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


Thursday, June 28, 2007





Photograph from "Tales of a Lonely Army Wife" SGT Trista Moretti died in Iraq on June 25th, 2007, from an indirect rocket (mortar, rocket, etc) attack in the vicinity of the village of Nasir Laftah southeast of Iskandariyah in Babil Province. "I got a horrible phone call early this morning from someone I used to work with. A friend of mine, who was stationed in Iraq, was killed yesterday in her sleep when her trailer was hit. SGT Trista Moretti was an amazing person...."

(1) The DoD has announced a new death, not previously reported by CENTCOM. Army Sergeant Trista L. Moretti, 27, of South Plainfield, New Jersey, was killed in an indirect fire attack in the vicinity of the village of Nasir Laftah southeast of Iskandariyah in Babil Province on Monday, June 25th. She was assigned to the 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, elements of which are currently stationed in Iskandariyah. A friend of Moretti's has written a brief blog entry on the death, saying that she died in her sleep when a rocket hit her trailer. Her friend described Moretti as "military intelligence" and went on to say that she "was hilarious and beautiful and had this great Jersey accent."

(2) MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier in a roadside bombing in an eastern neighborhood of Baghdad on Wednesday, June 27th. Four other soldiers were wounded in the attack.

(3) The British Ministry of Defense has announced the deaths of three of its soldiers in a roadside bombing in the southeast Basra City district of Al Amtahiya on Thursday, June 28th. They were on dismounted patrol at the time of the blast. One other British soldier is reported to be in very serious condition. Two of the dead were from the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland. The third death was from the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Welsh (The Royal Regiment of Wales).
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(4) MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier in a roadside bombing in an eastern neighborhood of Baghdad on Thursday, June 28th. One other soldier was wounded in the attack.

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Baghdad:
#1: On Thursday morning, a car bomb exploded at a bus station in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding 31 others, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said. The attack at 8:15 a.m. (12:15 a.m. ET) burned at least 40 cars and damaged a half-dozen shops in the predominately Shiite Bayaa neighborhood.

A car bomb attack on a mini-bus and taxi meeting point in Baghdad killed at least 30 people and injured 50 others Thursday morning, according to a police source. The bombe went off in the southern Bayaa district during morning rush-hour when the area was particularly crowded. Bayaa is mostly inhabited by Shiites. The number of casualties is expected to rise due to the severity of the blast.

#2: two people died and 14 others were wounded when two mortar rounds landed in the busy Shurja market in central Baghdad.

#3: three mortar rounds slammed into a popular shopping district in central Baghdad, killing three pedestrians, police said. The attack damaged shops in the Shorja market area and wounded 14 people, an officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to media.

#4: A mortar attack killed two people and wounded another in the eastern New Baghdad district, police said.

#5: Four people were wounded by a roadside bomb in a busy market in northern Baghdad's Shaab district, police said.

#6: A car bomb killed at least five people and wounded 11 others as it targeted a long queue of cars waiting for petrol in western Baghdad's Mansour district, police said. 16 cars were burnt in the blast.
#7: A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed when a combat patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in an eastern section of the Iraqi capital June 28. One other Soldier was wounded in the attack

#8: A road side bomb exploded near Al Tobchi not far from Ibn Haian bridge targeting a U.S. military convoy. Two Iraqi civilians were injured.

#9: A road side bomb exploded in Bayaa targeting a U.S. military convoy. 2 Iraqi civilians were injured.

#10: One civilian was killed and 1 was injured when gunmen in a speeding car started shooting randomly at people in Amil neighborhood.

#11: An IED exploded in Doura neighborhood. The explosion targeted civilians. 3 civilians were injured.

#12: A mortar shell landed in the Green Zone. No casualties report.

#13: A mortar shell landed in Al Sadriya. 3 civilians were injured.

#14: A mortar shell landed in Al Fadhl. 4 civilians were killed.

#15: A mortar shell landed in Al Zafaraniyah. 1 civilian was killed and 1 was injured.

#16: A mortar shell landed in Al Rashad. 1 civilian was killed and 2 were injured.

#17: A mortar shell landed in Al Karada area near Abu Nawas street. 2 civilians were injured.

