Tulsi Gabbard break with Dems heralds party realignment: ex-Green Beret/GOP House candidate

Joe Kent, former Green Beret and GOP nominee for Congress in Washington state's Third Congressional District, says more combat veterans need to start speaking out for peace in Ukraine as a corrective to the growing risk of the conflict spilling beyond regional confines. 

"I think we need a lot of folks who actually know what war truly is to start speaking truth to power," Joe Kent said Friday on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "It's not just a cliche thing. It's something that we have to really start to think about sounding the warnings of. Otherwise, we're gonna get driven into yet another war. And this time, it won't be with Iraq. It won't be Syria, Libya or Afghanistan. It will be a catastrophic world war."

Kent was recently endorsed by former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who recently made news for leaving the Democratic Party. 

"It's a great honor," Kent said, referring to Gabbard's endorsement. "Tulsi's a fellow veteran. And I just really appreciate the fact that she is just speaking truth. Because the things that we talked about — I think far too often they get a Republican title or they get a Democrat title, and that common sense just gets really lost."

With her break from her party, Gabbard is highlighting that "there's no moderation left in the Democrat Party," he said. "They're essentially the ones that are pushing for war, they're the ones that are completely aligned with Wall Street." 

Saluting Gabbard for "having the courage to speak out against her own party," Kent suggested she is in the vanguard of an emerging partisan realignment.

"Tulsi, I think, is the most public person who's come out and articulated all these things bravely," he said, "but I think she said what a lot of independents and what a lot of Democrats are thinking themselves — and even Republicans, and we just fought a hard Republican primary —so I'm really excited to be a part of this political realignment."

Combat veterans, Kent believes, bring a unique and indispensable perspective to questions of war and peace, tempering interventionist zeal with a sense of the human toll of war.

"Tulsi has been a leader for over a decade now," he recalled, "to really say, 'Hey, look, we went, and we served our country because we love our country. We would still give our life for our country. However, we have gotten it wrong before with being lied to, and we have to see pattern recognition. 

In writing Ukraine a blank check without an exit strategy, the U.S. is inviting dangerous escalation of the conflict there, Kent fears. 

"We also have to look at the broader picture of what's happening right now, especially in Ukraine," he said. "I mean, it's horrible with Vladimir Putin and Russia invading Ukraine, and they're killing innocent citizens. But right now, all we're doing is escalating that conflict."