The epic Cynical Publius penned an article for The Federalist about how those in the power dynamic of the United States have betrayed the veterans who fought the Global War on Terror (GWOT). It wasn’t just the warfighters that the Deep State Power Dynamic betrayed. It was the parents, friends, previous military generations and the American psyche that Kamala, the Cheneys and the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon betrayed.

As you will read, Cynical Publius was a warfighter and now is a lawyer. He is an exceptional writer. If you don’t follow him on X (Twitter) @CynicalPublius, you really should. Go ahead. I’ll wait. This morning The Federalist published “Why Veterans Really Hate Liz Cheney, Kamala Harris, And The Architects Of The War On Terror”. He begins:

The recent controversy regarding Donald Trump’s criticism of Liz Cheney as a warhawk who has never faced the dangers of the wars she embraces has synthesized an issue that may be opaque to non-veterans: the extreme resentment many veterans of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) feel toward Kamala Harris and the Democrat Party.

Harris and the Democrats have created a perfect storm of veteran disdain in that they have succeeded in uniting three once-inapposite groups behind Harris: the neocons who started the GWOT, the media and Democrats who undermined the veterans’ GWOT missions, and the generals who failed again and again and again at bringing the GWOT to a successful conclusion.

Oh, yes the neocons who started the GWOT in Iraq. That would be head neocon Dick Cheney. On tissue thin evidence, Cheney championed going in to Iraq which we did in 2003. Total chickenhawk. From Time Magazine September 2002:

Despite some grumbling at the White House that Cheney had gone off on his own at a time when the Administration was frantically trying to get off the topic, a Veep aide said the speech had been okayed by the President. Bush and Cheney discussed the text, and the President even made additions and edits. But the Vice President didn’t share his speech with some other key members of the Administration’s foreign policy team, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Though Cheney offered no new evidence about Saddam Hussein’s purported cache of weapons of mass destruction, hawks in the Administration promise that new intelligence will serve as a smoking gun. They are holding back on specifics, they say, until the moment the President must make his case for war. But that doesn’t mean Cheney is finished speaking his mind. He plans to give another version of the same speech next week.

Well, we now know Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. So sure is Cheney of his place in the Deep State Media Industrial Complex, instead of offering his abject apology and doing penance, Darth Cheney called Donald Trump a threat to our Republic:

“In our nation’s 246 year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our Republic than Donald Trump.” Dick Cheney pic.twitter.com/erBPBNy8ah

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 4, 2022

Of course, Cynical Publius (CP) starts with Dick Cheney, and he has more names of those betrayed the Veterans of GWOT:

I’ll start with the neocon “chickenhawks.” Maybe it’s not fair to blame Liz Cheney for the GWOT as her father was its prime architect and not Liz herself, but she has come to serve as a symbol of the many advocates for useless, endless wars who never put their own lives (or the lives of their children) on the line, and who now support Kamala Harris. Liz Cheney stands as a symbol in this regard, and she stands for the many establishment Republicans who would rather support a radical Democrat than the only president in decades who did not start new wars.

These are neocons like Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Bill Kristol, and the infamous 200-plus Republican former staffers for George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain who helped design the GWOT. These are the people who put GWOT veterans into the cauldron that left them and so many of their friends dead, maimed, or bearing invisible scars that linger even today.

My late Marine Dad never forgave the Military Industrial Complex that ended the Korean War. The Generals learned they could keep the meat grinder running and the politicians learned they could get rich and pay no price. More:

The last leg of the trinity of veteran betrayal is the generals who could not win those same wars, retired from the military and went deep into the military-industrial complex, and now endorse Harris and demean Trump. These are generals like Stan McChrystal, who gave us such restrictive rules of engagement in Afghanistan that it cost the lives of so many troops. These are generals like John Kelly, whose counterinsurgency tactics solved so little in Al Anbar Province and who now libels the boss who fired him in The Atlantic magazine. These are generals like Michael Hayden, whose tenure at the National Security Agency did nothing to prevent 9/11, yet who found ways to use that tragic day as an excuse to spy on Americans.

These are the generals who led us in wars that they were not competent enough to win. Their leadership failed, no one was held to account, and now these same men stand proudly against the one president who would not tolerate those failures nor repeat them. This too feels like a betrayal.

This is where we come in: The Mothers and Fathers. Our son was in middle-school on September 11, 2001. He was always about a military career (Thanks to my Dad,). His Father and I presented opportunities to look at other careers but nothing ever swayed him. In high school, he was in the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps for all four years. He joked they were our nation’s 189th line of defense, right behind the Mississippi League of Women Voters. Next, four years of Army ROTC at Military College. He finally commissioned at graduation. He believed. We believed. No more.

Many of my son’s high school and college friends are veterans. All of them have a service related injury/disability. Mostly hearing loss. Many friends are still in the service. They look different from the other guys their age. They are Young Old Men. Then, there are the ones who came home in a box.

The most recent local kid was Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss who graduated from Gibbs High School off of Tazewell Pike. He died at Abbey Gate. You know, Kamala Harris, a Deep State muppet who was “comfortable” with the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.

Kamala Harris was behind the botched Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in 13 dead American service members:

CNN: “Joe Biden just made a really big decision—Afghanistan—were you the last person in the room?”

Kamala: “Yes.”

CNN: “And you feel comfortable?”

Kamala: “I do.” https://t.co/JuAv3rd1nu pic.twitter.com/t1yotaFJVw

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) October 29, 2024

Only a member of the Deep State Media Industrial Complex, the neocons, the media and Democrats, and the Generals, the Perfumed Princes of the Pentagon, could be so cold and callous. Remember Ryan Knauss:

If you are going to ask Mothers and Fathers to send their sons and daughters off to war, don’t lie to them. Don’t betray them. Don’t keep the meat grinder going for the Military Industrial Complex. Don’t treat our babies like bullet catchers and cannon fodder. For me this was unforgiveable. That unholy triumvirate let down the service personnel, their families and friends. They lied to all of us. Thanks for this CP.

Vote Trump 2024 tomorrow.

Featured Image: Toni Williams/All Rights Reserved