I would like to thank Rep. Adam Kinzinger for his service. This is about the only kind thing I can say about the Republican congressman as it relates to American foreign policy.

U.S. foreign policy has been a disaster for the last twenty years due to people who think like him. Kinzinger spent the weekend whining on social media about anyone who ever tried to end America’s longest war in Afghanistan, tweeting:

The withdrawal from #Afghanistan, pushed by @RandPaul negotiated by Pompeo, bragged about by Trump, and executed by Biden, guaranteed the “Forever War” that the terrorists declared against us, continues. That’s the real forever war.

— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) August 22, 2021

While the Biden administration withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan in the worst possible way, the notion of having American soldiers another week in a country where they cannot or will not defend themselves after all this time is an insult to our military.

Kinzinger is being cute with his comments about “forever war” in his tweet, but it is what politicians of his ilk truly want: The U.S. to be on a permanent war footing indefinitely.

It was neoconservative Republicans during the George W. Bush administration that got America into this prolonged mess and Kinzinger’s intent is to carry on that disastrous foreign policy legacy.

When President Trump announced that the U.S. would finally be leaving Iraq in the near future, neoconservative Republicans like Kinzinger and Liz Cheney teamed up with Democrats to try to stop a withdrawal.

CATO’s Doug Bandow touched on those efforts in July 2020, writing, “Republicans also are taking the lead in the Democratic‐ controlled House to sacrifice American interests for foreign governments. For instance, Rep. Liz Cheney…backed a Democratic proposal to limit further withdrawals from Afghanistan, where Americans have been engaged in a nearly 20‐ year nation‐ building mission.”

“The measure passed by a 45 to 11 vote: members of both countries seem determined to keep Americans forever fighting in Central Asia,” Bandow noted. “They care more for the corrupt, incompetent regime in Kabul than America service members and taxpayers. In contrast, the president, despite his halting, inconsistent policy, better represents this nation’s interests.”

Bandow added, “For instance, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R‐ Ill) complained that Trump’s refusal to keep the U.S. forever entangled in another nation’s civil war, tragic but irrelevant to American security, was ‘weak.”

That line could have came straight from Dick Cheney’s lips. Former President Donald Trump’s aversion to war has always been at the heart of Kinzinger’s deranged Never Trumpism.

For years, an overwhelming majority of Americans have supported withdrawal from Afghanistan, as Kinzinger now tries to use Biden’s poor strategy to argue the U.S. should have never left. Again, he quite literally wants forever wars.

If it is a soldier’s job to do his or her duty, it is our job as citizens to question our government when it chooses to go to war. Kinzinger finds it reprehensible that any American would ever question a war or want to end one. The mere inquiry sends the congressman into conniptions.

For all his moralizing and posturing, Adam Kinzinger is part of the outdated and discredited Washington foreign policy consensus that kept the U.S. in Afghanistan for so long in the first place. He will never admit it, he will never learn a single lesson from our foreign policy mistakes, and her will gladly repeat those mistakes with any willing presidents or parties in the future.

Adam Kinzinger is part of what’s been wrong with U.S. foreign policy for many years.

Too many.

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Never Trump Republicans biggest problem with Trump has always been his ‘America First’ foreign policy

What does every current Never Trump Republican member of Congress have in common besides being against Donald Trump? They are staunchly opposed to the former president’s ‘America First’ foreign policy.

For these Never Trumpers, this is not a bug, it’s a feature.

I am not saying that Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger were not legitimately horrified by the Capitol riot on January 6, 2020. I was too. It was a terrible and embarrassing day for the United States.

I am saying that if President Trump pursued the same foreign policy as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, you would not have heard as much criticism of Trump from Mrs. Cheney, Romney and Kinzinger. Even about January 6.

If Trump was a neoconservative “warmongering fool,” Liz Cheney would be his greatest supporter. Even after Trump claimed the election was stolen. Even after January 6.

— Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) May 12, 2021

Because before January 6, there was March 20, 2003 – the day the U.S. invaded Iraq. I don’t have to revisit every granular detail of that debacle to recall what most Americans and the world have long known: The U.S. intervention in Iraq was arguably the worst foreign policy mistake in our nation’s history. Trump rightly called the Iraq war “the worst mistake, the most costly mistake in the history of our country.”

Liz Cheney does not think the Iraq war was a mistake, and has long appeared to want to repeat that mistake in Iran. Mitt Romney has always adhered to Bush-era neoconservative foreign policy, has long defended the Iraq war, and like Cheney, wouldn’t mind doing it again in Iran. Similar to Cheney and Romney, Adam Kinzinger is not a fan of the U.S. pulling troops out of any combat zone at any time.

Not surprisingly, Kinzinger is opposed to the removal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Here is the congressman’s recent comments on that front, including bashing Trump for pursuing troop withdrawal, along with a follow up by advisor to Sen. Rand Paul, Doug Stafford:

No, warmongers like you who want to nation build and police the world forever own this. 15 years ago or 15 years from now, it would be the same result.

But much like your political judgement, your foreign policy judgement is god awful.

Enjoy your last few months in office. https://t.co/sC0lTKgu81

— Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) August 13, 2021

Romney predictably hates that U.S. troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan.

The Biden administration’s unwillingness to alter the Afghan withdrawal plan based on changing circumstances on the ground & the grave implications for US security interests is a tragedy & a cause for serious concern about how the administration will deal with global challenges. https://t.co/rM43t2uakH

— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) August 11, 2021

And of course for Liz Cheney, permanent war is a religion.

What’s happening in Afghanistan is catastrophic. US forces on the ground were working w/Afghan forces to prevent terrorists from establishing safe havens from which they can attack us again.

Withdrawing US forces is allowing terrorists & their allies to take over the country.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) August 9, 2021

Stafford is right that in 15 years or even 100 years, the chaos happening in Afghanistan right now after troop withdrawal was always inevitable. The only alternative is the U.S. staying there forever.

Which Cheney, Romney and Kinzinger would have no problem with.

There is no time that Cheney, Romney or Kinzinger would advocate for avoiding war or ending a war that the hawkish Washington foreign policy establishment wanted to start or continue.

They will never say it forthright in public, but what the current Never Trump Republicans in Congress hate most is that Donald Trump significantly changed the conversation about what Republican foreign policy should be. Liz Cheney is part of a family that was able to almost exclusively define Republican foreign policy for a generation.

No more. ‘America First’ has now replaced the tired and disproven ‘If we don’t fight them over there, we’re going to have to fight them here.’ After all these war-weary years, fewer Americans than ever believe that anymore.

Fewer Republicans than ever believe it – and Never Trump perpetual war propagandists can’t stand it.

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