‘At War,’ The Times’s Renegade Blog From the Front Lines, Returns

Glad the blog has returned -- At War. I was in Vietnam in 1971 -- I know what it is to be scared stiff; happened to me one time in Danang. I was so scared that I literally froze in my tracks. I couldn't move; that's how scared I was. I am sure others had similar experiences. The worse part of my Vietnam service is after I returned, my family never asked me about it. I guess they thought I was on a one year Southeast Asian vacation. Painful memory and yes, I was bitter and drank a lot when I returned. I am over it now. But it was an experience I will live with until my dying day.

Glad to have it back--many of the essays have been moving and insightful

Good to hear. Perhaps the Times will also cover, on the front page as well, the reality of our ongoing and ever expanding wars across the globe, asking questions about the authorization, cost and purpose of these wars. Some basic questions: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176400/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_a_m...

Thank you for bringing the blog back. The stories of our young soldiers are so important to be heard and this gives them a voice

"Fighting Abroad For Unstated Reasons" might be a better title than "At War." The average American no longer knows why or where our soldiers are fighting and dying and cannot locate Iraq, Syria, Iran or Afghanistan on a map. The violence has become one of the only ways left men can express their manhood, so off they go to the killing fields. These are brave men working for cowards.

This prospectus accepts, with no visible qualms, the proposition that the United States will be making war more or less forever. We can look forward to a perpetual diet of stories -- harrowing, poignant, stirring, fascinating, horrific, sentimental, exciting -- about soldiers, victims, refugees and embedded journalists. If the NYT is not exactly cheerleading here, it is at least doing its bit to normalize the grotesquely abnormal.

America "At War"..yes, it has been generational with those being deployed today..many were in diapers when we went into Afghanistan. Or, the young Soldier from 2/504th/82nd ABN who was killed near Gardez, early March of 2003..he was 18..that Soldier today would be nearing his 40th birthday. Hopefully, at some point the blogs on war will fade into history with other enlightenment headlines to follow..but, I doubt it. Haiti/Bosnia/Croatia/Nuba Mts, Sudan/Afghanistan/Iraq/South Sudan & Uganda

A good idea.

We seem to have invested so much in this defective project (originally a revenge fantasy, that morphed under the rubric of GWOT into a control of the Greater Middle East fantasy, and which now seems to have become a world domination fantasy that has our military fulminating about full-spectrum dominance and dividing up the world into free-fire killing zones), that whatever the unexamined future costs, we cannot question or admit doubt or abandon war because of the blood and treasure already expended. We are truly deep-sunk in the sunk-cost fallacy. We will continue to wage war and to heap our debt money into the hopper of the Defense Department for conveyance into the troughs of the defense contractors and weapons manufacturers, and continue to distribute weapons of great destruction to friend and foe alike, and to rain down bombs and missiles on the heads of unfortunate populations, producing uncounted death and destruction, and setting in motion huge flows of destitute refugees through scenes of environmental devastation and across borders with the attendant political destabilization of the countries receiving them. Unless we can begin to look at and examine what we are doing as a nation, we will persist in this folly until we reap our share of the general ruin.

Yes, it’s essential and interesting to have the grunt’s eye view from the ground and to be reminded that this warfare is continuing in our name on a daily basis, as it is, simultaneously, in at least seven countries overseas. Because the NYT has become, inadvertently I trust, party to the normalization of what is now unequivocally a mobilized warfare state, untethered from the quaint relics of our democratic governance, may I suggest that in addition to giving us readers the usual fare of after-action bulletins and official pronouncements on the latest firefights or missile-strikes, how about creating a regular front-page feature (call it ‘The War Department’ in honor of the formerly unambiguously named United States Department of War) dedicated to providing a critical (analysis) overview/perspective on how we got here and where we are going: How is it that since 9/11 this country has been engaged in fifteen years of continuous warfare with little to show for it and almost no current public discussion, no accounting of costs (trillions in money), no taking stock of consequences or responsibility, and no end in sight (not even the pretense of an overarching strategy to bring it to a conclusion/victory).

Welcome Back. Long long overdue. The fighting never stopped. Though it “officially” was all declared over by 2014 (so no At War if we’re not at war, right?) Presidents and empty promises of victory and peace come and go. But our grunts are still out there, fighting, dying and holding the line for us all,year after year. Looking forward to some more great writing about their courage, sacrifice and heartbreaks.