Joe Kent
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Summary
In the wake of the death of three U.S. troops in a drone strike near the Syrian border, the reaction to that, mixed with sadness, was highly political and strategic. Within moments of the news breaking, politicians from both sides of the aisle demanded that we go to war with Iran. We talk to Rep. Jerrold Kent Kent, a former Green Beret and combat veteran who lost his wife in one of these wars, and is running for congress in Washington, D.C., about what happened and what the consequences could be for the American troops stationed in the Middle East. We also talk about the impact of the drone strike on the base in Jordan, and the possible link between the attack and the anti-Russia protests in the streets of Washington, DC, and calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, and why we should retaliate with full force against those responsible for the attack, if they continue to attack our troops in the middle east, and what we should do to prevent further attacks on our forces in the Mideast, we talk to someone who has been fighting for us for years to make sense of it all. Join us in this special episode of the podcast, where we talk with Rep. Kent, and hear his perspective on what happened, and how we can stop the violence in the face of it, from a man who has long been a combat vet and veteran who has lived through it all, and who is fighting for the cause of peace and justice, and justice for his fellow Americans. . Thank you for listening to this episode of The War Room, and your continued support of our profession, we are deeply grateful for your support, and we hope you leave us with a better understanding of what's going on in this week's episode of War Room. Peace, love, gratitude, and respect, and appreciation, and may you'll join us in the coming days, and keep us in your hearts, and prayers, and all of us in our hearts, thank you, and peace, and love, and good vibes! - Your continued support, your support is so we can keep fighting for you in the future, and thank you for all of your support. - - Elysses, John Sommers - John C. Eliot John Soto -- and your support will be greatly appreciated. -- John S. Paxson -- and your prayers are so much appreciated!
Transcript
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yesterday the pentagon announced that three u.s troops had been killed and dozens injured after
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a drone loaded with explosives struck them at a base in jordan near the syrian border now none of
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that can be confirmed the details anyway the location of the attack and there's some question
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about whether that's true but there is no question that american troops were killed yesterday and the
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reaction to that mixed with sadness was highly political in fact even strategic within moments
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of this news breaking lindsey graham the republican senator from south carolina called for blood quote
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hit iran now hit them hard he tweeted nikki haley of course piled on here's what she posted to x quote
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as a military spouse my heart breaks for the families who lost loved ones this shows the
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barbaric nature of our enemies in iran and it shows that they would not be attacking our troops if joe
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biden weren't so weak in his treatment of iran we should retaliate with full force the full force of
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american strength it's the only way to prevent further war if we do not these attacks will continue
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interesting all of this came immediately they were joined by wes clark the former presidential
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candidate and commander of nato and buffoons like john cornyn who apparently is a senator from texas
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et cetera all saying the same thing let's go to war with iran they all said this in both sides here's
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nancy pelosi on cnn telling you yesterday that anyone who is not for this who would like say a
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ceasefire between israel and hermas is working for vladimir putin for them to call for a ceasefire
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is mr putin's message mr putin's message make no mistake this is directly connected to what he would
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like to see same thing with ukraine it's about putin's message i think some of these some of these
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protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere some i think are connected uh to russia and i say
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that having looked at this for a long time now as you think some of these protests are russian plants
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i say they're plants i think some financing should be investigated and i want to ask the the fbi to
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investigate that it's hard for most people to believe that a person in his or her 80s could be
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evil but she is evil and she's speaking lies what you heard is totally dishonest but there's a point to
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the dishonesty and that is a war with iran which people in washington have been agitating for for
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more than 20 years so are we going to war with iran are we already in a war with iran and if so
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what are the consequences most americans have no idea it's not even something they're thinking about
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but they should be joe kent is a former green beret he's a combat veteran who lost his wife in one of
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these wars he's running for congress in washington state in the third congressional district and he has an
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interesting and highly informed perspective on this and we're honored to have him join us now
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joe kent thank you so much for coming on today so when you see all of this and you know you hate to
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be cynical but you really can't be too cynical uh when you're dealing with the war party in washington
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it did seem like a coordinated response very quickly moments after the announcement of the
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of the tragic death of these american servicemen um what do you make of the response from both
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parties in washington to the deaths yesterday i mean this whole thing we've seen it coming tucker
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we left our troops in these vulnerable locations like on the jordanian syrian and iraqi border
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our troops have been attacked we think at least 150 times since the october 7th incident began and so
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we've seen this coming this was an inevitable conclusion so by leaving our troops in these locations
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undefended essentially we left them there as bait because so many people in washington dc want to go
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to war with iran they want to go to a war with iran so badly that we will prop up the government of
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iraq while the government of iraq is completely controlled by iran we spend billions of dollars
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every single year funding arming trading and equipping the iraqi government so they can turn around
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and support the exact same militias that just killed our troops biden said himself in his statement he
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accused iranian backed militants operating in iraq in syria of conducting this attack that killed the
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three americans and wounded nearly 30 more that is nothing short of saying the pop the popular
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mobilization forces which is part of the iraqi military that we support so if you look at just
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the full scope of the way that we have arranged ourselves in the middle east who we're supporting and
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where our troops are there's no other logical conclusion other than the fact that we have left them
