National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent says Trump “started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.
The Trump administration’s top official on counterterrorism has resigned from his position, citing opposition to the war in Iran, and urged the president to “reverse course”.
In a letter posted on Tuesday to his X account, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent said that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the US and claimed that the Trump administration “started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.
Kent, 45, is a US special forces and CIA veteran whose wife, navy cryptologic technician Shannon Kent, was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.
Honest question. How is this not seen as just rolling over and taking it? I’m genuinely curious because to me it’s like giving up. They’re just gonna replace him with someone who actually agrees with them. He could’ve done things to resist from the inside and just do everything he could to disrupt things but this is just throwing your hands up and letting them get away with everything.
I’ll admit I’m completely ignorant in how this position works but that’s how I’ve always felt when someone in this kind of position just quits instead of taking action.
He’s a rat jumping off of a sinking ship. He’s been employed within the Trump Administration for over a year. I take that to mean he was ok with racism, he was ok with misogyny, he was ok with anti-trans, ok with anti lgbt, and ok with ice death squads kidnapping people and killing them in the street. Suddenly, now, he has a problem with what’s going on. Rat is just jumping off the ship before he gets thrown under the bus.
He’s taking his competence and experience with him, for starters. Transitions always take time for the newbie to get accustomed. There’s also some public image effect to a respected veteran an expert disagreeing not just behind closed doors, while outwardly being seen as another asset of a regime they no longer support, but out in the open, at the expense of losing their job. They might not be allowed to publicly speak out against their superior (insubordination), so by quitting, they explicitly cut that chain and avoid the consequences (which would involve being fired at the very least).
We don’t know how long and how much he has tried to fight back from the inside, how much good that might have done, and how much pressure he has faced. It’s possible he was slated for replacement anyway, and given the choice between being fired and burning the bridge himself, he felt the latter would send the stronger signal: “I hate my job so much that I’ll quit because I can’t stand to wear this title while that snotrag up there is dripping all over it. Fuck this shit, I’m out.”
And it might also send a signal to those working under him that respected him: You shouldn’t cooperate with this shit.
(There are less charitable explanations that might apply to this guy in particular, but the above generally holds for officials making a point of quitting their position)
This took courage and we should celebrate this. I can already see people pointing fingers at him; that is worth doing eventually, but this is not the time for that.
Let’s recognize good behavior and make sure we encourage more people to do the same.
I invite you to eat shit for celebrating an open white nationalist for any reason, ever.
“Good behavior”; I’m not going to clap like a seal because someone hates Jews more than Muslims.
It’s good that a “true believer” stepped down and I’m all for it. His reason for doing so isn’t super noble though. MAGA Classic isn’t a whole lot better than New MAGA. They really just have different awful priorities. And both parties in a ‘wrong kind of asshole’ fight are still assholes.
I think this says more about how universal opposition to the war is than anything particularly good about Kent.
He could counter my terrorism any day 🥵
A rightrous politician? No, it can’t be. What’s the catch?
The catch: He is a white supremacist with ties to Nick Fuentes and his motivations may rather be rooted in hatred for Israel and him disapproving of Trump fighting a war at Netanyahu’s behest.
He’s a white supremacist with ties to Nick fuentes
That’s horrible!
may be rooted in a hatred for Israel and disapproval over Trump fighting a war at Nets behest
Ok, now I’m getting mixed signals.
Do you have proof of that because I’ve found info that disputes a relationship between them?
The two of them may not like each other all that much, but all of these articles affirm their connections and their past interactions with each other. And whether they Fuentes and Kent are amicable towards each other or not, they run with the same crowd of white supremacists and neo-nazis.
You’re the one who said they had ties. What I posted showed that those ‘ties’ are weak at best and are mostly composed of animosity.
One of the articles you posted contains this bit:
According to Fuentes, who could not be reached for comment, Kent told him “I love what you’re doing.” Fuentes said he and his organization — as well as his social media following — boosted Kent’s message.
“We retweeted his stuff, we showed his stuff on Gab, we got his social media up off the ground,” Fuentes said in the three-and-a-half-hour livestream. “That was part of that call.”So whether you believe Fuentes or rather Kent’s denial, Fuentes was at one time convinced that they are working together. That’s “ties” to me. YMMV
I posted 3 articles, so side with the majority take that favours Kent.
If you wanna search for more be my guest.
He’s not a politician. He’s a career spook.
You can read the whole resignation letter here. You’ll find the catch in there!
