Postcards from the Empire
A Voice of Truth from within the Empire of Lies.
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, struck a strong blow for freedom and common sense by resigning his position on March 17th. Kent is a highly decorated Army warrant officer and CIA paramilitary officer who ran for Congress in 2022 and ’24 in Washington State’s third congressional district as a Republican on a pro-peace, America First platform, losing both times in that far-left state.
Kent was one of the handful of genuine patriots nominated by Donald Trump at the beginning of his second administration, one that started off on a promising note before quickly being betrayed by Trump himself. It’s too early to know if any others will follow him, with Tulsi Gabbard coming quickly to mind as a possibility, but even if no one else does, Kent has struck a strong blow against Trump and his bullshit narratives attempting to justify his disgusting and shameful war against Iran.
Kent’s resignation letter is worth quoting as it is right on the money:
“After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
“I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.
“In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS.
“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.
“This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was clear path to a swift victory.
“This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.
“As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, | cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.
“I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.
“It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.”
The always classless Trump immediately denounced Kent as “very weak on security,” while RINO Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska wrote: “Good riddance. Anti-Semitism is an evil I detest, and we surely don’t want it in our government.”
Bacon is typical of the occupied U.S. Congress. Calling out Israel’s part in this shameful war of aggression is “anti-Semitic,” illustrating again how the Permanent Regime defines “patriotism” as loyalty to Israel above loyalty to the United States.
Despite all the endless bleatings about “freedom” and “democracy,” when it comes to foreign policy, the fake Republican-Democrat charade is always as one, except for a very few “fringe” figures demonized by the fedgov’s corporate media arm. Despite how much Trump is despised by Democrats, they’ve mostly marched in muted lockstep with the corporate media thus far when it comes Trump’s war, because they are all pro-Israel and anti-Iran and no lie about Iran is ever challenged.
Fox News as always holds up the regime’s allowable “conservative” flank, with the likes of Jess Watters and Laura Ingraham gleefully reading their nightly scripts, probably crafted at Langley. And then there’s Lindsey Graham’s blowhard soul-mate Sean Hannity, always ready to show off his Israel uber alles credentials.
Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham getting ready to read their nightly propaganda scripts.
But those early triumphant scripts aren’t quite so gleeful now as it’s become painfully obvious that Trump and his radical Zionist administration launched a war they were incompetent to prosecute. Pete Hegseth, who still looks better suited for drunken fraternity parties than he does “Secretary of War,” comes across as a rabid zealot who can’t wait for the “rapture” to arrive, as does Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who would have been locked up in a prison (or mental institution) in a healthy society after meeting and promoting convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
No, the United States does not tolerate dissent on the “important” issues, the ones Americans never get to vote on in presidential elections. And when they do, such as Trump’s repeated denunciations of unnecessary wars, they still end up with perhaps the most dangerous warmongering administration in U.S. history, which is saying a lot given how deeply endless war is engrained in the Permanent Regime’s lifeblood.
Even, if say, some of the Fox News celebrities deep down feel the same way as Joe Kent, are they going to likewise speak out? Hannity reportedly makes some $30 million per year, Laura Ingraham $15 to $18 million per year, and Jesse Watters around $5 million. Even though most Americans struggle week to week to make ends meet, those that rise in the corporate media are paid so well that they will never bite the hand that feeds them, nor will more than a few Congressmen as long as they abide by the rules set by the Israel Lobby. So Jesse, Laura and Sean and the rest of the boys and girls at Fox will continue to demonize Iran and regard them as sub-human.
Trump lost his “mojo” or more accurately his ability to hoodwink his base, when he angrily called the Epstein files a “hoax” and then attacked his supporters, saying he didn’t want their support any longer. He’s been well off his game ever since and now seems increasingly unhinged, not exactly a good thing as he continues to move the U.S. and much of the world toward a completely unnecessary global conflict. He’s become as much of an obvious pathological liar as Joe Biden, now blabbering about how Iran was about to build a nuke and use it against the U.S., the exact same lie that Benjamin Netanyahu has been spewing forth for the past 30 years.
A good guess is that Trump’s long relationship with Epstein has left him hopelessly compromised and under the thumb of Israel, particularly Netanyahu, who with each passing day appears to have been injured or killed by an Iranian missile strike.
So what is to be done? Politically, nothing for the moment. As I wrote earlier this month, the U.S. political system is locked down and rigged. https://donwassall.substack.com/p/postcards-from-the-empire-bb4
The two-party fraud needs to be broken wide open, and that could happen depending on how badly Trump’s war continues to unwind. Not one other country in the world is standing with the U.S. despite Trump’s typical threats and blustering. He just may have destroyed his presidency and while seeing the Zio-cons get what’s coming to them would be satisfactory on the surface, it’s also important that WWIII not break out or America and the rest of the world otherwise wrecked.
It looks like a period of increased economic decline and intensifying suffering is beginning, but constructive solutions must still be proposed and implemented. Easy, no, but arrogant bullies are often their own worst enemies and so many people are now aware and awake that sooner or later solutions will come about despite how bleak things may appear at any given moment.
https://donwassall.substack.com/p/postcards-from-the-empire-f23