Hey America, Can I Borrow $67 billion?

We won the war! No wait, we need more money to keep fighting. Can they get their story straight?

“Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.”

— George Orwell, 1984

I was reading an article the other day that interpreted the Iran War through the lens of renowned 19th-century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. You may know his famous maxim, “war is politics by other means.”

I will spare you the tedium of my own Clausewitzian analysis with a single question he would have expected our leaders to answer before the conflict even began: What does “winning” this war mean? You know, the question Congress would have debated if our elected officials cared about their Constitutional responsibilities.

For the entirety of this long, expensive, and wasteful war, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been proclaiming our victories. We’ve heard off-and-on for weeks that “a deal is coming,” and that Iran is “so scared.” I mean, the war was supposed to be over, “a complete and total victory,” until the MOU blew up a week ago! Since then, we’ve been consistently attacking Iran, and Sec. Hegseth had to come begging to Congress for more money to keep the war going.

For just a meager $70 BILLION. That money could revitalize entire government agencies, but instead Hegseth wants it to keep an illegal, drawn-out war limping along a little longer. Imagine what South Dakota’s rural counties could do with an extra $70 billion. I can, because I just finished visiting all of them.

Back in June, we were told that we had thoroughly destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. We heard basically the same thing in the early weeks of this war. Now, we hear that the facilities are too far underground to destroy completely, and that we’ll end up spending a total of over $100 billion to keep this war going throughout the rest of the year. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like Hegseth isn’t expecting the war to end anytime soon.

We also have to think about why Hegseth is asking for $70 billion more in funds for the war. I thought we already won the war, and now we’re out of bombs? Conveniently for me, it was my opponent Senator Mike Rounds who posed the question. Hegseth’s response was to blame those who came before him for leaving our military “exposed.” In his own testimony, he says that his predecessors “created a lot of risk that requires this kind of investment.”

We deserve elected leaders who will actually push for accountability, transparency, and common sense. I’m running to be South Dakota’s Independent Senator to do just that, and to give South Dakota a real voice in Washington D.C. With your support today, I can continue to reach voters in all corners of the state. Thank you.

First of all, in all of my 26 years in the military, from the Navy to the Air Force JAG Corps, the “it was the guys before me” excuse would have NEVER flown anywhere (pun intended). Even when it was true, it was something you grumbled about before taking care of it yourself. Secondly, if our military was in such a “risky” position before going to war with Iran, why did we go to war with Iran? At the Air Force Academy, I taught International Law and the Law of Armed Conflict, not strategy, and even I could’ve seen that coming.

We’re seeing ridiculous decisions made in this war that only drag us deeper and deeper. Four more Americans are dead. They’re never coming home. We don’t know how many more will face the same fate, all because our military “leaders” can’t seem to figure out the difference between a “tactical victory” and a “strategic victory.”

It’ll keep happening because career politicians like Mike Rounds, who has never spent a single day in uniform, are willing to toe the party line under any circumstances. Would it surprise you to hear that the entire executive suites of multiple defense companies have given tens of thousands of dollars to fund Rounds’ campaign?

This is extremely serious. Here’s reality: We’re not winning this war right now. We’ve depleted our munitions stockpiles to dangerously low levels. Once we’re finally out of this conflict, we’ll have to spend billions more dollars replenishing our weapons just to prepare for the next war down the line.

South Dakota’s Senator Mike Rounds isn’t listening to us. He’s acting only in the interest of his party bosses and corporate mega-donors. I’d be an Independent voice for South Dakotans. I’d bring the experience of a 26-year military career to the U.S. Senate. I’d hold our leaders accountable for the things they’re hiding from the American people.

If I were a United States Senator, I wouldn’t have voted to get into this quagmire in the first place. I sure wouldn’t be voting to keep it going. It’s time we had some accountability.

Thank you for reading.

Brian L. Bengs, Lt Col (Ret)

Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate

Mike Rounds thinks he can just coast to re-election. We’re going to prove him wrong. I’m polling just four points behind Rounds. With your support, we can close that gap and give South Dakotans a real voice in the U.S. Senate.