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


Monday, May 9, 2011

War News for Monday, May 09, 2011

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a non-combat related injury in an undisclosed location in western Afghanistan on Monday, May 9th.


Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: A roadside bomb in central Baghdad went off near a police patrol and wounded six people, including two policemen, police said.

Iraqi police and health officials say a roadside bomb has detonated near a police patrol in central Baghdad, killing two civilians. A police officer says seven people, including four civilians, were also wounded in Monday's blast in the capital's Firdous Square. A doctor at a nearby hospital confirmed the causality figures.

#2: A roadside bomb wounded seven people, including a policeman, in Sadr City, a district in northeast Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

#3: Two civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb in Baghdad's southern district of Doura, an Interior Ministry source said.

#4: A sticky bomb attached to the car of Hassan Jasim, a leader at the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), killed him in northeast of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

#5: A bomb planted in front of a liquor store in central Baghdad wounded the owner and burned down the shop, late on Sunday, an Interior Ministry source said.

#6: A Director General in the Iraqi Police has escaped an assassination attempt by an explosive charge blast against his motorcade that wounded 6 persons, including 3 of his guards, a Baghdad security source said on Monday. “Major-General, Sabah al-Shibly, the Director General of Police in Iraq, has escaped an assassination attempt, when an explosive charge blew off against his motorcade in central Baghdad’s al-Firdous Square, wounding six persons, including 3 of his guards and causing damage to several cars of the motorcade,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Mosul:
#1: A border policeman was killed in a clash with smugglers on the Iraqi-Syrian border late on Sunday in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Tal Afar:
#1: Gunmen using weapons equipped with silencers shot dead an electricity operator, late on Sunday in Talafar, about 420 km (260 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: Militants attacked a group of police officers Monday in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, killing at least six of them and wounding four, officials said. The officers were hit by a roadside bomb and then came under fire not far from the police headquarters in Deh Yak district, a BBC report said. "The group of our police [was] leaving for the provincial capital of Ghazni," a security official told the BBC. "It was a shock because the attack took place so close to the district headquarters."

#2: A suicide bomber in Afghanistan has killed three civilians and injured five others in an attack near a government office, officials say. The blast took place close to the district government compound in Qarghayi, Laghman province, eastern Afghanistan on Monday. "Three civilians were killed and another five civilians were wounded in the suicide attack today," provincial spokesman Faizanullah Pattan said.

#3: Taliban militants have targeted and killed a former commander along with four others in Kunduz province, 250 km north of capital city Kabul, a local official said Monday. "Taliban rebels raided the house of Mullah Mohammad Nabi a former Taliban commander in Imam Sahib district and killed him along with four others Sunday night," Governor of Imam Sahib district Mohammad Ayub Hakmal told Xinhua.


DoD: Spc. Riley S. Spaulding

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