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


Friday, March 7, 2014

War News for Fridaay, March 07, 2014


Pakistan ready for military operation if Taleban talks fail


Soldier suicides --

Initial findings, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, are unsettling. Suicide rates among soldiers doubled from 2004 to 2009, during the height of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, to as many as 30 per 100,000 troops.
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2014/03/07/Soldier-suicides.html#4bFCHj4FrOeQcy9g.99
Initial findings, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, are unsettling. Suicide rates among soldiers doubled from 2004 to 2009, during the height of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, to as many as 30 per 100,000 troops.
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2014/03/07/Soldier-suicides.html#4bFCHj4FrOeQcy9g.99


Reported security incidents
#1: An Afghan provincial official says a motorcycle bomb was remotely detonated in a crowded market in the country's south, killing five people and wounding eight. Omar Zawaq, the spokesman for the governor of southern Helmand province, says the motorcycle exploded on Friday in the center of the market in Marjah. It's a resitive district, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

#2: Afghan security forces raided a Taliban hideout in eastern Laghman province, killing five militants on Thursday, a local official said. "Units of national security stormed a Taliban hideout in Badpakh district Thursday morning killing five rebels including a commander named Mullah Hazrat and his brother named Khayal," spokesman for provincial administration Sarhadi Zawak told Xinhua.


UK/MoD: Sapper Adam Moralee has died in Afghanistan

Posted by whisker at 4:14 AM

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