As state legislatures enter peak session, something rare happens in American politics.

Votes are cast in public.
Records are created.
And elected officials preparing for primary elections can no longer hide from their own actions.

In this episode of the Bring Our Troops Home podcast, we examine why legislative session combined with primary season is the moment when citizens have the most leverage — and why that leverage terrifies the people who have built careers around endless war.

We begin in Arizona, where Defend the Guard is moving through the state legislature and where a small amount of organized citizen pressure can have an outsized impact on U.S. foreign policy.

From there, we look at the re-emergence of Jeb Bush and his role at United Against Nuclear Iran, and how old neocon networks attempt to reassert influence when state-level resistance begins to form.

We close with Lindsey Graham’s very public fundraising panic, his long record of cheerleading undeclared wars, and the real human cost of treating the National Guard as an unlimited resource for conflicts Congress never voted on.

Arizona is the case study.
Federalism is the mechanism.
Consent is the missing ingredient.

If America is going to fight a war, the people deserve debate, a vote, and accountability before the first deployment — not panic after the system starts to crack.

Support our work:
https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Support Defend the Guard:
https://DefendTheGuard.us

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On Christmas night, while families across the country were gathered together, the President announced U.S. military strikes in Nigeria.

Another war.
Another country Americans never debated.
Another decision made without a vote of Congress.

In this episode of the Bring Our Troops Home podcast, we respond directly to that announcement.

We acknowledge the very real persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria and the human instinct to feel sympathy and moral urgency. But we also draw a hard line between compassion and constitutional authority.

Moral outrage does not declare war.
Social media posts do not create consent.

This episode examines how undeclared wars begin, why “limited strikes” rarely stay limited, how the National Guard becomes a human tripwire, and how the same logic used to justify intervention today can be stretched tomorrow — whether for terrorism, resources, or even something as absurd as cocoa.

Nigeria is the case study.
Process is the issue.
The Constitution is the standard.

If America is going to fight a war, the people deserve debate, a vote, and accountability before the first strike — not an announcement after the fact.

Support our work:
https://BringOurTroopsHome.us

Support Defend the Guard:
https://DefendTheGuard.us

Follow Bring Our Troops Home on X, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts for new episodes, clips, and updates.

The Truth About Dick Cheney — The Cost and the Choice

This episode closes the circle.

For six episodes, we’ve traced how Dick Cheney built a doctrine, assembled a machine, and helped normalize undeclared war. In this final chapter, we stop talking about power in the abstract and confront what it actually did to real people.

This is the human toll of Cheney’s worldview.

Not in statistics.
Not in talking points.
In lives.

National Guard units pulled away from their communities.
Service members sent into wars Congress never voted on.
Veterans who came home carrying wounds they were never given the truth about.
Families left with folded flags and unanswered questions.

This episode connects the dots between unchecked executive war powers and the damage done at home. How the National Guard was quietly transformed from a force meant to defend the states into a permanent overseas deployment pool. How Congress stepped aside. How war became routine. And how the cost was shifted onto citizens who never had a say.

But this is not just a postmortem.

This episode is also about the choice still in front of us.

Defend the Guard is not a slogan or a protest. It is a constitutional pressure point. A state-level law that forces Congress to do its job before the National Guard can be sent into foreign combat zones. No blank checks. No executive shortcuts. No pretending the Constitution doesn’t apply when it’s inconvenient.

This is the practical path forward. The last off-ramp before the next generation is asked to fight another war no one voted for.

If you’ve stayed with this series, this episode explains why it mattered. Not to relitigate the past, but to reclaim the future.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led organization committed to ending endless war and restoring Congress’s constitutional authority over war. Our work focuses on passing Defend the Guard across the country, state by state, before the next crisis is used to justify another generation of conflict.

Learn more or support the mission:
BringOurTroopsHome.us
DefendTheGuard.us

Follow for updates and new episodes:
X, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram: @TroopsHomeUS

If this episode hits you, share it. The truth only matters if people hear it. And the Constitution only works if we’re willing to enforce it.

Welcome to the final chapter of The Truth About Dick Cheney.

The Global and Domestic Blowback of Cheney’s Doctrine
The Truth About Dick Cheney

The Iraq War didn’t just destroy a country overseas.
It destroyed the rules that restrained American power.

Episode 6 of The Truth About Dick Cheney examines what happened after the invasion — once the guardrails were removed and the machinery was allowed to run.

This episode traces the global and domestic blowback of the doctrine Dick Cheney helped hardwire into American government: the belief that the presidency could act first, explain later, and treat Congress as optional in moments of crisis.

What followed wasn’t chaos by accident. It was consequence.

We walk through how the collapse of Iraq created the conditions for ISIS and other transnational terror networks to emerge and adapt. How instability became transferable, migrating from one fragile state to the next. How war stopped being something the nation declared and debated and became something it quietly managed.

