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


Sunday, August 23, 2015

Update for Sunday, August 23, 2015

Car bomb attack on a vehicle carrying mercenaries kills 12 people including 3 Americans working for DynCorp. Sixty-seven people are said to have been injured by the powerful explosion. The attack occurred near a private hospital in Kabul. A local television station identifies one of the dead Americans  as Barry Sutton, a former Floyd County, Georgia Deputy and SWAT Team member.

This was one of several attacks including a bombing that injured 4 Afghan soldiers elsewhere in Kabul, and a bombing that injured 3 Afghan National Civil Order Police in Nangahar.

Bodies of 3 border police abducted last week are found in Ghazni.

A school principal is murdered in Parwan, north of the capital, the second such incident in a week.

Four Pakistani soldiers are killed near the Afghan border by a rocket which the Pakistanis say came from Afghanistan.

Afghan special forces evacuate 60 villagers from a besieged district of Uruzgan. While the army, and Khamaa, portray this as an accomplishment it is of course the abandonment of territory to the insurgency. Meanwhile, the governor of Musa Qala in Helmand says the Taliban are closing in on the center of the district and pleads for reinforcements. A politician says that 45 Afghan soldiers were killed and 20 surrendered in an attack on a security post.








Posted by Cervantes at 5:14 AM

2 comments:

whisker said...

Two coalition soldiers were killed Wednesday in an apparent insider attack by Afghan soldiers at a military base in southwestern Afghanistan, officials reported.

According to a statement from the U.S-led coalition, two individuals in Afghan army uniforms opened fire on a vehicle in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

August 26, 2015 at 3:49 AM
Cervantes said...

Hi Whisker, thanks for stopping by. I'm going to post this and other news.

August 26, 2015 at 10:41 AM

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