Obama Picks Carter Ash As His New Choice For SecDef

President Obama has chosen former deputy defense secretary Carter Ash as his pick to replace the ousted Chuck Hagel as his fourth Secretary of Defense.

Unlike his predecessors Hagel, Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, Ash has never served in the military. He's an academic and bureaucrat, a former Harvard professor who has worked in and out of Washington for almost forty years. His top job was serving as as deputy defense secretary under Leon Panetta from October 2011 to December 2013.

Ash was bypassed for the top job at defense by Obama twice before and only got picked for it this time because all of the other candidates the White House approached initially declined because, among other things, this president's dysfunctional relationship with the Pentagon and the U.S. military in general common knowledge, as is his serial micromanaging. Carter Ash was simply the last one standing.

One reason he might have been turned down before was a number of public statements, papers and reports that reflect a moderately hard line view on Iran and its rogue nuclear weapons program, as well as some favorable statements he made after a 2013 trip to Israel,his first.

Among other things, in a 2004 article for Foreign Affairs, he called for the complete and verifiable elimination of Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programs and accused a “distracted” Bush administration of having “left the initiative for curbing Iran’s evident nuclear ambitions to two groups that failed to support the Iraq invasion: the Europeans and the UN.”

Well and good, but rest assured that whatever Carter Ash's previous position might be, if he becomes SecDef he will toe the Obama line of appeasement on Iran and disapproval of Israel and has undoubtedly given assurances of that to the president. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have been nominated.

If anyone needs any further assurance of this, you need only know that his mentor and teacher in matters of defense policy was William Perry, Bill Clinton’s SecDef during the 1990s.

He will likely be confirmed. I don't expect much in the way of change in defense policy as long as Barack Obama is president.

"The Emperor Is Naked" - Hagel Fired As SecDef

 

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has been fired.His tenure was less than two years.

His departure comes after a long period of disagreement with President Obama over what Hagel saw as disastrous budget and manpower cuts by the White House that affected American military capabilities, disagreements of the president's strategies in Afghanistan and in both the nature and the methods used to fight Islamic State.

Basically, he was fired for telling the Emperor that he was naked. And as a convenient scapegoat for the Administration's failures.

According to one of my sources, what clinched it was his disagreement with the president about the need for ground forces in Iraq to fight Islamic State. His statement about 'not wanting to put boots on the ground where they are needed' contradicted the president directly and made him a target for Obama's consigliere Valerie Jarrett, who reportedly went ballistic, pushed hard for Hagel's firing, saying that 'these people in the Pentagon needs to remember who they work for.'

Hagel's parting shot was an interview he did with PBS's Charlie Rose last week in an interview Rose conducted at the Pentagon:

Rose asked Hagel to elaborate on comments that he made in a speech at the Reagan Library last weekend. In that speech, Hagel said that America’s military capability, while still the best in the world, is being threatened.

Hagel re-iterated that to Rose, but also left viewers to wonder about the direction that President Obama is taking the military.

“I am worried about it, I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution,” Hagel said, including Pentagon leadership but leaving both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s names out of his list of officials who are worried about the U.S. military’s declining capability. Hagel said that the Congress and the American people need to know what while the U.S. military remains the strongest, best trained and most motivated in the world, its lead is being threatened because of policies being implemented now.

Hagel went on to note that a good leader prepares their institution for future success, saying that “the main responsibility of any leader is to prepare your institution for the future. If you don’t do that, you’ve failed. I don’t care how good you are, how smart you are, any part of your job. If you don’t prepare your institution, you’ve failed.”

In the past couple of years, Hagel has warned that defense budget cuts implemented under President Obama were hurting readiness and capability. The “how smart you are” line may be a veiled shot at President Obama, who basks in a media image that he is a cerebral, professorial president.

Another mark against Hagel was that he reportedly underwent something of a change of views regarding Israel during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, especially during the Gaza War that did not jibe with the president. He came to see Israel as a more important ally than he had previously indicated, and facilitated arms shipments to Israel during the last Gaza War.

