{"id":194463,"date":"2019-09-08T07:17:41","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T07:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=194463"},"modified":"2019-09-10T07:00:11","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T07:00:11","slug":"profiles-in-absurdity-remembering-the-terror-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=194463","title":{"rendered":"Profiles in Absurdity: Remembering the \u2018Terror\u2019 Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maj Danny Sjursen \u2013 Anti-War.com Sept 3, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Then-captain Danny Sjursen (left) pausing during a patrol with his interpreter, \u201cAli,\u201d in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2011<\/p><\/div>\n

It has taken me years to tell these stories. The emotional and moral wounds of the Afghan War have just felt too recent, too raw. After all, I could hardly write a thing down about my Iraq War experience for nearly ten years, when, by accident, I churned out a <\/em>book<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span> on the subject. Now, as the American war in Afghanistan \u2013 hopefully \u2013 winds to something approaching a close, it\u2019s finally time to impart some tales of the madness. In this new, recurring, semi-regular series, the reader won\u2019t find many worn out sagas of heroism, brotherhood, and love of country. Not that this author doesn\u2019t have such stories, of course. But one can find those sorts of tales in countless books and numerous trite, platitudinal Hollywood yarns. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

With that in mind, I propose to tell a number of very different sorts of stories \u2013 profiles, so to speak, in absurdity. That\u2019s what war is, at root, an exercise in absurdity, and America\u2019s hopeless post-9\/11 wars are stranger than most. My own 18-year long quest to find some meaning in all the combat, to protect my troops from danger, push back against the madness, and dissent from within the army proved Kafkaesque in the extreme. Consider what follows just a survey of that hopeless journey\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded self-promotion. Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical definition of sociopathy. Details, details\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, you (almost) had to admire his drive, devotion, and dedication to the cause of promotion, of rising through the military ranks. Had he managed to channel that astonishing energy, obsession even, to the pursuit of some good, the world might markedly have improved. Which is, actually, a dirty little secret about the military, especially ground combat units; that it tends to attract (and mold) a disturbing number of proud owners of such personality disorders. The army then positively reinforces such toxic behavior by promoting these sorts of individuals \u2013 who excel at mind-melding (brown-nosing, that is) with superiors \u2013 at disproportionate rates. Such is life. Only there are real<\/em> consequences, real<\/em> soldiers, (to say nothing of local civilians) who suffer under their commanders\u2019 tyranny.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 2011-12, the man served as my commander, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. As such, he led \u2013 and partly controlled the destinies of \u2013 some 500 odd soldiers. Then a lowly captain, I commanded about one-fifth of those men and answered directly to the colonel. I didn\u2019t much like the guy; hardly any of his officers did. And he didn\u2019t trust my aspirational intellectualism, proclivity to ask “why,” or, well, me<\/em> in general. Still, he mostly found this author an effective middle manager. As such, I was a means to an end for him \u2013 that being self-advancement and some positive measurable statistics for his annual officer evaluation report (OER) from his own boss. Nonetheless, it was the army and you sure don\u2019t choose your bosses.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it was, early in my yearlong tour in the scrublands of rural Kandahar province, that the colonel treated me to one his dog-and-pony-show visits. Only this time he had some unhappy news for me. The next day he, and the baker\u2019s dozen tag-alongs in his ubiquitous entourage, wanted to walk the few treacherous miles to the most dangerous strongpoint in the entire sub-district. It was occupied, needlessly, by one of my platoons in perpetuity and suffered under constant siege by the local Taliban, too small to contest the area and too big to fly under the radar, this \u2013 at one point the most attacked outpost in Afghanistan \u2013 base just provided an American flag-toting target. I\u2019d communicated as much to command early on, but to no avail. Can-do US colonels with aspirations for general officer rank hardly ever<\/em> give up territory to the enemy \u2013 even if that\u2019s the strategically sound course.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walking to the platoon strongpoint was dicey on even the best of days. The route between our main outpost and the Alamo-like strongpoint was flooded with Taliban insurgents and provided precious little cover or concealment for out patrols. On my first jaunt to the outpost, I (foolishly, it must be said) walked my unit into an ambush and was thrown over a small rock wall by the blast of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) with my apparent name on it. Since then, it was standard for our patrols to the strongpoint to suffer multiple ambushes during the roundtrip rotation. Sometimes our kids got wounded or killed; sometimes they were lucky. Mercifully, at least, my intelligence section \u2013 led by my friend<\/a> and rebranded artillery lieutenant \u2013 did their homework and figured out that the chronically lazy local Taliban didn\u2019t like to fight at night or wake up early, so patrols to the strongpoint that stepped off before dawn had a fighting chance of avoiding the worst of ambush alley.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t wanted to take my colonel on a patrol to the outpost. His entourage was needlessly large and, when added to my rotational platoon, presented an unwieldy and inviting target for Taliban ambush. Still I knew better than to argue the point with my disturbingly confident and single-minded colonel. So I hedged. Yes, sir, we can take you along, with one caveat: we have to leave before dawn!<\/em> I proceeded to explain why, replete with historical stats and examples, we could only (somewhat) safely avoid ambush if we did so.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s when things went south. The colonel insisted we leave at nine, maybe even ten, in the morning, the absolute peak<\/em> window for Taliban attack. This prima donna reminded me that he couldn\u2019t possibly leave any earlier. He had a “battle rhythm,” after all, which included working out in the gym at his large, safe, distant-from-the-roar-of-battle base each morning. How could I expect him to alter that predictable schedule over something as minor as protecting the lives and limbs of his own troopers? He had “to set an example,” he reminded me, by letting his soldiers on the base “see him in the gym” each and every morning. Back then, silly me, I was actually surprised by the colonel\u2019s absurd refusal; so much so that I pushed back, balked, tried to rationally press my point. To no avail.<\/span><\/p>\n

