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, October 14, 2014

War News for Tuesday, October 14, 2014


Reported security incidents
#1: Six police officers were killed in an attack on a police post in Baraki district of Logar Province, south of Kabul, local officials said.

#2: The Interior Ministry said two civilians were killed and three others injured in a roadside bombing in Kabul.

#3: ambush by Taliban fighters killed at least 14 Afghan security force troops, authorities said Monday. The ambush in Sari Pul, where Taliban fighters reportedly have been massing for days, happened Sunday in its Kohistanat district. There, militants opened fire on an Afghan Army unit heading back to the capital after several months being deployed there, killing 12 soldiers and two police officers, said Kazim Kenhan, a spokesman for the provincial police chief. Kenhan said 13 troops and four police officers were wounded and six troops are missing after the ambush there.

#4: In Paktia province, hundreds of villagers protested over their allegation that a NATO airstrike killed seven civilians in an operation NATO said killed "eight armed enemy combatants."

#5: About 26 Taliban militants have been killed in fresh military operations in three provinces within the past 24 hours, said the country's Interior Ministry on Tuesday morning.

Posted by whisker at 4:47 AM

1 comments:

Dancewater said...

good ole US-led NATO.... killing innocent people around the planet for decades and decades, and Americans too dumb (or lazy? or evil?) to stop it.

October 14, 2014 at 6:20 AM

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