It’s like the Grey Lady would think that all combat veterans are snowflakes and SJWs, that they think it’s great that the military is more focused on ‘climate change’, raaaaacism, CRT, and the gender confused rather than protecting the U.S., and should run as Democrats (free read at Yahoo)
New Generation of Combat Vets, Eyeing House, Strike From the Right
In early 2019, as the Defense Department’s bureaucracy seemed to be slow-walking then-President Donald Trump’s order to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria, Joe Kent, a CIA paramilitary officer, called his wife, Shannon, a Navy cryptologic technician who was still in Syria working against the Islamic State group.
“‘Make sure you’re not the last person to die in a war that everyone’s already forgotten about,’” Kent said he told his wife. “And that’s exactly what happened,” he added bitterly.
The suicide bombing that killed Kent and three other service members days later set off a chain of events — including a somber encounter with Trump — that has propelled Kent from a storied combat career to single parenthood, from comparing notes with other anti-war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to making increasingly loud pronouncements that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters are political prisoners.
In five weeks, Kent, 42, a candidate for a House seat in Washington state that was long represented by a soft-spoken moderate Republican, may well be elected to Congress. And he is far from alone.
A new breed of veterans, many with remarkable biographies and undeniable stories of heroism, are running for the House on the far right of the Republican Party, challenging old assumptions that adding veterans to Congress — men and women who fought for the country and defended the Constitution — would foster bipartisanship and cooperation. At the same time, they are embracing anti-interventionist military and foreign policies that, since the end of World War II, have been associated more with the Democratic left than the mainline GOP.
In other words, they’re mirroring the true Conservative base, who do not want all the unnecessary interventionism, who are pushing for freedom, liberty, and limited government, who are tired of all the elites, including the Republican elites, ie, GOPe, and want to stand up for We The People. This makes Elites like the NY Times upset.
Beyond their right-wing leanings, all share in common a deep skepticism about U.S. interventionism, borne of years of fighting in the post-9/11 war on terrorism and the belief that their sacrifices only gave rise to more instability and repression wherever the United States put boots on the ground.
Where earlier generations of combat veterans in Congress became die-hard defenders of a global military footprint, the new cohort is unafraid to launch ad hominem attacks on the men who still lead U.S. forces.
“I worked for Milley. I worked for Austin. I worked for Mattis,” Don Bolduc, 60, a retired brigadier general challenging Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said of Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the current and former defense secretaries, Lloyd Austin and Jim Mattis. “Their concerns centered around the military-industrial complex and maintaining the military-industrial complex, so as three- and four-star generals, they can roll right into very lucrative jobs.”
It is time to stop intervening in everything, and, when we do get involved, it needs to make sense, be targeted, and go there to win. Going after Afghanistan and Iraq were the right things to do: how we did it was the problem. We weren’t there to kick ass and take names, we were there to “nation build”, which is why we were in Afghanistan for 20 years. And pretty much nothing to show for it.
It’s a long, long piece, and, reading between the lines, a hit job, painting them all as far right wackjobs who Hate Democracy. It’s all the NY Times knows.
You used to be a big fan of intervention
Have you flip flopped on this?
It was the left that tried to stop foreign wars. You called us traitors for not “supporting the troops” we must fight and defeat them there so they won’t follow us home.
Trump promised to pull the troops back and didn’t. It was always the left that tried to reduce military budgets but the right wanted more. You were always calling the left weak on defense.
We spent most of the money on military and paying off local corrupt leaders. The only way to defeat unconventional forces us with the support of the local population
We never had it
The Russians “kicked ass” killed 2.5 million men women and kids by dropping bombs and artillery. They still couldn’t win. All kicking ass does is make more enemies just like in Vietnam which of course the left was against also. Don’t “kick ass”, allow other countries to find their own way and suffer their own mistakes just as the USA did . We ended up spending the equivalent of $80000 on each Afghani . For that much money we could have paid them to vote GOP but instead they ended up hating us. Who won? American Defense contractors,and they routinely contribute more to the GOP than to the Dems.
The Taliban are religious fundamentalists, yet you want to deny them the ability to practice their crazy religion which is exactly the same as practiced by your good friends the Saudis who (not Biden ) control the price YOU must pay for gas AND it was Saudis who committed heinous crime of 9/11 not Afghanis.
It is way way to late to try and blame “the left” for the failure of Afghanistan, or Iraq which is now an ally of Iran more than the USA.
