Dan McKnight | The Libertarian Institute

I Didn’t Join the Military to Fight for Taiwan

by Dan McKnight | Sep 22, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Are you ready to go to war to “protect” a place, thousands of miles away from our nation, which we have no treaty alliance with and no overriding national interest? I’m not talking about Ukraine, even though we continue to pump that country full of billions of dollars in weapons and supplies in a proxy war against Russia. I’m talking about Taiwan, located off the coast of China in the Pacific Ocean. Joe Biden just promised to defend it with the full military might of the United States. When I joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, and later the Idaho Army National Guard, I signed up to...

An America First Labor Day

by Dan McKnight | Sep 7, 2022 | Featured Articles

I hope you had a fun and celebratory Labor Day weekend. I’d like to speak to you about that holiday, and why it connects to the mission of Bring Our Troops Home. John L. Lewis was a labor organizer, and for forty years served as president of the United Mine Workers of America. An eternal hero to coal miners, his bonafides as a progressive are unimpeachable. But just over eighty years ago he publicly broke with President Franklin Roosevelt because Lewis was a man who believed in America First more than the Democratic Party. In a big Labor Day speech, John L. Lewis thundered: “War has always...

The Afghanistan Withdrawal, One Year Later

by Dan McKnight | Aug 29, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

This is a mournful anniversary. One year ago, on August 26, thirteen U.S. soldiers were killed by ISIS-affiliated suicide bombing at the Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul during the evacuation. They were the last Americans to die in Afghanistan. Poor planning by the Pentagon contributed to their deaths, along with the Biden administration’s decision to extend Donald Trump’s withdrawal date from April 1 to September 1. They didn’t need to die, and there ought to be accountability. But likewise, none of the 2,400 soldiers needed to die in the twenty years of war that preceded the attack. But I...

The Global War on Terror Gave Us Student Debt ‘Forgiveness’

by Dan McKnight | Aug 25, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Yesterday President Joe Biden announced he’s “forgiving” up to $20,000 of student loan debt per student, totalling over $300 billion dollars. Poof, it’s gone! And where does the president find the authority for such a large, spontaneous action? Well, it’s another gift from the National Security State. Joe Biden is invoking his authority as commander in chief under a 2003 law (the subtly named HEROES Act), passed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, that supposes to allow the president to cancel debt “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.” That...

We Killed the Last Justification for the Global War on Terror

by Dan McKnight | Aug 9, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

There was a satisfying victory—not just for our soldiers and veterans, but for all Americans. One week ago it was announced that the U.S. government had assassinated Ayman al-Zawahiri, who along with Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the key planner behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The butcher of New York City was killed by a CIA drone strike while on his apartment’s balcony in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Biden administration maintains there were no civilian deaths. There are three important lessons. Before turning towards international terrorism, Dr. Zawahiri was an...

A Veteran’s Memorial Day Message

by Dan McKnight | May 31, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Happy Memorial Day. This weekend towns will throw parades, friends and family will visit cemeteries, and communities will reconnect at barbecues, swimming pools, and football games to inaugurate the summer. During these festivities I ask that you take a moment to pause. For one minute, reflect and remember. Give remembrance to 1.4 million American combat deaths, stretching from the Revolutionary War to today. In particular, consider the 7,057 uniformed men and women who have been killed in the ongoing Global War on Terror. They’re numbers not mentioned often enough by our politicians. But I...

The No Good, Cowardly Chickenhawk John Bolton

by Dan McKnight | May 6, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

When President Joe Biden announced a new date for the full withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, there arose like clockwork a great, melancholic moan from the same media figures who have been defending the war for the past 20 years. Perhaps none was so despondent as John Bolton, who as Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor himself abetted the delay of a prospective exit. So when I first read Ambassador Bolton’s recent article at Foreign Policy—‘Bring the Troops Home’ Is a Dream, Not a Strategy—how could I, as the founder of BringOurTroopsHome.US, not take it as a personal...

How State Legislators Can Bring Our Troops Home

by Dan McKnight | Mar 3, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

In summer blockbusters and other entertainment, the United States Armed Forces are almost always portrayed through the lens of their most elite units, such as the Navy SEALS or the Army Rangers. But while the special forces are heroes in their own right, they’re not the most irreplaceable piece on the board. That designation falls to the humble National Guard, the real backbone of America’s military. I’ve served in the Marine Corps, the U.S. Army, and the Idaho National Guard. In my deployments to Afghanistan, I found the Guard to be the best trained of them all. Numbering nearly 350,000 men...