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, February 6, 2018

Update for Tuesday, February 6, 2018

U.S. general in charge of coalition in Iraq says 5,600 U.S. troops in that country will become an "enduring presence" to work with Iraqi partners to finally defeat IS.

However, PM Abadi says there is a plan for gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Two Iranian backed militias, however, have a different view and want U.S. forces to leave now, and one of them, Kataib Hezbollah which is linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, threatens to attack U.S. forces.

Kurdish president Erdogan tells U.S. to leave the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij and threatens confrontation over the issue:

“You are still telling us not to approach Manbij. We will come to Manbij to give it back to its true owners,” Erdogan said, repeating his earlier remarks about the Kurdish enclave of Afrin attacked by his army and Islamist proxies for three weeks now. Kurdish officials from both Syria and Turkey interpreted Erdogan’s remarks as a threat of ethnic cleansing in the isolated Kurdish district.

Head of Afrin’s Health Committee Angelo Resho announced that continued Turkish airstrikes and ground shelling have killed 148 civilians and wounded 365 others.  Unlike the eastern flank of Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), from Manbij to the border with Iraq, the US does not have a military presence in Afrin which remained the most peaceful part of Syria, intact from the ravaging effects of the seven-year-long civil war until Turkey’s invasion. Erdogan has vowed to capture all of the de facto autonomous Rojava, despite US forces’ presence there.
Kurdish professor planning to run for parliament is murdered.


 

Posted by Cervantes at 1:03 PM

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