An Air Force veteran who was an advisor to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers during the Iraq War is calling out those in Congress who favor an escalation of fighting in Gaza as well as attacks on Iran.
Retired Air Force Command Chief Master Sgt. Dennis Fritz told CBS Eye on Veterans host Phil Briggs that it’s time for the United States to be a force of peace in the Middle East in the wake of a series of coordinated attacks by the Palestinian terror organization Hamas on Oct. 7 that left over 1,200 Israelis dead and more than 200 hostages taken back to Gaza.
Since the attacks, Israel has launched an assault on Hamas in Gaza.
“My opinion is, this is not our war,” he said. “We provide Israel three point five billion dollars a year to defend itself. Understandably, they must be able to defend themselves. That attack on Oct. 7 was barbaric, absolutely.”
Fritz said Israel is going to find it difficult to eliminate Hamas, calling it an ideology and that escalating war in the region will have dire consequences.
“It’s going to create more Hamas,” he predicted. “I want you to honestly think about this for a moment, if I’ve been living in my nice home for 16 years, and then somebody’s going to tell me this is no longer your home and we’re pushing you out, what am I to do? And it keeps happening and happening again.”
Fritz went on to describe how previous attempts at peace through diplomatic efforts have been flawed from the start, “Many people have been talking about the Abraham Accords where we have peace deals with Israel and other Arab nations. The big thing next was we tried to get a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Never was there any talk about the Palestinians … once again they’re out there by themselves.”
Fritz stressed that the majority of the 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza do not support Hamas. “If the Palestinians knew that the United States was going to be an honest broker, there is no doubt in my mind they would be the ones to get rid of Hamas,” Fritz said.
As for political leaders who call for escalating the conflict to include attacks on Iran, Fritz warned that Iran is a strong country and would fight back if confronted. “They [Iran] don’t have rockets, they have ballistic missiles that are accurate. They don’t need nuclear weapons to destroy Israel,” said Fritz.
“If we throw Iran into it, you haven’t seen nothing yet,” he also predicted, adding that while Iran may be destroyed, Israel would sustain heavy damage.
Fritz said that the only way peace will come to the Middle East is through a two-state solution.
“To get control of this, we have to address the Palestinian issue, and for some reason we have not truly and honestly addressed that,” Fritz said.
“When I was in the Pentagon I studied the history of the Middle East and what keeps us in this never ending war ... and the Middle East leaders that know, they’ve been telling us (our government) that we can’t leave the Palestinians out.”
However, the extreme difficulty in finding peace in a region torn apart by war over generations was also noted by Fritz, “ … both of them are going to have to be honest participants.”
In a recent op-ed, Fritz noted some important history behind Global War on Terror, and the initial goal of eliminating terrorist funding from Iraq, Syria and ultimately Iran. Fritz reminds us to consider how the burden is shouldered by a very small portion of American citizens. He explained how only 1 percent of Americans have worn the nation’s uniform and that sending American troops to war disproportionately affects the nation’s lower and middle classes.
“With these endless wars, we are currently abusing the small percentage of Americans who have skin in the game,” he said.
Fritz retired from the Air Force in 2003 as a personal protest against the Iraq War, the basis of which he called a “lie.”
“We used 9/11 as an excuse to go to war with Iraq,” he said. “It was never about our national security.”
Find out more about Fritz, director of The Eisenhower Media Network, go here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.