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there as bait to be killed by iranians at the time and place of their choosing so that we can continue
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to escalate towards a conflict with iran and like you said there was a very coordinated series of
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talking points that came out almost immediately that we need to go and and strike back against iran and
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look we do need to strike back we can't just let this go unanswered but if we start taking strikes
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inside of iran itself that is exactly what the iranian regime wants they will benefit from that if we
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start attacking iran the way that we attacked iraq the way we attacked afghanistan then the iranian
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government the iranian mullahs the ayatollah the people will rally around them in support we should
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be taking calculated strikes back at iranian proxy groups for self-defense and then we should
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immediately get our troops out of these foolish locations before we lose more blood and treasure for
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absolutely nothing in the middle east and before we're sucked further into a regional war
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tucker says it best the credit card companies are ripping americans off and enough is enough
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so if we could just go back to something you said at the beginning which i think is demonstrably true
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that american policymakers have left american citizens in these countries in order to be killed
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so they can justify killing more american citizens in a broader war against a very well-armed country
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iran if that is true that's evil that's a crime and by the way i should say because you almost never say
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that your wife was killed in one of those countries as one of those people you ran for congress you
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almost never mentioned it perhaps it's too painful and i'm sorry to bring it up now but i mean you have
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it's 100 percent a crime tucker look i lost my wife a month after trump gave the order for our troops to be
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withdrawn from syria because trump ran on defeating the islamic caliphate isis and that needed to be done
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unfortunately isis was a byproduct of the iraq war the invasion and all the blunders that we made
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there but trump inherited that problem we had to deal with it we had to go take out the caliphate
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we did that in very short order trump gave the order to withdraw and that's when the dc war machine
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which unfortunately is controlled by republicans and democrats and even more powerful unelected
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bureaucrats turned against trump to leave our troops there and she was killed on a lot of the
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justification for leaving our troops in syria and in iraq has been to prevent so-called iranian
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influence malign iranian influence to counter russia uh that is nothing more than us baiting a trap for
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ourselves to get our troops killed to encourage and then really to justify a further war against
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iran it's absolute insanity and we have to ask ourselves as american citizens what do we gain from
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this if we're going to deploy our troops and we're going to lose our best and our brightest
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and we're going to spend trillions of dollars what do we the american people gain at the same time we
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just lost three americans defending the jordanian syrian border our border is wide open fentanyl is
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killing over 118 000 of our citizens 10 million illegal invaders have come into our country so where are the
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priorities of our ruling class and i think it's absolutely evil i think it's completely and totally
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treasonous and we need to get these people out of office as soon as possible well and it's it's also
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there's something bigger it seems to me i have no evidence but just watching there's like a spirit
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of insanity or delusion that's descended on washington it's almost like ergotism or something
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you read about in the middle ages where the whole village goes crazy and commits cannibalism i mean here
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you have for just one example john cornyn who's a senator from texas whose state is being invaded by
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millions of people you can't get your child into the nicu in texas hospitals you can't use the emergency
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room in texas hospitals because they're full of people breaking our laws from foreign countries so texas is
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the weight of this and john cornyn's entire day is spent worrying about the territorial integrity of
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foreign countries like how do you how do you explain that it can't just be payoffs from lockheed or maybe
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it is i don't know what do you think i mean i think a lot of it is this deeply entrenched mentality in
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washington dc which most certainly has financial interests assigned to it however i do think there is
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a lot of people and a lot of them like you pointed out like nancy pelosi are in their 80s and
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they've always thought this way this with us or against us mentality that says like hey you're either for
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the next war the most current war in the current thing or you're with the terrorists you just uh are
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kowtowing to vladimir putin it's the exact same mentality that got us into the iraq war you're either with
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us or you're with the terrorists and look tucker i would love to come on here and defend
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neoconservatism as someone who you know lost my late wife in these wars as somebody who lost
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countless friends as somebody who fought myself 11 combat deployments i spent most my 20s and 30s
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in iraq i would love to tell you it had worked but it simply did not and that's a very hard thing to
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admit i get into arguments all the time uh with fellow veterans about this exact same topic so i
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think a lot of this is literally the gambler's fallacy there's a lot of people who think hey if we
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just keep trying if we keep attempting to spread freedom through the barrel of a gun and trillions of u.s
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dollars this time it's gonna work let's just double down and this is well how really nice casinos are
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built in las vegas off of this exact same mentality so i think that combined with the financial interest
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from lockheed martin and every single defense contractor and you know putting uh someone like
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lloyd austin as the secretary of defense who's still on the board at raytheon i think those that
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factor with that mentality and people not being able to admit that we got this wrong and then making
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adjustments to our policy i think that gets us in this current situation because it's actually
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challenging to thread the needle like where do we go from here we can't just let the iranians attack