Once President Obama realized that the Pentagon was okaying arms shipments in a way that that would have been normal under any other administration but that he objected to, he stopped shipments of armaments like Hellfire missiles to Israel that the Israelis had already paid for in the middle of the Gaza War and held them up for 'State Department review.' This had never been done previously to Israel in a war situation. The Israelis did not receive the shipments until after the war was over, and Hagel reportedly caught a great deal of flak over it.

Chuck Hagel will continue to serve as Secretary of Defense until a new one is nominated and confirmed.

I did not support Chuck Hagel when he was nominated as SecDef, especially after his sub par confirmation hearing. However, sometimes people rise above their limitations when put in a position of responsibility, just as they sometimes fail to do so. Chuck Hagel had the ability to see that something was horribly wrong with the way President Obama was handling matters of defense and national security, and the courage to say so to the president.

There are some presidents who have had the ability to absorb contradictory views and use them to make their determinations, even modify their perceptions. Unfortunately, the president Chuck Hagel served is not one of them. Instead, he's one whom no one can tell anything to that contradicts his own, set in stone ideas. He perceives anyone who deviates from that in any way as disloyal, and for that sin, Chuck Hagel had to go.

Res ipsa loquiter.

Hagel Closer To Confirmation As GOP Senator Caves; 15 Others Ask Obama To Withdraw Nomination

 

Interesting days in Washington...

GOP Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama is on record saying that he will now vote for Chuck  Hagel tobe conformed as Secretary of Defense.

"He’s probably as good as we’re going to get," Shelby said of Hagel in a Wednesday speech, according to a report in the Decatur Daily.

As good as we're going to get? Now, there's a rationale for making a clueless anti-Israel, pro-Iran and pro-Islamist Secretary of Defense if I ever heard one.

A deal of some kind was obviously made between Shelby and the White House since Shelby also apparently kissed off a large chunk of the GOP caucus at the same time. His announcement came at the same time that 15 GOP Senators led by John Cornyn ( R-TX) sent a letter to President Obama asking him to withdraw the Hagel nomination:

“While we respect Sen. Hagel’s honorable military service, in the interest of national security, we respectfully request that you withdraw his nomination.It would be unprecedented for a Secretary of Defense to take office without the broad base of bipartisan support and confidence needed to serve effectively in this critical position.

While Senator Hagel’s erratic record and myriad conversions on key national security issues are troubling enough, his statements regarding Iran were disconcerting. More than once during the hearing, he proclaimed the legitimacy of the current regime in Tehran, which has violently repressed its own citizens, rigged recent elections, provided material support for terrorism, and denied the Holocaust.

Regarding U.S. policy on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Senator Hagel displayed a seeming ambivalence about whether containment or prevention is the best approach, which gives us great concern. Any sound strategy on Iran must be underpinned by the highly credible threat of U.S. military force, and there is broad bipartisan agreement on that point.If Senator Hagel becomes Secretary of Defense, the military option will have near zero credibility. This sends a dangerous message to the regime in Tehran, as it seeks to obtain the means necessary to harm both the United States and Israel.

The letter is signed by Senators John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), David Vitter (R-La.), Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

You'll notice John McCain's name isn't on the list. Yes, Chuck Hagel, shamefully, is a step closer to confirmation.

Even from a standpoint of intelligent politics, conforming Hagel makes non sense. Even the dumbest, egocentric RINO ought to realize that Hagel is simply a Republican fig leaf for President Obama's hollowing out of our military. When the inevitable crunch comes, the Leftist media talking heads will be sure to mention that  the damage was done by Chuck Hagel, a R E P U B L I C A N.

The letter also makes a point I've mentioned on these pages. What kind of message does the White House thinks nominating people like Hagel, John Brennan and John Kerry to key national security posts sends to the Ayatollahs? To Israel? To the Islamists. To our diminishing number of friends and allies in that part of the world?