The episode also explores how emergency powers normalized overseas eventually came home: torture defended as policy, surveillance expanded until it became permanent, and a Congress that surrendered its authority and never fully reclaimed it.

This is not a hindsight lecture.
It’s not about how the war was sold.
It’s about what actually happened once the doctrine moved from theory into practice.

In this episode, you’ll hear how:
• Undeclared wars became permanent features of American life
• Executive power expanded while accountability disappeared
• Surveillance reshaped the relationship between the state and its citizens
• War faded into the background without ever truly ending

We also trace the moment the official story began to collapse — not in Washington, but among the people who lived it. Veterans and National Guard members returning from repeated deployments, comparing notes, and realizing the justification no longer matched reality.

By the end of the episode, one truth is unavoidable:
this system didn’t survive because it worked.
It survived because no one was forced to stop it.

Episode 6 sets the stage for the final chapter.

In Episode 7 — The Cost and the Choice, we focus on the human toll: National Guard units used as an overseas labor pool, families broken by repeated deployments, injuries that never healed, suicide numbers that don’t fit into talking points, and the quiet betrayal felt by those who eventually realized the war they fought was sold on lies.

And then we confront the choice that remains:
accept permanent war as the cost of doing business, or reclaim the republic that was designed to restrain it.

Bring Our Troops Home is a veteran-led organization working to restore constitutional limits on war.

If this episode matters to you:
• Follow the show
• Share the episode
• Leave a rating or review

And visit DefendTheGuard.us to sign the petition.
Defend the Guard requires Congress to vote before National Guard troops are sent into combat and gives states a way to act when Washington refuses.

Endless war only continues if no one stops it.

SUPPORT THE MISSION

The Iraq War didn’t just happen.
It was sold.

By late 2002, the decision to invade Iraq had already been made inside the Bush administration. What followed wasn’t a debate. It was a coordinated campaign to manufacture certainty, suppress doubt, and move the country toward war before Congress or the public could stop it.

Episode 5 tells the story of how that campaign worked.

At the center of it was Dick Cheney and the network he spent decades building. Intelligence was shaped to fit conclusions that had already been reached. Media leaks replaced evidence. Fear replaced facts. And when the case still wasn’t strong enough, Cheney used the most trusted man in American foreign policy to carry the message.

Colin Powell didn’t create the case for war. He was used to legitimize it.

This episode walks through how Powell’s credibility became the final tool on the road to Baghdad, how dissent inside the government was sidelined, and how Congress abandoned its constitutional responsibility at the moment it mattered most. Once Powell stood before the United Nations, the war was no longer just a policy choice. It became a matter of national pride and political momentum. There was no off-ramp after that.

But this story isn’t just about one speech or one man.

It’s about how a system designed to restrain war was bypassed. How authorizations replaced declarations. How the executive branch accumulated power Congress was never supposed to give away. And how the same machinery that sold the Iraq War still exists today, waiting for the next crisis.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led organization committed to ending America’s forever wars and restoring constitutional limits on when and how we send Americans into combat. Our work centers on passing Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to declare war before the National Guard can be deployed to foreign battlefields. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday.

If this episode resonates with you, share it.
If you want to help stop this from happening again, visit DefendTheGuard.us and sign the petition.
And if you’re able, support our work at BringOurTroopsHome.us.

Understanding how the war was sold is the first step toward making sure it never happens this way again.

In the smoke and chaos of 9/11, America was grieving. People were still calling missing loved ones. Firefighters were still pulling bodies from the rubble. The country was united in shock.

But inside the rooms where real power lived, something else was already happening.

This episode reveals how Iraq entered the conversation before the fires at the Pentagon were even out. Not because of intelligence. Not because of evidence. But because the same men who had spent a decade demanding regime change saw their moment opening. The “new Pearl Harbor” they once wrote about had arrived, and they wasted no time.

Episode 4A exposes how Dick Cheney built a parallel presidency—a shadow government operating inside the White House—and how that machine seized control in the days after the attacks. While President Bush was airborne and cut off from communication, Cheney sat in the bunker with the operators he had handpicked for this exact moment.

David Addington wrote the secret memos.
Scooter Libby controlled the information pipeline.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz pushed Iraq before Afghanistan was even stabilized.
Douglas Feith built a backdoor intel shop to produce the answers the CIA refused to give.

This wasn’t analysis. It wasn’t caution. It wasn’t confusion.
It was intent.

You’ll hear how forged documents, fabricated defectors, and debunked rumors became “evidence” for war. How Curveball’s lies were elevated above seasoned analysts. How the Niger uranium papers survived every warning flag. How aluminum tubes that nuclear experts dismissed turned into “proof” of a nuclear program. And how Ahmed Chalabi fed the Pentagon a steady diet of stories tailor-made for the invasion he wanted.

Episode 4A shows that none of this was an intelligence failure. It was an intelligence operation.

By the end of 2002, the scaffolding was finished.
The legal restraints were ripped out.
The intel process was bent beyond recognition.
The narrative was baked.

