening in a bloody clash between security forces and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan rebels in the restive Pakistani region of North Waziristan, military officials said. The fighting broke out after rebels attacked an army convoy near Mir Ali, the second largest town of the lawless region, said the Inter Services Public Relations - the Pakistani army’s media outlet - in a press statement on Wednesday.

#6: A bomb blast rocked Afghanistan's Ghazni city on Thursday, leaving a dozen people dead or injured, local official Shafiq Nang said.

#7: A bomb blast rocked Pashtunkot in Faryab province 425 km northwest of Kabul on Wednesday, killing one civilian and injuring 10 others on Wednesday, a police spokesman in the province Sayed Mahmoud Yaqubi said. A bomb planted by militants next to a shop in Takhta bazaar of Pashtunkot district went off at around 10:00 a.m. local time today, killing one civilian on the spot and wounding 10 others, some of them in critical condition," Yaqubi told Xinhua.

#8: At least four Taliban militants were killed following a drone strike in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan, local officials said Wednesday.

Posted by whisker at 3:58 AM

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