“I think that if we can learn one thing, it’s to avoid reflexive and violent solutions,” said Sjursen. “The truth is, we probably needed less of me, less machine guns, less people who were trained to fight, and more diplomats and aid workers to get at the root problems of terrorism.”
Sjursen was deployed to Iraq in 2006 and then Afghanistan in 2011. On the tenth anniversary of the attack, he paid tribute to one of the fire crews killed in New York.
Yesterday I found myself dry-heaving and hyper-ventilating in broad daylight, crouched behind the corner of an unused outdoor patio bar in Kansas. I hadn’t had but two beers, but I’d had more than enough of American obtuseness. On a smoke break from wielding my geek-stick (highlighter) with a fatalist fury – brushing-up for today’s Afghanistan column – I made the admittedly willful mistake of trying to explain why the Taliban capture of Kabul was affecting my mood.
In the hours before dawn in Kabul, before the daily crush and chaos resumes at the airport where tens of thousands of desperate Afghans and American citizens vie to reach transport planes on the other side of armed gates, the members of the #AfghanEvac group share information they hope will enable friends and former colleagues to escape the reach of Taliban revenge.
In the hours before dawn in Kabul, before the daily crush and chaos resumes at the airport where tens of thousands of desperate Afghans and American citizens vie to reach transport planes on the other side of armed gates, the members of the #AfghanEvac group share information they hope will enable friends and former colleagues to escape the reach of Taliban revenge.
In the hours before dawn in Kabul, before the daily crush and chaos resumes at the airport where tens of thousands of desperate Afghans and American citizens vie to reach transport planes on the other side of armed gates, the members of the #AfghanEvac group share information they hope will enable friends and former colleagues to escape the reach of Taliban revenge.
Am I angry that my fellow soldiers gave lives and limbs for an effort that is clearly ending in defeat? Of course. But I am even angrier that our nation’s leaders ignored reality and insisted for two decades that the war was headed in the right direction. Nearly a score of different generals in charge of the war effort, and three presidential administrations, chose to extend an unsustainable status quo rather than acknowledge hard truths. None of them faced any consequences.
Yesterday I found myself dry-heaving and hyper-ventilating in broad daylight, crouched behind the corner of an unused outdoor patio bar in Kansas. I hadn’t had but two beers, but I’d had more than enough of American obtuseness. On a smoke break from wielding my geek-stick (highlighter) with a fatalist fury – brushing-up for today’s Afghanistan column – I made the admittedly willful mistake of trying to explain why the Taliban capture of Kabul was affecting my mood.
Debates, about whether the U.S. could have won, who bears responsibility for the loss and whether soldiers’ sacrifice was worth it, are coming.
The Taliban has retaken Afghanistan with lightning speed, forcing Americans to grapple with our 20-year-long tragedy in the war-torn Central Asian nation…
There is no doubt one question left unanswered as we witness the daily advances made by the Taliban in Afghanistan: what difference did an American presence make? The same extremist group the U.S. sought to topple after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, remains strong, bent but unbroken.
Figures like Edward Snowden, Tom Drake, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and a host of other whistleblowers loom large today above a world full of mostly sycophantic, cowardly and selfish adherents to the “rules.” Such truth tellers actually better represent the traditional nonconformist American ideal than any of their rule-of-the-road, stick-to-the-script fellow citizens.