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


Wednesday, September 14, 2011

War News for Wednesdayy, September 14, 2011

Reported security incidents

Baghdad:
#1: Two Iraqi policemen have been killed and two others injured in an attack by unknown gunmen northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday, a security source reported. “A group of unknown gunmen have opened fire on a local police patrol in northeast Baghdad’s Qahira (Cairo) district on Wednesday, killing 2 policemen and wounding 2 others.


Al Hazma:
#1: At least 15 people were killed and 36 others wounded when a car bomb exploded by a restaurant in the southern Iraqi town of al-Hamza, police sources said. The first incident occurred outside the Ehsan tourist restaurant, a popular rest-stop by a main highway for people travelling through al-Hamza, located just south of Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

At least 10 policemen have been victims of a booby-trapped car blast in Shomaly township of west Iraq’s Babel Province on Wednesday, a Babel police source reported.


Irbil Prv:
#1: A Kurdish citizen has been injured by Iranian artillery shelling, that resumed, on border villages of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region in Arbil Province on Tuesday, a source reported on Tuesday. “The Iranian artillery has resumed shelling border areas of Kurdistan Region, especially Choman township of Arbil Province, on Tuesday afternoon, wounding one civilian and causing huge damage for his house,” the security source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.


Mosul:
#1: Attackers threw hand grenades at police patrols, wounding three civilians and a policeman, in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#2: Attackers threw a hand grenade at a police patrol, wounding two civilians in western Mosul, police said.

#3: Attackers threw a hand grenade at a police patrol and wounded four people, including three children, in western Mosul, police said.


Al Anbar Prv:
#1: Elsewhere, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded when a bomb attached to a military bus exploded at an army base in Habaniya, around 50 miles west of Baghdad. An army source reporting the bombing in Habaniya said: "The soldiers finished their academic training and a bus took them to have breakfast at the restaurant in the base. When the bus reached the restaurant it exploded."Army sources had initially said 15 soldiers had been killed and 20 others wounded, but said later that the toll was less. "The first report we received said it was a bomb attached to a bus transporting soldiers. There were around 40 soldiers on board the coach. They said 15 killed, 20 wounded," an army source at the operations centre in Anbar province said. "We received other reports after this with a higher toll. But when we checked with the Habaniya military hospital, they said we only received two dead and 10 wounded," the source said.

#2: Iraqi soldiers raided a house, killing a man and arresting three others from the same family, in a town near Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.



Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"
#1: update A brazen Taliban assault on the Afghan capital was quelled on Wednesday after raging for 19 hours in a hail of rockets, grenades and suicide blasts that left 14 dead and six foreign troops wounded. The standoff ended when troops finally killed the two last insurgents who had held out overnight in a high-rise building under construction just a few hundred metres from the heavily guarded US embassy. Cummings said that six foreign soldiers were also injured in the attacks -- three US troops who were defending ISAF's base from attacks and the others in the operation to clear the construction site of insurgents.

#2: Suspected Taliban gunmen ambushed a security vehicle on Wednesday, killing three intelligence officials in Pakistan's north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, police said. One official was injured in the attack in the Janikhel area of Bannu district, district police chief Sajjad Khan said, DPA reported.

#3: Two people were killed and eight others injured Tuesday when a car bomb went off in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, the provincial administration said on Wednesday. "A unit of police were conducting a routine search mission along a road in Ghartala area of Musa Qala district in Helmand province on Tuesday morning but a car bomb went off near checkpoint. As a result, a policeman and a civilian were killed," the provincial administration said in a statement on Wednesday. Eight more civilians, including three women, were injured in the blast, the statement said.

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