And don’t fixate on the clusterfuck
Ending of Afghanistan. It was the culmination of 20 years of mistakes. It was inevitable. Learn. Don’t invade and occupy other countries. They don’t like it .
Changing the Afghanistan mission and keeping us there for almost 20 years, well past the time al Qaeda was destroyed, will do that to a soldier. Intervening in the Syrian civil war where there are no good sides, will do that to a soldier. Deposing Saddam Hussein, whom the CIA believed had been building nuclear weapons, was one thing; trying to establish a Western-style democracy among a bunch of Arabs who had no cultural understanding or appreciation for such, was another.
The Army Corps of Engineers are in Kuwait right now, and have been for years, building more and more infrastructure to defend Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia from Iran, when the Saudis are trying to increase the price of oil, might just be informing these combat veterans that some of our overseas missions aren’t to protect friends.
Now these men see the US ramping up a proxy war against a nation with a strategic nuclear arsenal, while backing a non-NATO nation that is only slightly less bad than Russia, and, maybe, just maybe, having seen some of their comrades turned into decaying meat has brought that closer to home for them.
Yes, but Russia wouldn’t play the money laundering game like Ukraine would.
Also, at least Russia didn’t have any actual Nazi brigades.
Commenter: backing a non-NATO nation (Ukraine) that is only slightly less bad than Russia
Ukraine is much, much less bad than Russia.
tRump completely turned conservatism on its head; how easy that was! Russia good, Ukraine bad!
American conservatives have always needed a big daddy to protect them, to crush their enemies (educated elites, scientists, liberals), and to lead them to the promised land. Who could predict they would get hornswoggled by an apolitical former TV game host!?! Strange, but true!
Russia has never been the traditional enemy of the USA, no matter which political party was in charge of us at the time. Communism was the enemy of the USA as well as the rest of the free world, but then we started electing communists here in the US. I cannot understand why either democrats or republicans are taking sides in Russia-Ukraine. We don’t have a dog in that fight but the democratic party thinks we do so now “Russia bad”.
And there we have it from the distinguished Mr Dowd:
How is it that the “Commenter” who described Ukraine as “a non-NATO nation that is only slightly less bad than Russia” reads to Mr Dowd as “Russia good, Ukraine bad!”?
It seems as though the madcap commenter from Missouri is infected with the standard Democratic meme: if you are opposed to engaging in a proxy war with a nation which has both a strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal, you must be somehow (fellating) Vladimir Putin’s (penis) and an enemy of the red, white, and blue US of A. The thought that maybe, just maybe, some of us don’t think that even slightly increasing the chances that Philadelphia and St Louis could become radioactive black holes in the ground is a wise idea just doesn’t seem to occur to the Biden apologists and Democrat supporters.
Teach you grew up watching and believing in Rambo “kicking ass”
Grow the fuck up
John is now a mind-reader….it must be that excess CO2
NuGOPhers such as Bolduc are using military issues for political gain. Simple.
NuGOPhers such as Bolduc are using military issues for political gain. Simple.
That must be a new thing because democommies NEVER used military issues for political gain, have they dowd?
Just a reminder, military is political. That’s why we need to clean hous in the military and get rid of all senior officers who are “woke”.
MAGA
The military is not political, although pedoDon tried to use them that way.
The Republicans have always cast themselves as the only patriotic, military-supporting party. Yet, nuGOPhers (tRumpsists, MAGAts) now, suddenly, without warning, oppose all the oldGOPher policies they used to support!!! They have become liberals on the use of the military! Welcome aboard!
But what are the odds that nuGOPhers, once in power, will reverse their position once again?? LOL. PedoDon spoke of “his generals”, that the US military should do “his” bidding… it’s the nuPolicy of the nuGOP.
In the past 50 years, the US has invaded, bombed, missiled, interfered with, or occupied many dozen of nations. Our CIA engineered coups and “preferred” elections around the world. We should all be grateful that the nuRight agrees with liberals that we need more oversight of these actions.
Most coup attempts in the world involve the US CIA. Ironically, the Jan 6 coup did not!!
The socialist from St Louis wrote:
Our esteemed host wrote an article about actual combat veterans opposing the way the Commander-in-Chief has been using the military. It would seem that Mr Teach is a “patriotic, military-supporting” person.
You can trust me when I say that this could not be farther from the truth. DoD is every bit as political as DoS, and DoJ. The members of DoD are drawn from the same population that the rest of government gets employees and they reflect the attitudes and political affiliations of that population.
The thing is this…
Elwood has never been around military people. Professional or otherwise.
That’s just what they want you to believe.