On Friday evening, Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters appeared on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” to discuss the Trump administration&#8217;s decision to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-u-s-kills-two-top-iranian-military-leaders-bigger-than-bin-laden-al-baghdadi-reports-say">kill Qasem Soleimani</a>, head of the Iranian Quds Force.
After noting that Peters is regularly critical of President Trump, Cooper asked the Lt. Col. for his thoughts on the move by the administration “to take out Soleimani.”
Peters replied, “I think it was absolutely the right decision. And I was actually very disappointed by the reaction from the other side of the aisle today, which seemed awfully petty.”
He added that Soleimani was a powerful individual and that the United States is lucky he is now dead:
<blockquote>General Soleimani was the ace of spades that our enemies in the Middle East had. Soleimani was a visionary strategist; he was a brilliant mastermind of terror. Here&#8217;s a man who, with a paucity of resources, was able to build while fighting the U.S. military, however surreptitiously, he was able to build the most expansive Persian empire in 2,500 years.
&#8230; Iran&#8217;s influence now stretches from Western Afghanistan, touches Central Asia, goes west through Iraq, through Syria, through Lebanon, through the Mediterranean Sea, down to Gaza. It&#8217;s a remarkable achievement and we are very, very, very lucky this man is dead. And I, for one, am grateful, and have no reservations about it.</blockquote>
Cooper then laundry-listed Soleimani’s record: He’s “responsible ultimately for the killing and murder of hundreds of American forces, American men and women, but also probably hundreds of thousands of others in Syria and beyond.”
Peters went on to emphasize Cooper’s point that Soleimani wasn’t only responsible for American deaths, but Iraqi and Syrian deaths as well.
“Yes, that&#8217;s an absolutely critical point that people forget,” Peters said. “Yes, he&#8217;s got the blood of thousands of Americans dead and wounded on his hands, but plenty of Iraqi blood and certainly an incredible amount of Syrian blood as he and the Russians have supported and at times spearheaded Assad&#8217;s campaign against the civilians of Syria.”
Peters added that Soleimani was “a man dedicated not only to killing Americans, but to the destruction of Israel.”
Supplies of missiles have also proliferated under Soleimani’s watch, according to Peters, including as many as “40,000 by Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
“So I just cannot understand how people can be reluctant to see this guy go,” Peters told Cooper.
Repercussions will follow, “but it’s not going to be World War III,” said Peters, adding that in the long-run, we “may well be” safer.
Cooper then asked Peters if the timing was appropriate, to which the Lt. Col. responded that he wanted Soleimani taken out years ago, and that while “actions have consequences &#8230; inaction also has consequences.”
<blockquote>And in the short-term, you&#8217;ll see “death to America” protests. The hardcore anti-Americans will rally to him. In the long-term, we don&#8217;t know exactly what will happen.</blockquote>
“The Middle East is so convoluted that we cannot say for certain where we&#8217;ll be in five years. But we can now say with certainty that Soleimani is dead, and we have avenged the deaths and the maiming of many brave Americans,” Peters concluded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“General Soleimani was the Ace of Spades that our enemies in the Middle East had,” says Lt. Col. Ralph Peters on the US lethal strike on Iran’s top military leader. “&#8230;We are very, very, very lucky this man is dead&#8230; we have inflicted justice on a monster.” <a href="https://t.co/rdpMcVDzck">pic.twitter.com/rdpMcVDzck</a>
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) <a href="https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1213292750659084289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2020</a></blockquote>

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters On Soleimani Strike: ‘Absolutely The Right Decision’

