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, October 9, 2013

War News for Wednesday, October 09, 2013


In Pakistan, vaccinating children against polio can be a deadly job


Reported security incidents
#1: A security official says a suicide car bombing has killed four people, two civilians and two policemen, in southern Afghanistan. Police spokesman for southern Helmand province, Shamem Noorzai, says Wednesday's attack took place in the Gareshk district. He says the bomber targeted a police patrol and blew up his car next to a police vehicle in a crowded area of the town of Gareshk. Noorzai says the explosion also wounded three civilians and a police officer.

#2: Three tribespeople hailing from the Khyber Agency were among those killed in the Nato airstrike in Pikha area in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, local sources said on Tuesday.The sources said that five others persons belonging to Khyber Agency sustained injuries the attack.


DoD: 1st Lt. Jennifer M. Moreno

DoD: Sgt. Patrick C. Hawkins

DoD: Sgt. Joseph M. Peters

DoD: Pfc. Cody J. Patterson

Posted by whisker at 4:23 AM

2 comments:

Cervantes said...

The families of Moreno, Hawkins, Peters and Patterson will have to pay their own way to Dover AFB to pick up the bodies; and won't get any money to bury them. Thanks John Boehner and Ted Cruz.

Meanwhile, Hamid Karzai trashes the U.S.:

" With the United States weighing a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of next year, President Hamid Karzai offered a stinging critique of the American-led campaign here, saying that coalition forces had inflicted needless suffering on Afghans. “They could leave,” he said in an interview with the BBC.

The focus of the war, Mr. Karzai said, should have been insurgent training camps and havens across the border in Pakistan, not “in Afghan villages, causing harm to Afghan people.”

October 9, 2013 at 10:30 AM
Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
October 11, 2013 at 7:25 AM

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