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.

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  • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    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.

    • Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      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.

  • xerxes@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • Godric@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      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.

    • breakfastmtn@piefed.caOP
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      1 day ago

      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.