I was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Lindsey Graham has represented my state in Congress since 1995. That’s 31 years, eight as a House representative and 23 as a senator.
“I’m Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina,” Graham said Monday. “I’m back.”
Back? He was speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Israel. “I come here every two weeks whether I need to or not.”
You do? How about visiting Charleston or Columbia or somewhere in the Palmetto state that often?
Graham had his reasons. “So why did I come this time? To put a fine point on where we are at as a world regarding the Iranian regime.”
Where “we” are at? Who’s “we?” And “as a world”?
So, the guy elected to represent South Carolina by South Carolinians for over three decades is spending a significant portion of his time injecting himself into the politics and tensions between the foreign countries of Israel and Iran.
What does this have to do with my state?
As usual, Graham was aching for war. If he gets his wish, that could have a lot to do with my state actually, given that South Carolina’s “contribution of new military recruits outweighs its share of the U.S. young adult population by more than 50 percent,” according to the online magazine Facing South.
We’ve always been a military-heavy state per capita. Many of our soldiers are deployed overseas, including in the Middle East.
Pressing for a U.S. attack on Iran, Graham continued, “Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely they can.”
Well that certainly gives me pause, and I might imagine the same of my state’s near 35,000 active-duty members and their families.
Graham didn’t flinch.
“I think the risk associated with that”—note: “the risk” here means U.S. military members’ lives—“is far less than blinking and pulling the plug and not helping the people as you promised.”
The “people” he was talking about are Iranians, and who “promised” them our “help,” exactly? South Carolinians? Americans, even?
The Ron Paul Institute’s Chris Rossini shared this clip and wrote, “Well, if you’re an American soldier (or thinking about becoming one) … you should know how your life is viewed.”
“Graham’s willing to lose you for Israel,” Rossini added.
He clearly is. Israel comes first—he just said he’s there twice a month—and the lives of South Carolinians and Americans are at most secondary, but probably even less of a priority than that. Graham obviously cares more about Israel, its agenda, and the desires of its president, Benjamin Netanyahu, more than the actual lives of his own country’s and state’s service members.
Please, let’s stop pretending Republican hawk Graham has some kind of deep concern about the Iranian people or civilian lives in most places where the U.S. is involved in some manner. This is the same Graham who openly and enthusiastically wanted to lower the age for Ukraine’s conscripts from 27 to 25 simply to have more bodies to send into that country’s meat-grinder war with Russia. Ukraine is another foreign nation where Graham has spent an inordinate amount of time for a very many years.
Life is not a priority for Graham. Israel has long been a—strike that, the—priority for American neoconservatives great and small. Fellow hawk and Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said without hesitation in June, “I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate, and I’ve worked every day to do that.”
Of course, American senators have long been involved in U.S. foreign policy and often necessarily so. But the premise is that they do so in the interest of their country and respective states. There is no clear interest in sacrificing a single American life as part of a scheme between Israel’s government and U.S. political leaders like Graham, and recent polling shows that the American people clearly do not want this war.
Antiwar.com’s Dave Decamp asked, after Lindsey Graham advertised his frequent trips to Israel, “Isn’t it odd for a US Senator to visit a foreign country every two weeks?”
It certainly is. At least to this South Carolinian. And I would imagine I’m not alone.
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