9/3/21 Danny Sjursen on Afghanistan, Veterans and Counterinsurgency

Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Scott Horton

News, Politics

4.8 • 902 Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2021

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Scott interviews Danny Sjursen and gets his reaction to the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Sjursen thinks the Taliban’s campaign to take control of the country may soon be studied in war colleges. He also thinks that Scott’s book Fool’s Errand should be studied at war colleges, or at least books just as critical of the wars. Sjursen then talks about how this is a tough time for veterans, but that that isn’t a reason to hold back criticism of the war. That the idea that being antiwar implies a hatred of the troops is ridiculous and convenient for those in power. Lastly, Sjursen reflects on the counterinsurgency mission he took part in Afghanistan. Discussed on the show: The Hunt for Red October Redeployment by Phil Klay “American Purpose After the Fall of Kabul” (New Yorker) Curb Your Enthusiasm clip The Operators by Michael Hastings War Machine Reign of Terror by Spencer Ackerman Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. army major and former history instructor at West Point. He is the author of Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War and A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism. Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHahmkWYZOk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, y'all welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
0:12.6	I'm the Director of the Libertarian Institute,
0:15.0	editorial director of anti-war.com.
0:17.8	Author of the book, Pools Arran,
0:19.8	Time to End the War in Afghanistan,
0:21.8	and the brand new enough already. Time to end the war in Afghanistan and the brand new enough already time to end the war on
0:25.1	terrorism and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003 almost all on
0:31.5	foreign policy and all available for you at Scott Horton.org.
0:36.0	You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at
0:40.9	YouTube.com slash Scott Horton show.
0:46.6	All right, you guys, introducing the great Danny Scherson.
0:50.7	Of course, as you know, he was a major in the US Army. He was in the Iraq War II
0:55.1	surge and the Afghanistan surge and he wrote ghost soldiers of Baghdad and his new
1:02.1	book is a real history of the United States and before that was patriotic
1:07.8	dissent and he's a regular contributor at anti-war.com.
1:12.2	Thank goodness for that. And I should mention, because I should mention that right there tied with Doug Bondo. He is the most prolific writer probably in American anti-war history certainly in our current era and
1:25.8	and I'm not saying that you have to live up to that week and a week out until you
1:31.0	you know fall down of exhaustion but that just happens to be the case so if you guys
1:35.8	want to read some Danny Cherson there's a brand new one pretty much always
1:39.3	somewhere welcome to the show how you doing Danny oh I Oh, I'm great. Thanks for having me.
1:44.0	Really happy to have you here.
1:45.0	So listen, I mean, the whole damn thing fell apart and I want to hear everything that you think about it.
	...

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