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, October 2, 2010

War News for Saturday, October 02, 2010

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from an non-hostile injury attack in undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan on Friday, October 1st.

NATO is reporting the deaths of two ISAF soldiers from an IED attack in an undisclosed area in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, October 1st.


NATO supplies in Pakistan remain blocked

US War Crimes in Fallujah

Accord Paves Way for Re-election of Iraq Premier

U.S. struggles to counter Taliban propaganda


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Unidentified gunmen attacked a presidential guard officer and left him wounded in central Baghdad on Friday, an Iraqi police source said. “A Lt. Colonel from the Presidential Guard force was wounded in an attack by unknown gunmen while he was inside his private vehicle in al-Karrada, central Baghdad,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Mosul:
#1: A lawmaker from Iyad Allawi’s al-Iraqiya bloc escaped an assassination attempt with an improvised explosive device (IED) southwest of Mosul city on Friday, a local police source in Ninewa said. “An IED went off near the motorcade of Ahmed Al-Abdullah, a legislator from al-Iraqiya, close to his house in the village of al-Safina, al-Shoura district, southwest of Mosul,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. “Al-Abdullah escaped the attempt unscathed,” the source said, adding the explosion, which took place five meters away from the Abdullah’s vehicle, left no casualties but caused some damage.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Two suspected American missile strikes killed 12 alleged militants in a northwestern Pakistan tribal region Saturday, intelligence officials said. Four suspected U.S. missiles struck a house Saturday morning in Datta Khel village in the North Waziristan tribal region, killing eight suspected militants, the Pakistani intelligence officials said. Four other missiles hit a different house in the area later Saturday, killing four more suspected insurgents, they said.

#2: update Assailants launched two separate attacks on tankers carrying fuel for foreign troops in Afghanistan on Friday, showing the vulnerability of NATO supply lines a day after the Pakistani government itself shut one down.

Men believed to be militants set fire to 35 tankers in Pakistan that were carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Friday, officials said, a day after three soldiers were killed in a cross-border NATO airstrike.

In another part of Pakistan, two unidentified men fired on a NATO tanker traveling through a town in Baluchistan Province toward Afghanistan. Two people burned to death after the vehicle caught fire, security officials said.

#3: Unidentified gunmen shot dead a prominent religious scholar in Pakistan's troubled northwest on Saturday, police and witnesses said. Gunmen sprayed bullets on Dr. Farooq Khan at his clinic in Mardan, a main city some 60 kilometers from Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province. Farooq Khan was a renowned physiatrist and Vice-Chancellor of an Islamic University and had been critical of extremism and militancy.


DoD: Lance Cpl. Timothy M. Jackson

DoD: Sgt. Justin A. Officer

DoD: Sgt. 1st Class Calvin B. Harrison

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