Donald Trump

Iran

Middle East

Ralph Peters

On Wednesday, former Fox News Military Analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters appeared on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;Anderson Cooper 360.&#8221; During the segment, host Anderson Cooper asked Peters about the Trump administration, Russia, and the Constitution, and things got incredibly intense:
<blockquote>
COOPER: Col. Peters, this so-called &#8220;Spy-Gate&#8221; conspiracy theory, it wasn&#8217;t just the president pushing the narrative, it wasn&#8217;t just his allies in Congress, it was also Fox News. They talk about a witch hunt. I know you believe the witch hunt is actually against Robert Mueller and it&#8217;s being led by Fox News.
PETERS: Yes, indeed I do. I mean, Robert Mueller is as noble &#8211; and I use that word carefully &#8211; as noble a public servant as you will find, and the assaults upon his character, upon his practices, upon his investigation just betray our fundamental principles.
COOPER: In the email that you sent your colleagues at Fox News back in March when you told them you weren&#8217;t renewing your contract, you said, and I quote, &#8220;Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers.&#8221; How much damage do you believe they&#8217;ve done to this country and the institutions that uphold the law?
PETERS: Well, I think they&#8217;re doing a great deal of damage still. We won&#8217;t know how bad for years to come when we see the ultimate results. But Anderson, for years, I was glad to be associated with Fox. It was a legitimate conservative and libertarian outlet &#8211; and a necessary one. But with the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine &#8211; and I don&#8217;t do propaganda for anyone.
And frankly, as a former military officer, I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and I saw, in my view, Fox &#8211; particularly the primetime hosts &#8211; attacking our constitutional order, the rule of law, the Justice Department, the FBI, Robert Mueller, and oh, by the way, the intelligence agencies. And they&#8217;re doing it for ratings and profit, and they&#8217;re doing it, knowingly in my view, doing a great, grave disservice to our country.
COOPER: Do you think, you know, some of the hosts in prime time, do you think they believe the stuff they&#8217;re saying about the deep state, what they&#8217;re saying about the Department of Justice, about the FBI?
PETERS: I suspect Sean Hannity really believes it. The others are smarter; they know what they&#8217;re doing. It&#8217;s bewildering to me. I mean, I [wanted] to just cry out and say, &#8220;How can you do this? How can you lie to our country? How can you knowingly attack our Constitution, the bedrock of our system of government, the bedrock of our country?&#8221; And when you go after the Constitution, you best beware because you are doing phenomenal, indeed immeasurable damage.
COOPER: Do you think we&#8217;re heading to a constitutional crisis?
PETERS: I think we are in a constitutional crisis right now. And we&#8217;ll end up either, barring unforeseen circumstances, either with impeachment or before the Supreme Court, or both. But when you have a president who believes he is above the law, who does not understand our system of government, does not respect our system of government, and willingly subverts our system of government, you&#8217;ve got a constitutional crisis.
I mean, Anderson, when the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence wrote that &#8220;all men are created equal,&#8221; they knew that we&#8217;re not all born with the same good looks or the same intelligence, or even the same privileges, the same strength and talents, they meant &#8211; they were sons of the enlightenment &#8211; they meant we are all equal before the law. No man is above it; no man falls below it.
Our president seems to genuinely believe that he is above the law, and this is a situation we haven&#8217;t been faced with before [with] this administration. Even Senator Joseph McCarthy in his witch hunt days never directly attacked the Constitution. This is utterly unprecedented.
COOPER: You referred to it as sort of a cult of Trump.
PETERS: Yeah, I think a lot of Trump supporters are so embarrassed by how it&#8217;s all turned out that they just cling to him &#8211; they won&#8217;t let any facts penetrate their reality. I&#8217;ve been startled by relatively well-educated people, and some military veterans, who still insist that Trump can do no wrong; that he&#8217;s some sort of messiah. And I&#8217;m afraid I part company with their views.
COOPER: You actually trained in Russian studies, the Russian language; you have first hand experience with how Russian intelligence operates. Do you believe that Vladimir Putin has some kind of grip on President Trump?
PETERS: I am convinced that Vladimir Putin has a grip on President Trump. And Anderson, when I first learned of the Steele dossier, it just rang true to me because that&#8217;s how the Russians do things. And before he became a candidate for president, Donald Trump was the perfect target for Russian intelligence. Here&#8217;s someone who has no self-control, a sense of sexual entitlement, and intermittent financial crises. I mean, that&#8217;s made to order for seduction by Russian intelligence. And look, I may be wrong &#8211; I hope I&#8217;m wrong. I hope Putin doesn&#8217;t have a grip on him, but the dossier rings true.
I think in the future, we&#8217;re going to look back on the much-maligned Christopher Steele, who took that dossier to the FBI, as something of a hero.
And again, I hope I am wrong, but when you look at Trump&#8217;s behavior patterns, his unwillingness ever to criticize Vladimir Putin, his slow-rolling sanctions, his unwillingness to create problems with Russia even as he attacks NATO, disrupts relations with the EU &#8211; how can you not draw the conclusions that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is frightened of Vladimir Putin and his grip?
COOPER: So for you, the Mueller investigation is critical? It moving forward; it being allowed time to complete?
PETERS: Without exaggeration, the Mueller investigation is the most important of my lifetime, and I am 66 years old. I lived through Watergate. I can&#8217;t &#8211; Anderson, it&#8217;s about a fundamental assault on the Constitution by the President of the United States and his paladins. It cannot get graver short of a World War.
</blockquote>
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WATCH: Former Fox News Analyst Ralph Peters Tears Into Trump, Sean Hannity, And The Network

