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, July 30, 2011

War News for Saturday, July 30, 2011

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers from an IED attack in an undisclosed location in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, July 29th,


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Three Iraqi civilians have been injured in an explosive charge blast in southern Baghdad on Friday night, a security source reported. “An explosive charge blew off on Friday night in southern Baghdad’s Saydiya district, wounding 3 civilians, the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Diyala Prv:
#1: Armed men killed one policeman and a government-backed Sunni Sahwa militia member when they opened fire on a joint police-Sahwa foot patrol in Baquba, 65km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a Diyala police source said.


Taji:
#1: Two Iraqi civilians have been killed and 5 others, among them 2 women and 2 children, have been injured in 3 explosive charges blasts in northern Baghdad’s Taji district, 20 km to the north of the Iraqi Capital, a security source reported on Saturday. “Three explosive charges blew up on Friday night, close to a house in Umm-al-Hadayil village in northern Baghdad’s Taji district, killing 2 civilians and wounding 5 others, including 2 women and 2 children,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Salah al Din Prv:
#1: US troops killed three Iraqi civilians and injured six during a Saturday pre-dawn raid on a village in the province of Salah al-Din, north of Baghdad, a local clan chief said. Sheikh Youssef Ahmed Hassan said the US forces opened fire after a local villager fired into the air. 'The villager thought that the US troops were operatives from al-Qaeda,' he told the German Press Agency dpa. An exchange of fire between the villagers and the US soldiers left three local men dead, and four women and two children injured, according to Hassan.


Irbil Prv:
#1: An Iraqi Kurdish citizen has been killed and large numbers of citizens of northern Arbil’s Choman border township with Iran, were force to leave their villages, due to Iranian bombardment of the area on Friday, a military source in the Border Guards Command reported. “A citizen in a Choman village has been killed due to artillery bombardment by the Iranian side on the village on Friday,” the source stressed, adding that about 40-50 families from the areas that came under bombardment were forced to desert their villages.

A shepherd was killed late on Thursday during clashes between the PJAK rebel group and Iranian Revolutionary Guards along Iraq's border with Iran, an Arbil provincial hospital official said. Arbil is 310 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad


Kirkuk:
#1: Two cops were injured by a bomb blast south of Kirkuk, police sources said here. The source told Aswat al-Iraq that an emergency patrol unit found a bomb near a mosque, south of the city. Anti-bombs squad arrived, but the bomb exploded by itself which resulted in injuring two cops.

#2: Iraqi police found the body of a man in his twenties with gunshot wounds in eastern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, a source from the Kirkuk police operations centre said.


Mosul:
#1: A civilian was killed today by a sticky bomb north of Mosul, security sources said here.

#2: Gunmen shot dead a civilian in western Mosul late on Thursday, a Nineveh police source said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: An Afghan official says seven Afghan soldiers and a translator were killed alongside two NATO service members in a bombing and ambush in eastern Paktia province. The deputy provincial governor of Paktia, Abdul Rahman Mangal, said Saturday the soldiers and a translator were killed on Friday while on patrol in the Zurmat district of the province. Mangal says the troops were on a joint patrol when a roadside bomb detonated. He added that the patrol was then attacked by insurgents. He did not have any further information on other casualties or wounded.

#2: Ten Shiite Muslims and another man were killed on Saturday when gunmen opened fire in an apparent sectarian attack in southwestern Pakistan, police said. The shooting took place on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas-rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. "Gunmen opened fire on a passenger van carrying Shiite Muslims. Ten Shiites and a passer-by were killed and four injured in the attack," senior police officer Jamil Ahmad Kakar told AFP by telephone. Kakar said the unidentified gunmen stood by the roadside spraying bullets at the van before they fled the scene in a waiting car.

#3: An explosive device went off in a NATO supply oil taker in Sadu Khel area of Landikotal here on Friday, however, no casualty was reported. Official sources said that last morning an Afghanistan bound Nato supply tanker (TLT 350) was blown up by non-disclosed militants by installing explosive device to it. When it had been parked on the roadside. The explosive had been fit in the middle portion of tanker, the sources said. The oil in the tanker caught fire and wasted while destroyed the tanker, the sources said. The fire flames melted the electricity lines, which suspended the power supply to Khyber Zakha Khel areas.

#4: Seven people were killed and one wounded when two unknown gunmen opened fire at a transport company's office in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, police said. The dead include two Uzbeks and one Iranian national, said senior police official Hamid Shakeel. The transport company runs buses from Quetta to Taftan, a city that borders Iran, he said.

#5: At least 10 people were wounded in a bomb blast in Mastung district of Baluchistan province.

#6: Three coaches of a passenger train derailed after a blast ripped off a portion of a track in the Jaffarabad district of southwestern Baluchistan province, police said. There were no casualties.

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