#18: Police found 15 dead bodies in Baghdad 4 in Amil, 2 in Saidiyah, 2 in Doura, 2 in Bayaa, 2 in Kasra Wa Atash, 1 in Rashad, 1 in Al Wihda, 1 in Al Zafaraniyah.


Diyala Prv:
#1: The U.S. military said it had killed at least 60 al Qaeda operatives in Operation Arrowhead Ripper, an offensive in and around the city of Baquba in Diyala province that began 10 days ago. The military said 74 al Qaeda militants were detained and 31 weapons caches discovered.

Madaen:
#1: Iraqi national police said they found 20 decapitated bodies Thursday in the town of Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, according to an Interior Ministry official. Iraqi security and coalition forces were being sent to the location to investigate, the official said. Madaen is about 15 miles (25 km) southeast of the Iraqi capital.


Salman Pak:
#1: Sporadic clashes had been under way in the Salman Pak area for several days, between Interior Ministry commandos and suspected insurgents, the Kut officer said. It was unclear whether the discovery of the bodies was related to the recent fighting. At the time, ground forces commander Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said U.S. troops were heading into those areas in force for the first time in three years.


Nasiriyah:
#1: In Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, local police said two suspected militants were killed early Thursday morning when the bomb they were planting near a house of a U.S. translator detonated prematurely.


Basra:
#1: It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the deaths of two soldiers from The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, and one soldier from 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh (The Royal Regiment of Wales) in Basra, southern Iraq this morning, Thursday 28 June 2007. The three soldiers were killed by an Improvised Explosive Device attack. The device detonated at approximately 0100 hrs local time against the soldiers, who were dismounted from a Warrior patrol in the Al Amtahiya district in the south east of Basra City.

#2: Five Iraqi civilians were killed by a British chopper in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a police source said on Thursday. "A British helicopter opened fire against a civilian vehicle on Wednesday night in al-Hussein neighborhood in western Basra, killing the five civilians onboard," the source, who declined to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq. "The attack came after a shootout that flared up in the neighborhood between two tribes, al-Sawari and al-Shuwaylat," the source added. No word was immediately available from the British army on the incident.


Mosul:
#1: Two Assyrian men were killed yesterday, online Arabic webzine Ankawa.com reports. According to the police, Zuhair Youssef Astavo Kermles, 49, and Luay Solomon Numan, 21, from the National Union of Beth Nahrin, were killed in a drive by shooting at the small Christian community of Mosul



Al Anbar Prv:
#1: A policeman was killed and another was injured on Thursday in an attack by gunmen in central Falluja, a police source from the Falluja police department said. "Unidentified gunmen attacked two policemen while shopping in the Falluja marketplace in al-Andalous neighborhood in the center of the city at 11:00 am on Thursday," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq



Afghanistan:
#1: A suicide car bomber hit a convoy of security contractors in the Afghan capital Thursday, killing an American and a Nepalese citizen and wounding three other Americans, police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Two Afghan civilians were wounded in the attack in eastern Kabul, said Najibullah Samsur, a local police chief. "There were two foreigner vehicles that passed near my shop and a third private vehicle hit them, causing the explosion," said Ahmad Shah, whose shop is close to the blast site. He said the attacker's vehicle and two of the contractors' vehicles caught fire after the explosion.

#2: The second suicide bomb on Thursday struck a vehicle of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in a remote area of the eastern province of Paktika, ISAF and an eyewitness said. "It was a car bomb," ISAF spokesman Major John Thomas said. "We have got ISAF casualties and Afghan local national casualties ... from what we know now they are all injuries," he told AFP. A witness, Mohammad Shah, said the attacker had driven a bomb-filled car into an ISAF vehicle near a hospital being built with help from the foreign forces. "I saw eight civilians wounded and one 18-year-old civilian is killed," he said.

#3: In other violence linked to the insurgency, the governor of the western province of Farah said Thursday that Taliban militants had beheaded three off-duty Afghan policemen. The three were returning to work after holidays on Tuesday and the bus they were travelling in was stopped by armed militants, governor Muhaidin Baluch told AFP. "The three were beheaded by Taliban," he said.

#4: ISAF reported meanwhile that it had killed "several extremists" in a battle in the southern province of Uruzgan on Wednesday

As always I'll add updates as needed.


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