Spiral: Trapped in the Forever War

FEATURING MARK DANNER – The September 11th 2001 attacks provided the spark for a multi-front war crafted by President George W. Bush and maintained by President Barack Obama to evolve into the longest war the US has ever fought. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and today, Syria, there seems to be no end in sight and no end-goal to this war.

In spite of Mr. Obama’s vain lip service for ending the war every now and then, we now have a new, terrifying bogeyman to focus the war efforts on – the Islamic State.

In his new book Spiral, author Mark Danner writes, “We have created in the war on terror a perpetual motion machine.”

Find more of his work at www.MarkDanner.com.

*This segment was originally broadcast on June 24, 2016.

Mark Danner, writer and foreign policy analyst, contributor to the New York Review of Books, New York Times Magazine, and more, former staff writer at The New Yorker. He teaches at the University of California and at Bard College.