All that remained was a trusted face to sell it.
That part begins in Episode 4B.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort to end endless war and restore the constitutional limits on when America fights. Our work centers on Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to declare war before the National Guard deploys overseas. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. If this one hits you, share it. America cannot afford another generation that thinks Iraq was an accident.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney — The Road to Baghdad (Part 1).

Episode 3: Betrayal in the Mountains

In the days after 9/11, America was unified. The mission in Afghanistan was the clearest U.S. war objective since World War II. We had been attacked. We knew who did it. We were going after them. For a moment, everything was simple.

But that simplicity didn't last. And it didn't disappear in the mountains of Afghanistan. It disappeared in Washington.

This episode explains how a righteous mission—backed by the full weight of public support—was quietly overshadowed by a second mission that had nothing to do with 9/11. While Americans were volunteering to enlist and families were preparing for deployments, the nation's political leadership was already pivoting toward Iraq. Not because of new intelligence. Not because of a link to the attacks. But because Iraq was the war they had wanted for years.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the neoconservative bench had spent a decade arguing for preemptive strikes, regime change, and the idea that American power could reshape the world. Iraq was central to that vision. 9/11 handed them the permission slip they needed. But they couldn't sell Iraq outright in 2001—the country was focused on Afghanistan. So Afghanistan became the cover for the war they truly wanted.

Even in the first hours after 9/11, Iraq was already on the table. Notes from high-level meetings show officials pressing to tie Saddam Hussein to the attack, even though every intelligence agency said the opposite. The Pentagon began planning for Iraq long before Afghanistan was stabilized. This wasn't a response to facts. It was a hunt for talking points.

Meanwhile, troops were fighting in terrain that had swallowed armies throughout history. Afghanistan required precision, patience, and total commitment. Instead, the chain of command was split. Missions launched with limited support. Equipment shortages made no sense. Supply delays piled up. Troops on the ground could feel the difference—even if they didn't know the politics behind it.

Afghanistan didn't go sideways because the troops failed. It went sideways because the political class walked away before the mission was finished.

This episode shows how the administration blurred the two wars for the public. Words like "war on terror," "rogue states," and "WMDs" merged Afghanistan and Iraq into a single emotional storyline. Many Americans never realized the shift was happening. They believed Afghanistan was the main focus for years after Washington had already deprioritized it.

For those serving there, this disconnect felt like abandonment.

The betrayal in the title isn't about soldiers or commanders. It's about the strategic decision to treat Afghanistan as a stepping stone instead of a war that mattered. That decision doomed the mission, set the stage for two decades of frustration and loss, and laid the groundwork for a withdrawal that felt like a national gut-punch—not because troops failed, but because their leaders never gave them a complete mission to finish.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort to end endless war and restore constitutional limits on when America fights. Our work centers on Defend the Guard legislation—requiring Congress to declare war before the National Guard deploys to foreign battlefields. Not an authorization. A declaration. The standard the Constitution demands.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Share this if it hits you. America cannot afford another generation that doesn't understand how quickly a righteous war can justify a reckless one.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney - Betrayal In The Mountains.

Episode 2 of The Truth About Dick Cheney is called The War Profit Pipeline, and it digs into the part of Cheney’s story most people never learned. Before the Iraq War, before 9/11, Cheney spent years helping shape an ideology that believed American power should be used to reorder the world. This chapter looks at the rise of the neoconservative movement, the Project for a New American Century, and the blueprint they drafted for a more aggressive, preemptive foreign policy.

We walk through how Cheney placed himself inside that world, how he pulled its key figures into the Bush administration, and how their shared vision depended on giving the executive branch near-total control over war. You’ll see how the doctrine came together long before the public ever heard the arguments for invading Iraq.

We also follow Cheney into Halliburton, where he ran one of the most powerful military contractors on earth. Billions in no-bid contracts. Global operations tied directly to U.S. deployments. A business model built around conflict. When he returned to Washington as vice president, the company he had led stood ready to profit from the wars he helped push. That overlap is not a footnote. It’s central to the story this episode tells.

The War Profit Pipeline explains how ideology, influence, and industry merged in one man, then reshaped American foreign policy for a generation. If you want to understand how America ended up in two decades of war, this is the chapter you can’t skip.

This podcast is produced by Bring Our Troops Home, a veteran-led effort working to end America’s forever wars and restore the constitutional limits on when and how we send our sons and daughters into combat. Our mission centers on passing Defend the Guard legislation, which requires Congress to follow the Constitution before the National Guard can be deployed to foreign warzones. To learn more, visit BringOurTroopsHome.US.

New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. After this six-part deep dive, we continue weekly with episodes on war powers, foreign policy, National Guard deployments, state legislation, veteran issues, and the fight to bring military decisions back under constitutional control.

If this episode resonates with you, share it. America can’t afford another generation that forgets how we got here.

Welcome to The Truth About Dick Cheney.
Here’s Part 2: The War Profit Pipeline.