6/19/20 Danny Sjursen on the Tortured Legacy of the Mexican-American War

6/19/20 Danny Sjursen on the Tortured Legacy of the Mexican-American War

Danny Sjursen talks about the Mexican-American War, a seldom-discussed conflict that he maintains holds lessons for America today. Sjursen describes a pattern that by now—with our long experience of the war on terrorism—should be all too familiar: a U.S. president deliberately setting up the conditions for war, forcing another country to react, lying about America’s involvement, and then eventually having to remain in the country as an occupying and rebuilding force for years afterward. At the time, several prominent politicians and generals inveighed against the war as unnecessary and unjust, but to little avail. Despite its relevance, this war has been all but forgotten by Americans today.

Discussed on the show:

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. army major and former history instructor at West Point. He writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and he’s the author of “Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

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The following is an automatically generated transcript.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

About Scott Horton

Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He's the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool's Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan, editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019 and the 2022 book Hotter Than The Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. He’s conducted more than 5,800 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.

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