NPR: Joe Kent’s co-author talks about the counterterrorism official’s resignation

If you know who Joe Kent is and are alarmed by his resignation, that’s a sign to go outside and touch grass, smoke grass, get some ass or go to Bass.  Islands or Pro Shop, it doesn’t matter, just step away from the political theater.

As is my custom, I turned on NPR while lying in bed this morning.  The soporific tone lulls me back to sleep or the anti-American perspective irritates me to alertness.  This morning, they are wee-weed  up about this guy, Joe Kent, that normal people knew nothing about. 

If you care, look it up, but here’s the summary.

In a letter posted on X, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent said that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to the US and claimed the administration “started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

A couple of things struck me in the NPR interview with a guy who co-authored a book with Joe Kent.

The book is about Kent’s first wife who was a Navy linguist who was killed in Syria.  It’s odd that a special operations intelligence specialist would seek out a journalist to write a book about a part of his life.  Those guys are supposed to be cunning and secretive.  Publicizing about his own life suggests that he is an attention whore with ambition or political aspirations.

Kent is portrayed as principled and forthright.  An honest, stand-up guy.  That doesn’t line up with a spec- ops intelligence specialist who worked for the military and the CIA.  Those guys have to follow orders and accomplish the mission even if it seems dodgy or questionable.  They have to assume that HQ has an appropriate justification or rationale for the action.    

From the BBC article, it seems that Democrats didn’t like Kent and now, Trump doesn’t like him either.  Everyone should be happy that he’s gone.

In Kent’s confirmation hearings,

Democrats had criticised his hiring of a member of the far-right Proud Boys as a consultant to his 2022 election bid.

After Kent sent his letter bagging on Trump and the Iran action, the Anti-Defamation League got involved.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a US antisemitism monitor, said in a statement that accusations in Kent’s resignation letter “traffic in old-age antisemitic tropes”.

“So it’s no surprise that he would blame Israel and the media for pushing the President into war against the Iranian regime,” the ADL said.

Joe Kent seems like an opportunist.  He is a good-looking guy who has ambition and feels that he should be important.  He was the Director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, but obviously that wasn’t enough for him or he received a better offer.

I think Joe Kent is being coerced or paid by anti-American people or organizations to engage in this political theater.  If he was sincere in his earlier pro-Trump principles and had an earnest objection to the Iran take-down, he would have quietly resigned.

There are legitimate reasons to be skeptical of the wisdom of attacking Iran before it began or to question where this is going and how it will wrap up.  Only anti-Western interest can doubt that Iran needed to be addressed.

Iran was working on acquiring nuclear weapons.  No one in favor of global stability can doubt that.  Iran was building a huge arsenal of ballistic missiles and military drones, and is willing to use those to threaten other countries and world trade.  After two weeks of pounding, Iran still has the ability to choke off the Strait of Hormuz and cripple global shipping.

That threat needs to be eliminated, not allowed to grow stronger.

Staggering amounts of money are involved, along with trained and infiltrated bad actors.  Something is going on to undermine Trump’s efforts to undermine long-standing global threats.

Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly are two commentators who were supportive of Trump and have massive audiences.  Both have become vocal critics of the military action against Iranian mullahs and are acting uncharacteristically.

Tucker Carlson says that he is being investigated for being a foreign agent.  Carlson was invited to the White House before Operation Epic Fury and told that military action wasn’t imminent.  He may have passed that information to Iranian agents, resulting in Ayatollah Khomeini being less vigilant.

That’s possible, and fits the available facts.

Megyn Kelly is engaging in a social media feud with pro-Israel commentator, Mark Levin.  She keeps suggesting that he has a small penis.  I was a big fan of Megyn Kelly, and have posted about her.  This unprofessional and juvenile attack is off-brand for her, and will eventually reduce her audience and cost her money.

I don’t know what’s going on, but it is not subtle.