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 25, 2008

War News for Saturday, October 25, 2008

The DoD is reporting a new death previously unreported by the military. Staff Sgt. Brian P. Hause died of non-combat related medical causes at Balad Air Base, Iraq on Thursday, October 23rd. No other details were released.

The Citizen Times is reporting the death of a soldier who is also unreported by the military. Cody Eggleston died Friday, October 24th at the Bethesda medical hospital of wounds received during a mortar attack in Iraq on Thursday, October 16th.


6 Philippine soldiers killed in rebel ambush:

A Puzzle Over Prisoners as Iraqis Take Control:


Reported Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: Around 2 p.m. a bomb attached to a civilian car exploded near Al Firdous square killing one man and injuring two others including a high ranking officer in Iraqi ministry of defense.

A bomb stuck to a vehicle carrying an Iraqi army brigadier general killed the driver and wounded the general and a civilian in the central Karrada district, police said.

#2: Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and three wounded when a bomb exploded in Baghdad's central Palestine Street district, police said.

#3: Around 8 p.m. a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army vehicle in Al Shaab neighborhood killing one civilian man was passing by the site and injured four Iraqi army soldiers.

#4: Around noon, gunmen from Mahdi army militia clashed with Iraqi national police soldiers in Al Shaab neighborhood. The clash lasted more than an hour. One civilian was killed and five others were injured.

#5: Iraqi police found two dead bodies throughout Baghdad, one in Husseiniyah, one in Dura.


Kut:
#1: Iraqi police arrested one gunman and wounded another in clashes on Friday just south of Kut, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Police Major Aziz Latif said.

#2: Police found a dead body inside an abandoned house just south of Kut on Friday, police said. The dead individual appeared to have been tortured and shot.


Jurf al Sakher
#1: One man was wounded when a speeding car opened fire on a checkpoint of U.S.-backed patrols in Jurf al-Sakher, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.


Salah al Din Prv:
#1: Three Iraqi servicemen were killed or wounded during armed clashes with al-Qaeda operatives that killed three of the group’s members, the Multi-National Force (MNF) said on Saturday. “Iraqi army and U.S. forces, which assisted in the operation, last night raided a house of an al-Qaeda member in Salah al-Din province,” according to an MNF statement received by Aswat al-Iraq. “Clashes erupted between the two sides and left one Iraqi soldier and three al-Qaeda members killed. Another gunman was arrested,” the statement noted, adding that two Iraqi servicemen were wounded in the operation.


Kirkuk:
#1: Policemen in Kirkuk found an unidentified body in the southwestern part of the province on Saturday, a senior security official said. “Forces from the Kirkuk Districts’ Police Department today found a body of a 30-year-old young man in Tobzawa area, (25 km) southwestern Kirkuk,” Brig. Sarhad Qader, the department chief, told Aswat al-Iraq.

A body of a women was found in the southwestern industrial district of the city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.


Mosul:
#1: Gunmen killed two off-duty policemen in a drive-by shooting in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#2: A roadside bomb wounded two women when it struck an Iraqi army vehicle in eastern Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said.

#3: Gunmen killed a civilian in a drive-by shooting in eastern Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said.


Al Anbar Prv:
Fallujah:
#1: Iraqi soldiers killed a suspected militant and arrested another one, believed to be responsible for training insurgents in producing and placing roadside bombs, on Friday in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said

#2: Gunmen killed an imam of a mosque and another man in a drive-by shooting northeast of Falluja, police said.



Afghanistan:
#1: Two foreign nationals and their Afghan guard were killed in a drive-by shooting near the presidential palace in Kabul Saturday morning, according to a Kabul police official. A British man and a South African man died when caught in the crossfire of a gunfight outside of the DHL courier office, the official said. One Afghan guard was also killed and two were wounded, the official said. The Associated Press reported that the two were employees of the company and were shot in their SUV as they were apparently pulling into their office. Blood splattered the front windshield.

An Afghan police official says two Germans and one Afghan have been shot to death in front of a Western shipping company in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai, Kabul's deputy provincial police chief, says the two Germans worked for the international shipping company DHL.

#2: Pakistani troops have recaptured a key town from Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants after a two-month operation in which 1,500 rebels and 73 soldiers were killed, the military said Saturday. Security forces backed by helicopter gunships drove insurgents out of Loisam, a strategic town in the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan which is at a crossroads of extremist supply routes, it said.

#3: Two Bangladeshi development workers in the Afghan province of Ghazni have been kidnapped, their employer said on Saturday, in the latest of a string of abductions in the troubled country. Mahbub Hossain, executive director of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the largest foreign development.

#4: Two Turkish engineers were kidnapped in Afghanistan, Burak Ozugergin, a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday. The engineers were working in a communications project and were kidnapped two days ago, Ozugergin said. The Turkish official cited security reasons and did not reveal their identities or more details about the incident.

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