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


Friday, September 26, 2014

War News for Friday, September 26, 2014


Reported security incidents
#1: Hundreds of Taliban fighters have stormed a strategic district in an Afghan province not far from the capital, killing dozens of people in five days of fighting and the insurgents could capture the area, officials said today. The Ghazni provincial government has lost contact with police in the province’s western district of Ajrestan, said Asadullah Safi, deputy police chief of the area. The attack by an estimated 700 Taliban fighters began about five days ago and early reports were that more than 100 people had been killed, including 15 who were beheaded by the militants, said provincial deputy governor Ahmadullah Ahmadi.

An Afghan official says Taliban insurgents have beheaded 12 civilians and torched some 60 homes in an assault on security forces in the eastern Ghazni province. The province's deputy police chief Asadullah Ensafi says the Taliban have attacked several villages over the past week in the Arjistan district. He says that on Thursday night they captured and beheaded 12 family members of local and national police and burned down 60 homes. He added that the battle was still raging. Ensafi says the Taliban also detonated a car bomb in front of an encampment where some 40 police were posted. He said it was not immediately possible to reach the area to ascertain casualties because the insurgents had mined the roads.

#2: Two persons were killed and eight others, including two women and two police personnel, were injured when a bomb targeting senior anti-terror police officer SSP Farooq Awan went off in Defence area of Karachi on Thursday evening.

Posted by whisker at 3:51 AM

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