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


Monday, October 13, 2014

War News for Monday, October 13, 2014


Reported security incidents
#1: Officials in Afghanistan say a suicide car bomber has struck a NATO convoy in the capital, Kabul, killing one civilian and wounding three others. No casualties among international troops have been reported. The attack took place Monday morning near a housing compound for NATO contractors on the main road leading to Jalalabad.

An Afghan civilian has been killed and three foreigners injured in a suicide bomb attack in the capital Kabul. The three foreign security contractors were travelling in a convoy in the west of the city.

#2: Twenty-one militants were killed in air strikes by jet fighters in North Waziristan and Khyber tribal agencies on Sunday.

#3: A bomb blast launched by militants targeted the vehicle of an advisor to Afghanistan's finance ministry injuring him along with two others in the northern Kunduz city on Monday, police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said.

#4: At least three Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were martyred following a suicide attack in central Maidan Wardak province on Sunday. According to local government officials, the incident took place in Syedabad district on Sunday afternoon. Provincial governor spokesman, Ataullah Khogyani said the suicide bomber rammed a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) into the convoy of the Afghan National Army (ANA) forces.

Posted by whisker at 3:07 AM

1 comments:

Cervantes said...

Taliban ambush a security convoy in Sari Pol, kill 22 soldiers and police. Also (same link) residents of Paktia say a NATO airstrike killed civilians gathering firewood, NATO of course claims the dead were insurgents, as they always do.

October 13, 2014 at 12:37 PM

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