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Radio War Nerd EP #71—Adrian Bonenberger on Afghanistan, War Lit & Academia (Patreon)

Published:
2017-02-14 17:23:57
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

Guest: Adrian Bonenberger, Army vet , journalist , author 

The War Nerd interviews Afghanistan War veteran, author and blogger Adrian Bonenberger about his experiences in the military and in war, and the contrast from life in Ivy League academia...Adrian also tells us his picks for best (and worst) recent war books and films... In World of Wars: Flynn is a moron; Nusra/alt-Qaeda undergoes another rebranding; and we dissect neocon hack Roy Gutman's smear piece  against Kurdish leftists, published in The Nation by looking at Gutman's work with Michael Weiss  in the Daily Beast, his stint in a spooky Reagan-era organization...We also look back at Amnesty International's "blunders"  that helped justify first Gulf War, bombing of Libya ...

Total Time: 3:04:22

Direct link  to this episode's mp3 here 

Read Adrian's work at The Wrath-Bearing Tree  and New York Times  & buy his book Afghan Post.

Files

Comments

alejandro sosa

This is one of my favorite episodes yet. One thing about Nixon scuttling the Vietnam peace talks in '68 that's recently become even clearer as the last of the classified materials come out is that even using proxies isn't enough--LBJ found out what happened quickly after the fact, and was livid but didn't take action b/c he didn't want to scuttle Nixon's legitimacy at the outset. Nixon did a better job seeing to that himself than even LBJ ever could've.

Anders Olsson

I just want to say that I'm really happy Dolan isn't cold and hungry anymore. I felt really bad when that first article about the fucking boat came out. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it's a good feeling to keep John and Katherine in mid-priced hotels and McDonalds. Oh! Also! Nice to hear mention of the literary frauds thing. I've learnt more about literature from Dolan than I did from my three semesters studying lit at the university. I've forced something like two dozen people to read the Frey reviews and the article on Auden.

Ryan McManimie

I found Adrian's genuine recommendation of Chris Kyle's book in the context of anything but a case study of megalomania to be a bit disappointing. Furthermore, as a new listener of the War Nerd I was surprised to see no discussion of the genesis and actual roots of our disastrous and never-ending Afghanistan engagement.

Totally Tanked

Maybe you should listen some more before expecting the whole thing get recapitulated just for you snowflake!

Ryan McManimie

Lol. Calm down bro. I didn't say I disliked the episode, quite the opposite. I just found those two specific points to be surprising.

Avery

The middle part of this interview would make a good War Nerd Manifesto. Great food for thought.

Crazy B0nkers

Chris Kyle's book is actually OK. Much of the controversy about him stems from Clint Eastwood's movie and its many inaccuracies, and Kyle's own post-book-and-movie barfight hero claims. The whole thing made him look like some sort of a BS artist/stolen valor kinda guy.

Crazy B0nkers

Oh, and for a discussion about the roots of our engagement in Afghanistan, I would vote with two hands knowing it would take at least 10 hours. Afghanistan is the balkans of the near-Asia. You can't really conquer it. Hell, you can't even cross it without taking damage. A very real war black hole.

Francis Terpening

Regarding our boy Roy, the question should be "why does he do this shit?" The answer is pretty basic: Hezbollah. Hezbollah has beaten Israel twice and Israel is terrified of them. Roy is pushing regime change in Syria because it would cut off Hezbollah from resupply.

radiowarnerd

Thanks! Auden was supposed to be the first in a full alphabet. Only 25 letters to go!

radiowarnerd

OK, what in particular would you like us to cover? The immediate cause was the fact that Al Q was based in Afghanistan, but Great Power rivalry there goes back centuries.

radiowarnerd

That makes sense. What it doesn‘t explain is why the Nation did that. If you look at the biographies of Nation editors who specialize in the Middle East, most of them are very pro-Intifada.

Francis Terpening

Good point. My only guess, and it's admittedly ill-informed and flimsy, would be that the Nation is getting some money from someone pushing that agenda. A lot of these ideological publications (the ones on the right like Reason and the Weekly Standard come to mind) don't make any money at all, but stay in business because of wealthy patrons paying the bills. Maybe the Nation has a similar financial situation - maybe not. Let's say for the sake of argument it did, it's possible that they're getting the same money that Brookings and the Center for American Progress gets from the Gulf and the Haim Saban's of the world. Equally possible they're not, but that's the only angle I can see and when it comes to the angles, I'm not exactly Tom Reagan.

Ben Dinsmore

I would love a future show on the albigensian or cathar crusade. It seems like it could be interesting to look at considering how nobles within a proto nation state took on the banner of the crusade to crush a minority sect of Christianity in order to help strengthen themselves and their control over the rich farmland and wealthy ports of Southern France. It is even more interesting because you can't say it was simply just economic opportunism as there were some very serious religious differences for the time back then.

Kevin Walsh

Jonathan Sumption wrote an excellent short book about that war, though given his elevation to the British Supreme Court, it may be tough to get him on as a guest.

Freddy K.

I've done a side-by-side analysis of the mp3s for ep 70 vs 71: <a href="https://i.imgur.com/aZglqd6.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://i.imgur.com/aZglqd6.png</a> Ever since RWN switched to Telescope Audio in Brooklyn, the recording quality leaves nothing to be desired (as good as teh Albanian internet allows :P), but the mp3 you upload still could be improved by switching to VBR (= variable bitrate). I've noticed that you switched from 128kbit@44.1kHz to 80kbit@24kHz, but it's still CBR (= constant bitrate). With VBR, you could have the best of both worlds: great quality and small size.