Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.)

It is by now a near cliché in defense-watcher circles to talk about the common peril of "mission creep” in military interventions. Naturally, that’s not translated to America avoiding this tendency – of gradually shifting objectives during the course military missions, until stuck in unplanned long-term quagmires – very much at all. Nevertheless, as if … Continue reading “Manufactured Mission: The Iraq & Syria Forever War-Factories”

This past September, Turkey and Israel encouraged Azerbaijan’s "mini-Stalin" of a strongman to forcefully seize the disputed mountainous patch of Armenian-inhabited Caucasus-earth known as Nagorno-Karabakh. These treaty or decisively de-facto allies, respectively, armed and backed Baku’s decision to take what’s been called a "frozen conflict" out of the freezer for good – thereby committing the … Continue reading “Out of the Freezer for Good: The Seeds of the Next Nagorno-Karabakh War”

If the US Government was trying to destroy Burkina Faso, it could hardly have done it any better. But this already impoverished, landlocked West African country is simply symptomatic of Franco-America’s Sahel-wide exercise in absurdity. It goes like this: in the years following the 9/11 attacks there was no Islamist militant threat to speak of … Continue reading “How To Lose a Country in 10 Years: The Burkina Faso Formula”

He hasn’t gone anywhere, actually. He’s been here all along – poking small holes of decency in sick system, for five-plus decades. At 90, Dan Ellsberg is with us still, and still calling bullshit on a government that couldn’t act right if it tried, to a citizenry that couldn’t care less. Most of it, anyway; … Continue reading “Where Have You Gone Daniel Ellsberg? Nowhere. – 50 Years of Courage in an Era of Apathy”

The latest Israeli bombardment of its internally – and seemingly eternally – occupied open air prison of Gaza followed a familiar pattern. First, there was the disturbingly drastic casualty disparity: a 21-to-one overall, and 33-to-one for children, Palestinian-to-Israeli death ratio (in the three previous Gaza bombings since 2008, the overall statistic was 35-to-one). Next, there … Continue reading “The Frankenstein Monster of the West: The IDF and Israeli Militarism Run Amok”

Once upon a time, the United States of America – the world’s self-styled "beacon of democracy" – nearly nuked China’s then 600 millions worth of innocents. This, before Beijing even had any A-Bombs of its own. Well, that much we’ve known, in broad strokes – though, I fear, without the requisite resultant soul-searching – since … Continue reading “Not Even Past: Dan Ellsberg vs. New Madmen’s Theories of Cold War & Press Suppression”

There hadn’t been much talk of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Nor had there been serious attempts at diplomacy, of Washington brokering a settlement. The reasons were manifold: part apathy, part outrage-exhaustion, part Donald Trump’s intentionally ditching the illusion of America-the-honest-broker and decisively swinging support to one side (Israel), and part Joe Biden’s desire to avoid the … Continue reading “Refusing Erasure: Palestinian Resistance, Israel’s Hopeless Fury, and a Coming Cataclysm”

Originally appeared at ScheerPost A New York Times report about Russia paying Taliban militants to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan turned many heads in the summer of 2020 when it was first published. It solidified many Democrats’ views that Russia is a dangerous enemy that is consistently acting to not only undermine the U.S., but … Continue reading “The Russian Bounty Story Is a Deadly Example of Fake News”

Joe Biden uttered the word "Africa" exactly once in his first address to a joint session of congress, marking the vaunted presidential cliché of his first "100 Days" in office. It was a tangential reference, but its context, implications – and what Biden didn’t say – were somewhat instructive: After 20 years of American valor … Continue reading “Deby’s Death, Chad’s Crisis, and the Ghosts of Libyan Fiascoes Past”

Joseph Biden has now been president just two shy of the vaunted "100 days." However arbitrary the designation, that’s a perhaps more fitting benchmark than most for Biden, since he and his biggest fans have not-so-subtly styled this commander-in-chief as a new FDR – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after all, being the first to use the … Continue reading “Asking and Analyzing Questions Others Won’t: Support Antiwar.com in Forever War Year 20”