Platner Hits Back After Collins Shirks Responsibility for Votes That Sent Troops Like Him to War

Republican US Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was widely dragged Thursday after she responded to upstart Democratic challenger Graham Platner's criticism of her vote for the Iraq War by trying to make the issue about him.

Platner—a Marine Corps combat veteran turned staunch opponent of illegal wars of choice—told The New York Times earlier this month that "we destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan, and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement—we, the United States, did that."

"The anger that I feel is for the people that sent me, who are frankly still the same people who are sending people off right now to be in harm’s way so we can have this stupid war with Iran," the presumptive Democratic nominee continued. "Susan Collins voted to send me to Iraq, and she’s also there to help [President] Donald Trump continue this absolutely insane conflict in the Strait of Hormuz."

"If I have any anger, it is reserved for the political system itself and the people in it who view war not as a thing that has a human toll but as a political game," Platner added.

Collins, who is trailing Platner by nearly double-digits in head-to-head polling, told The Maine Wire on Thursday that the Democrat "not only enlisted twice after the war was started, but he also went to work for a security company, a controversial one, named Blackwater, after his term in the service was over."

"So I respect anyone who steps forward to serve their country," Collins added, "but the fact is, that was Platner's decision to serve. He was not drafted."

Collins has voted for US wars fought in countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. The Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that more than 940,000 people—including over 432,000 civilians—were killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001 and 2023.

More than 7,000 US service members died in the post-9/11 wars, which cost American taxpayers more than $8 trillion.

Collins has also backed the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and supported the invasion of Venezuela and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The senator faced immediate backlash for her remarks.

"It was your decision as a senator to send Americans to fight in a dumb and pointless Iraq War," Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) said on social media. "You voted for it. Do you tell the kids and widows of the Iraq War dead that it was their fallen hero’s fault for enlisting?"

Independent journalist Nathan Bernard said on X that "voting to send thousands of soldiers to die and then blaming them for dying doesn't seem like a great way to win over voters, especially veterans."

David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, also took to X, writing: "While [Platner] was deployed in Iraq in 2007, Collins cast one of the deciding votes to block legislation to create a timetable for ending the war and bringing Platner and other troops home. She literally voted to *keep* Platner in Iraq."

Sam Seder, host of "The Majority Report With Sam Seder," accused Collins of "a stunning abdication."

"If she regrets her support of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, she should say so instead of pretending the all-volunteer military owns all responsibility," he wrote.

Platner responded to Collins' attack by noting that the senator "voted to support starting the war in Iraq."

He continued:

On three occasions after that, she voted against withdrawing troops. On at least two occasions, she voted to fund the war. Now, all these years later, instead of acknowledging that she was wrong, she's decided that she's going to blame those of us, who in our late teens and early 20s, signed up to serve our country. That somehow it's our fault that she and establishment politicians like her wanted to abuse our willingness to serve, to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars.

"It's no surprise to me, because even today, she continues to not stand up against the stupid war in Iran," Platner said. "She continues to not stand up against any of the abuses or the idiocy coming out of the Trump administration."

"This is very, very expected from establishment Republican politicians who love to talk about supporting the troops, but in the end, will always desert us," he added.