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


Saturday, October 3, 2015

Update II for Saturday, October 3, 2015

[I didn't want this information to step on the previous post -- C]

DoD identifies casualties from crash of C130J at Jalalabad Oct. 2.


Killed were: 
Capt. Jonathan J. Golden, 33, of Camarillo, California. 
Capt. Jordan B. Pierson, 28, of Abilene, Texas. 
Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Hammond, 26, of Moundsville, West Virginia. 
Senior Airman Quinn L. Johnson-Harris, 21, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
 
All four were assigned to the 39th Airlift Squadron, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. For more information, media may contact the 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs Office at 325-696-2863.
 
Also killed were: 
Senior Airman Nathan C. Sartain, 29, of Pensacola, Florida. 
Airman 1st Class Kcey E. Ruiz, 21, of McDonough, Georgia.
 
Both were assigned to the 66th Security Forces Squadron, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. For more information, media may contact the 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs Office at 781-225-1686.
 
The Telegraph's Danielle Moylan has more detail  on MSF's account of the U.S. air attack on their hospital in Kunduz. Some accident:


“This attack is abhorrent and a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law,” said Meinie Nicolai, MSF President. “We demand total transparency from Coalition forces. We cannot accept that this horrific loss of life will simply be dismissed as ‘collateral damage’.”

MSF said that for more than an hour, beginning at 2:08am, their hospital was hit by a series of aerial bombing raids every 15 minutes. The main central hospital building, housing the intensive care unit, emergency rooms, and physiotherapy ward, was repeatedly hit very precisely during each aerial raid.

“The bombs hit and then we heard the plane circle round,” said Heman Nagarathnam, MSF Head of Programmes in northern Afghanistan. “There was a pause, and then more bombs hit. This happened again and again.

“When I made it out from the office, the main hospital building was engulfed in flames. Those people that could had moved quickly to the building’s two bunkers to seek safety. But patients who were unable to escape burned to death as they lay in their beds.”
UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein says that an attack on a hospital is a war crime.

 
 

Posted by Cervantes at 12:03 PM

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