Trump Administration

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Ralph Peters is not a man who minces words. On Monday, appearing on Fox Business with Stuart Varney, he didn&#8217;t hold back. In reaction to how he felt while watching the president&#8217;s speech last night on the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Peters said, &#8220;This guy is such a total pu&#8211;y, its stunning!&#8221;
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Ralph Peters Calls Obama a &#8216;Total Pussy&#8217; on Live Television <a href="https://t.co/myI8AmrtmK">https://t.co/myI8AmrtmK</a> (h/t <a href="https://twitter.com/mmfa">@mmfa</a>) <a href="https://t.co/aUtkWNBp8m">https://t.co/aUtkWNBp8m</a>
&#8212; Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/673906584230195200">December 7, 2015</a></blockquote>
</div>
Stuart asked Peters, &#8220;What were you saying to the TV as the president was speaking?&#8221;
Peter&#8217;s responded:
<blockquote>
Well, first of all, he keeps speaking about &#8220;we can&#8217;t give into our fears, don&#8217;t be afraid.&#8221; Look, Mr. President, we&#8217;re not afraid, we&#8217;re angry, we&#8217;re pissed off, we&#8217;re furious. We want to see you react. We want you to do something. You&#8217;re afraid. I&#8217;m &#8230; this guy is such a total pu&#8211;y it&#8217;s stunning. And &#8220;we the people&#8221; who he doesn&#8217;t not know in any intimate sort of manner, we want action. We want action against the Islamic State. And then when the president&#8217;s telling us that he is going to destroy ISIS? This is a president that has done more harm to American police departments than he has done to the Islamic State. This is a president who restrains our military. He uses it not to defeat ISIS but for political purposes, for political cover. This is a president who doesn&#8217;t want to hurt our enemies. This is a president who cares more about thugs in Guantanamo or thugs in Ferguson, Missouri, then he does about law-abiding American citizens and their right to live in safety and peace.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
&#8220;This guy is such a total pu&#8211;y, its stunning!&#8221;
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, on Barack Obama
</blockquote>
For the full video exchange click below&#8230;
<div class="media_embed"><iframe loading="lazy" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315px" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mfzSlldIUHQ" width="560px"></iframe></div>

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Ralph Peters

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters On Soleimani Strike: ‘Absolutely The Right Decision’

WATCH: Former Fox News Analyst Ralph Peters Tears Into Trump, Sean Hannity, And The Network

Military Analyst Calls Obama ‘A Total Pu**y’ On Live TV