Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.)

The absurd hopelessness was the worst part. No, it wasn’t the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) blowing limbs off my boys, or the well-aimed gunshot wounds suffered by others; it wasn’t even the horror of ordering the deaths of other ("enemy") human beings. No, for a captain commanding 100 odd troopers in Southwest Kandahar province at … Continue reading “Not Worth Another Life: An Afghan Anniversary To Lament”

The Israelis military is killing kids in the Gaza Strip – like, on the regular. You wouldn’t know it though; not unless you watch the BBC or Al Jazeera, that is. The uncomfortable truth is this: most Americans, frankly, don’t care. Most of the populace and a bipartisan coalition of nearly all policymakers are so … Continue reading “Gaza: The Most Important Story Not Covered in the MSM”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In July 1999, Chalmers Johnson began the prologue to Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire this way: "Instead of demobilizing after the Cold War, the United States imprudently committed itself to maintaining a global empire. This book is an account of the resentments our policies have built up and … Continue reading “Backfire, a Generation of American Folly”

This article originally appeared at TruthDig. “Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators … mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner … Continue reading “A Broken Union (1851-1861)”

Alex should have never been asked to accomplish the impossible. But he was. We all were. Thing is, if anyone could have done it – "beat" the Taliban and brought home a win for the US of A – it’d have been my friend Alex. Sure, I’m biased. He was a star platoon leader and … Continue reading “Forever War?: Lieutenant Alex and the Limits of American Courage”

On paper, Rachel Maddow may be the brightest host on all of cable news. Educated first at Stanford and then earning a PhD as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, she’s an eloquent speaker and distinguished author. But these days Maddow and her fellow "mainstream" progressives at MSNBC and CNN sound like hysterical, bellicose neocons. … Continue reading “The ‘Left’ Gone Mad: Mainstream Liberals as Modern Day Warhawks”

This article originally appeared at TruthDig. The United States of America conquered half of Mexico. There isn’t any way around that fact. The regions of the U.S. most affected by “illegal” immigration—California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas—were once part of the Republic of Mexico. They would have remained so if not for the Mexican-American War … Continue reading “The Fraudulent Mexican-American War (1846-48)”

Numbness or apathy. These seem to be Americans’ go-to responses when each new overseas tragedy unfolds. Recently, it was a bus full of Yemeni children – 40 in fact – killed by a Saudi airstrike that represented one tiny speck of catastrophe in an ongoing U.S.-backed coalition campaign. Sure, the dead kids briefly hit the … Continue reading “Dying for What?: A Tour of Fruitless American Killing and Sacrifice”

This article originally appeared at TruthDig. “Strange indeed did it appear to me to find so many names, familiar household words, as enemies—the very names of officers in our own army. … How uncomfortably like a civil war.” —British Lt. John Le Couteur upon visiting an American Army camp (1813) Americans, sadly, know little of … Continue reading “The Forgotten and Peculiar War of 1812”

This is all very intimate for me; hard to speak on, really. Suffice it to say that this middling soldier gave his youth, and innocence, to what we used to call the Global War on Terror (GWOT). I left several of my boys in the meaningless streets and fields of Iraq and Afghanistan: five killed … Continue reading “A Personal Message from Major Danny Sjursen”