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, December 1, 2014

War News for Monday, December 1, 2014


Iraq's army weakened from within by 50,000 'ghost' soldiers


Reported security incidents
#1: Taliban suicide attackers killed the South African leader of a foreign aid group, his son and daughter and an Afghan worker in an assault on the agency's Kabul offices, authorities said Sunday, as the city's police chief resigned in the wake of the latest insurgent attack there.

AFP reports that 46-year-old Werner Groenewald, his 17 year-old-son Jean-Pierre and his 15-year-old daughter Rhode were killed yesterday during a Taliban attack targeting foreigners in Kabul.

#2: An Afghan official says a suicide bomber detonated his payload at a crowded funeral, killing two police and seven civilians. Taj Mohammed Taqwa, chief of the Burka district in the Baghlan province north of Kabul, says the attacker appeared to be targeting police and local officials, including him, who were among some 1,000 people attending Monday's funeral.

#3: Units of police backed by the army have killed 11 Taliban militants during series of operations across the country over the past 24 hours, Interior Ministry said in a statement released here on Monday.

#4: Mine blast target a convoy of Afghan military forces in Logar province today. The incident occurred in Pul-e-Alam city capital of Logar province. A local official of Logar in a contact with BNA said that in the incident, the military forces of Logar and acting governor office have been targeted. He said nothing about the possible losses of the incident.

Posted by whisker at 3:04 AM

2 comments:

Cervantes said...

A U.S. F-16 pilot has been killed in a crash in Jordan. Although the Pentagon is saying this was a "non-combat" incident, the plane was on its way to a combat mission -- presumably an attack on IS - when it suffered a mechanical failure, so that's a matter of definition, I would say.

December 1, 2014 at 12:09 PM
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January 14, 2019 at 2:55 AM

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