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


Wednesday, December 17, 2014

War News for Wednesday, December 17, 2014


Reported security incidents
#1: Taliban militants detonated a suicide bomb and stormed a bank in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least six people as the country endures a rise in violence while US-led NATO troops pull out. The attackers forced their way inside after the bomb exploded at the entrance of the Kabul Bank branch in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the insurgency-racked province of Helmand. "The blast at the gate was a suicide attacker blowing himself up to open the way for others to enter the building," Omar Zhwak, provincial spokesman for Helmand, told AFP. "The fighting is still ongoing. Our latest report show six people, including three police, have been killed and seven wounded.

#2: A U.S. drone strike in eastern Afghanistan killed four Pakistani Taliban and seven other insurgents, a district official said Wednesday. Mahlem Mashuq, the governor of Sherzad district in Nangarhar province, said the drone's missiles hit a pickup truck killing all 11 occupants on Tuesday afternoon

#3: A Taliban shadow governor was killed along with seven militants during a military operation in northern Afghanistan's province of Badakhshan overnight, said a police source on Wednesday morning.

#4: 34 insurgents were killed, 27 wounded and 12 others arrested during the clearance operations across the country.

#5: An explosion occurred in 3rd precinct of Jalalabad city this morning. Dr. Homayoon Zaheer head of public health department of Nangarhar province told BNA, two policemen were wounded in the incident and have been taken to hospital, but security organs said nothing about the incident.

#6: Clashes between locals and armed Taliban entered its 3rd day, chief of Kunar provincial police department BG. Abdul Habib Sayed Khail told BNA adding that as a result of this clash a number of residential houses in Dangam district were also set ablaze.

Posted by whisker at 3:22 AM

2 comments:

Cervantes said...

Whoo boy. Kurdish publication Shafaq News reports that U.S. troops participated in a ground battle with IS in Anbar. "An Iraqi Army field commander in Anbar said that "the US force equipped with light and medium weapons, supported by fighter force model F-18" was able to hit Islamic State targets, forcing them to retreat from Al-Dolab. . . . The American forces returned to Ain Al-Assad base after the mission, according to Nimrawi, who added that the "US promised to provide tribal fighters who are in that region exclusively with weapons.”

The United States has not confirmed this claim.

December 17, 2014 at 11:35 AM
Dancewater said...

hey, 15 years ago, I never would have suspected American's potential to be ass-rapers. But the CIA has been doing it all over the planet, and the US military most certainly did it at Abu Ghraib.

But there will be no American outrage until we see the videos - which the CIA destroyed. The Abu Ghraib ones have not been released. yet.

December 17, 2014 at 7:29 PM

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