What the man said next has haunted me ever since. We would leave no earlier than nine AM, according to his preference. My emotional pleas \u2013 begging really \u2013 was not only for naught but insulted the colonel. Why? Because, as he imparted to me, for my own growth and development he thought, “Remember: lower caters to higher, Danny!<\/em>” That, he reminded me, was the way of the military world, the key to success and advancement. The man even thought he was being helpful, advising me on how to achieve the success he\u2019d achieved. My heart sank\u2026forever, and never recovered.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next day he was late. We didn\u2019t step off until nearly ten AM. The ambush, a massive mix of RPG and machine gun fire, kicked off \u2013 as predicted \u2013 within sight of the main base. The rest was history, and certainly could\u2019ve been worse. On other, less lucky, days it was. But I remember this one profound moment. When the first rocket exploded above us, both the colonel and I dove for limited cover behind a mound of rocks. I was terrified and exasperated. Just then we locked eyes and I gazed into his proverbial soul. The man was incapable of fear. He wasn\u2019t scared, or disturbed; he didn\u2019t care a bit about what was happening. That revelation was more terrifying than the ongoing ambush and would alter my view of the world irreparably.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings us to some of the discomfiting morals \u2013 if such things exist \u2013 of this story. American soldiers fight and die at the whims of career-obsessed officers as much they do so at the behest of king and country. Sometimes its their own leaders \u2013 as much as the ostensible “enemy” \u2013 that tries to get them killed. The plentiful sociopaths running these wars at the upper and even middle-management levels are often far less concerned with long-term, meaningful “victory” in places like Afghanistan, than in crafting \u2013 on the backs of their soldiers sacrifices \u2013 the illusion<\/em> of progress, just enough measurable “success” in their one year tour to warrant a stellar evaluation and, thus, the next promotion. Not all leaders are like this. I, for one, once worked for a man for whom I \u2013 and all my peers \u2013 would run through walls for, a (then) colonel that loved his hundreds of soldiers like they were his own children. But he was the exception that proved the rule.<\/span><\/p>\n

The madness, irrationality, and absurdity of my colonel was nothing less than a microcosm of America\u2019s entire hopeless adventure in Afghanistan. The war was never rational, winnable, or meaningful. It was from the first, and will end as, an exercise in futility. It was, and is, one grand patrol to my own unnecessary outpost, undertaken at the wrong time and place. It was a collection of sociopaths and imbeciles \u2013 both Afghan and American \u2013 tilting at windmills and ultimately dying for nothing at all. Yet the young men in the proverbial trenches never flinched, never refused. They did their absurd duty because they were acculturated to the military system, and because they were embarrassed not to.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all, lower caters to higher<\/em>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and regular contributor to <\/em>Antiwar.com<\/em><\/a>. His work has appeared in the <\/em>LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, <\/em>Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at <\/em>@SkepticalVet<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Also see: Yes, My Fellow Soldiers Died in Vain<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former combat veteran reveals that it wasn\u2019t always heroism or patriotism that motivated some U.S. Army commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":189011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Afghanistan","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194465,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194463\/revisions\/194465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/189011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}