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, August 30, 2008

War News for Saturday, August 30, 2008

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Coalition force Soldier in a a non-combat related incident while conducting operations in Ninewa province on Thursday, August 28th. No other details were released.


Land mine blast kills 12 officers in India:

Bomb blast wounds 45 in Sri Lankan capital:

Bombs kill at least 2 Russian soldiers in Chechnya:

4 soldiers killed, 10 wounded in Philippine rebel ambush:

Two Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with Kurdish rebels:

Iraqi troops take control of Iranian refugee camp:

CNPC to develop Ahdab oil field in Iraq:

Iraq to clear out Baghdad squatters:


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: Two bodies were found in eastern Baghdad on Friday, police said.

#2: A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army vehicle injuring two soldiers in Al Mansour neighborhood at 10 a.m.

#3: Two civilians were injured in Karrada neighborhood when a bomb was attached to their car exploded around 1 p.m.


Baquba:
#1: Four people were killed in an armed attack near the central Iraqi city of Baquba, a security official said, stating that a leader of the anti-terrorist Awakening councils was among the dead. The attack which took place in al-Ihbas village, 45 kilometres south-west of Baquba.

Gunmen burst into the home of a local militia fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq's Diyala province before dawn on Saturday and killed the man, his wife and two sons aged seven and 12, police said. A police official said Al-Qaeda fighters were behind the ferocious early-morning bloodletting in the town of Ahbash east of the provincial capital Baquba.


Iskandariya:
#1: Police found two bodies on Friday bearing gunshot wounds and signs of torture in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad. Police said that one of the people discovered had been decapitated.


Mosul:
#1: Police on Friday killed three militants who had attacked a checkpoint in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, a police spokesman for Nineveh province said.

#2: The body of a doctor who had been kidnapped several days ago was found in Mosul, police said.

#3: Three Turkish oil tanker drivers on Saturday were wounded in an explosive charge attack that ripped through northern Mosul, an Iraqi army source said. "Today, an improvised explosive device detonated near three Turkish oil tankers in al-Arabi neighborhood, northern Mosul, leaving three Turkish drivers injured," the source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq.



Afghanistan:
#1: The U.S.-led coalition says several militants have been killed in clashes and airstrikes north of the Afghan capital Kabul. The coalition says in a Saturday statement its troops targeted insurgents in Nijrab district of Kapisa province. It says militants retaliated with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire before coalition troops called in airstrikes, killing several rebels Friday.

#2: Pakistani forces pounded militant positions in the Swat valley in the northwest on Saturday and a military spokesman said nearly 40 insurgents had been killed in the past 24 hours. The military used jet fighters and helicopter gunships to attack militant positions in the Matta area on Friday, with the assault continuing through the night until after dawn on Saturday. Major Nasir Ali, a military spokesman in the region, said nearly 40 militants had been killed in the past 24 hours.

#3: In a separate incident, a missile strike on a house in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border killed five people, residents of the area said. A missile hit a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing five people, said a resident who saw the bodies taken out of the rubble. The house was owned by a man known to have militant links, residents said.
It was not immediately clear who fired the missile but U.S.-operated pilotless drone aircraft have launched attacks in Pakistani border regions several times this year, killing dozens of militants.

#4: A suicide bomber in a vehicle attacked a foreign military convoy west of the Afghan capital Saturday, but no troops or civilians were killed, a provincial police chief said. The suicide bomber died in the blast, which occurred just outside Kabul, police Chief Ayub Salangi said. A spokesman for the NATO-led force in Kabul could not immediately confirm the blast.

#5: The shots that killed three civilians at an Afghan checkpoint Friday were probably fired by Germans, not Afghan security personnel, the German armed forces said here several hours later as an inquiry into the incident continued.”According to what we know now, evidence has been obtained at the scene suggesting that the shots fired at the vehicle came from German guns,” the armed forces website in Germany said. “Whether shots were fired from the other side towards the vehicle has yet to be conclusively established.” An Afghan woman and two children were killed and four other children were injured as German soldiers opened fire on the car when it failed to stop in the northern province of Kunduz, Afghan police said earlier Friday. Both Afghans and Germans were manning the checkpoint.

#6: Afghan soldiers killed more than 10 insurgents in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province on Friday after coming under heavy gunfire, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.

#7: The United States has deployed a much-needed battalion of 800 troops to assist Canadian and Afghan Forces in Kandahar and to try to tame the province's Wild West.


Casualty Reports:

Army Sgt. Christopher Perkins, has been receiving treatment for numerous injuries suffered Aug. 8 while on duty in Iraq. Christopher Perkins' back, liver, eye and ear were hurt when an improvised explosive device, or IED, blew up "on a road that hadn't been traveled by Americans in two months," Laurie Perkins said.

Chris Hahn lost part of a leg in Iraq. things abruptly went wrong on Jan. 30, 2006. Hahn was the gunner on a night convoy, sitting atop a 7-ton troop truck. All the headlights were off so the convoy would be invisible to potential attackers, and the drivers were wearing night-vision goggles. The goggles have one problem, Hahn said: poor depth perception. On that run, the driver of Hahn’s truck misjudged where the edge of the road was and took the vehicle over the edge, a 15-foot drop. “The truck came down on top of me and pinned my leg,” Hahn said. “And I was conscious for everything.” The surgeons put the left foot back together and sent him stateside to recover. But in March, a checkup at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., found gangrene in his heel. Surgeons had to amputate the heel — and then the foot — and then the lower fourth of his leg.

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