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and kill our people right but at the same time we know if we go to war if iran this is going to be a
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disaster there's no data that says like hey maybe if we just go to our war if iran this time it's going
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to work out great we've actually got to assess the past mistakes that we made make adjustments
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and then chart a more pragmatic way forward but at the same time not lose sight of what's happening
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in our own country i don't go anywhere in my district in washington state without someone
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telling me a personal story about how the fentanyl crisis has affected them how the wide open southern
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border is literally killing members of their family so we need to prioritize this whole idea that we can be
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at war with the entire world is absolutely absurd while at the same time not prioritizing our own
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nation we've got to get our priorities in order i i've always wondered how someone like you must feel
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who as you just said spent a good part of your life on 11 combat deployments and lost your own wife
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in these wars when you're denounced as a tool of vladimir putin or in the last race you ran neocons
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subverted your message by claiming you were a cia operative when you were arguing against the cia's
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paramilitary involvement in these countries i mean it was the whole thing was so dishonest but how does
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it make you feel i don't think you need to prove your loyalty to this country you already have
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to be denounced in public as a traitor to your country
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you know uh when it happens the first somewhere around the first 10 to 100 times it hurts and it makes
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you really mad and then you get in this effort to prove why you're not what they say you are i'm not
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a nazi because i'm not a vladimir putin puppet because but then you know what actually uh or
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somewhere around the 101st time in the 1000th time you can only laugh at it because it's so
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preposterous the people that are arguing that we should forfeit our own territorial integrity for the
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territorial integrity of i don't know ukraine or the jordanian border those are the people that will
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call us traitors especially when the vast majority of them arguing for this have never had any skin
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in the game as a matter of fact i think the vast majority of them don't know anyone personally who
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went over and fought these wars so it's there's something liberating and being called that repeatedly
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over and over again because then you can truly see things for the way that they are that this is
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literally just propaganda to attempt to intimidate people to shut them up and i'm glad that you're doing
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what you're doing and you give us a platform where we can actually speak truth to power and show people
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what's actually happening in this country and how our foreign policy establishment is absolutely just
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really destroying the united states of america they're attempting to make us sacrifice our republic
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for an empire that does nothing for the american people amen so nicely put it i would recommend you know
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the famous eisenhower speech at the end of his term around 1960 uh or 61 the military industrial
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complex speech is worth watching um somebody's asking you one last question because he you know
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he called it 60 years ago um you referred to what a war with iran would do to the united states
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and i don't know that a lot of people in this country fully understand what iran is as a nation
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state it's it's not afghanistan what do you think the immediate and then longer term effects of a war
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with iran would be on the united states immediately it would be very bloody i have no doubt that we
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could probably defeat some of their air defense and go in there and have another shock and awe
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campaign but again like we saw how the shock and awe campaign in iraq really didn't actually work in
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the long run so i have no doubt that we'd have some immediate results that people would cheer about
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here in the united states but iran persia has always been an empire it's been around longer than any of
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the other players in the modern middle east right now and they are not going anywhere and right now
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iran has a lot of internal problem they have a lot of internal strife with the ayatollah and that
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that government it's only been in power since 1979 but again if we start conducting strikes in iran
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everyone in iran will rally around their leader and they will become even more revolutionary and then
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we will have iranian proxies throughout the entire region that will be conducting attacks just like we had
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uh in jordan and really in the long term tucker the axis that has been built uh really since
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putin invaded russia and we decided that since putin invaded ukraine and we decided we were going
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to throw this massive sanctions package at them china has come in as a major player and we are deeply
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compromised by china they control a lot of our economy they control uh global manufacturing they're
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deeply embedded in wall in wall street and they've also made deals with the iranians they want access to
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iranian petro not to mention the fact that biden killed off u.s energy independence and now he's
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going after lng and the world's biggest lng exporters are iran russia and qatar so this axis would become
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very powerful if we get deeply involved and deeply entangled with iran we are we are playing right into
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china's hands because china would like nothing more than for us to be committing our military industrial
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base to a war in eastern europe in ukraine and then to be committing our conventional military power
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our blood and our treasure back in the middle east that will make the pacific our actual border
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extremely vulnerable to chinese aggression or china will simply just watch us bleed out economically
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as we bleed out on the battlefield on these couple different theaters it's absolute insanity it's opening
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up pandora's box and again for what gain to the american people i i mean i think that's the most
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reasonable common sense based factual assessment i've seen of this from anyone and the fact that
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you're not in congress tells you a lot about the forces you're up against but godspeed joe kent thank
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you for summing it up for us today i appreciate it thank you so much tucker i really appreciate it thank you