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, September 16, 2014

War News for Tuesday, September 16, 2014

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an ANA soldier who turned his weapon against an ISAF soldier in western Afghanistan on Monday September 15th. News reports that an ANA soldier shot his trainer in Herat Province. 
 
NATO is reporting the deaths of three ISAF soldiers from an insurgant attack in Kabul, Afghanistan on Tuesday, September 16th. News reports that a sucide bomber attacked a NATO convoy killing at least three soldiers including a Polish soldier.


Military suicides outnumbered deaths in Afghanistan, new stats show (Canadian Army)


Reported security incidents
#1: A group of militants attacked a Pakistan army post from neighboring Afghanistan Tuesday morning, sparking a shootout that left 11 insurgents and three soldiers killed. A group of terrorists" crossed over from Afghanistan and attacked the army's Dandi Kuch post in North Waziristan before fleeing back, the military said in a statement.

#2: Also Tuesday, Pakistani warplanes targeted three militant hideouts in a Taliban stronghold in the Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least 20 insurgents.

#3: An Frontier Corps (FC) vehicle was partially damaged in an explosion on Joint Road in Quetta on Tuesday. However, no loss of life was reported in the blast. “The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) packed in a cooking oil box was planted beside the Shaheed Benazeer Bhutto flyover on Joint Road. An explosion was caused as the detonator of the IED exploded, and splinters and other destructive objects were spread on the site,” an official at the scene of the blast told reporters.

#4: a suicide bomber blew himself up in a parking lot of oil tankers in the border town of Torkham linking Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province to Peshawar of Pakistan late Monday night, burning to ashes more than 20 oil tankers.

#5: At least two civilians were killed and three others were injured following an improvised explosive device (IED) explosion in southern Helmand province.

#6: Taliban militants beheaded a religious cleric in central Uruzgan province of Afghanistan, local officials said Tuesday.

Posted by whisker at 5:03 AM

1 comments:

Cervantes said...

Minister of the Interior Umer Daudzai admits the truth he's been covering up until now: "Daudzai stated that in the first six months of the year, 955 civilians 1,523 police officers were killed and another 2,394 civilians and 2,506 police officers were injured [in Taliban attacks]." Funny thing how his daily reports never mention a single government or civilian casualty. That's why I've pretty much stopped linking them.

September 16, 2014 at 8:57 AM

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