On second thought, that's probably exactly the message President Obama and his enablers want to send. Particularly to Israel.

Appeasement is always a zero sum game...because it never ends, and the price just keeps getting higher.

 

Bill Maher; "Yeah Hagel's Right - The Israelis Are Controlling Our Government"

Way to push the old 'Protocols of Zion' dual loyalty slander, Bill. Hitler and Stalin would certainly agree with you.

If the Israelis actually were controlling our government, the U.S. embassy would be in Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv, there wouldn't be any garbage about places in Judea and Samaria where Jews are supposedly not allowed to live, we wouldn't be giving a dime to Hamas or Arafat II in Ramallah, and Iran's illegal nuclear program would have been a thing of the past long ago.

This hateful man - if you could call him that - is certainly entitled to push any crackpot anti-semitic nonsense he chooses on his putrid little program. I'm sure it's not the first time. And you know what? Here's yet another huge donor/close associate of President Obama's who, just like Al Sharpton, Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers and Chuck Hagel appears to have 'a Jewish problem'.

And spare me the cute little riposte that Maher's Jewish. He's an atheist who left any semblance of Judaism behind years ago and embraced his new religion, Leftism.

Yes, a real piece of work.

(h/t, Carl)

Democrats Lack Votes To Confirm Hagel..For Now

Chuck Hagel's conformation, which seemed to be a sure thing a few days ago is in limbo - at least for now.

The Democrats, led by majority Leader Harry Reid attempted to shove his confirmation through by were three votes shy of the sixty votes needed to override Senator Lindsay Graham's hold. Essentially, this is now a filibuster situation.

Senator Reid had the gall to accuse Republicans of disloyalty. Reis qangrily made a huge point about Leon Panetta was leaving his post at noon that day, saying the country would be without a defense secretary.

“In less than two hours, our country will be without a secretary of defense at a time when we have a war going on in Afghanistan, there are about 70,000 troops there, we have a nuclear weapon that was detonated in North Korea a few days ago,” Mr. Reid said.

Yes, Senator Harry Reid..Senator 'The war is lost', the man who did his best to sabotage the surge strategy. This was the senator who hearted MoveOn, the man who petulantly blocked an appropriation bill that included a pay raise and badly needed supplies for our military because he was angry after he introduced a bill to cut all funding for the Iraq War while our troops were under fire and even some of his fellow Democrats shied away from voting for it.

Would someone like Senator Reid even remotely understand what loyalty to country means?

And for that matter, as usual he lied. As the White House confirmed, SecDef Leon Panetta had already agreed to stay at his post until a successor was confirmed.

What tripped Hagel up was not his obvious unfitness for the position, but his refusal to answer senate questions about his financial dealings and the Obama White House's continuing stonewall of Republican efforts to find the truth about the Benghazi disaster. This deviousness even convinced Senator John McCain to vote against cloture.

Today, some other information surfaced about Hagel that ought to preclude his becoming Secretary of Defense to any sensible person.

As a product of his public fondness for Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, Hagel's made a few dollars over the years speaking to rabidly anti-Israel, pro-Arab groups such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and anti-semite James Zogby’s Arab American Institute.

Hagel failed to disclose these speeches to the senate.That alone ought to deep six him.

The one to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee must have really been something, because they're outright refusing to release the tape of Hagel's remarks.

But unfortunately for Hagel, a partial account of his speech to Zogby's Arab American Institute has surfaced, from a journalist and Hagel supporter who was there:

 
Hagel said the U.S. Department of State was an adjunct of the Israeli foreign minister’s office, according to a contemporaneous report of the event.
Republican political consultant and Hagel supporter George Ajjan wrote about the March 2, 2007, speech on his website the following day, writing a description “point by point through some of the more important elements of his speech.”
“Point six“:

The State Department has become adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office…
Wow. A very bold statement by Hagel bound to further raise the ire of the “Jewish Lobby” (yawn…), but it does express his strong belief in a comprehensive solution to problems in the Middle East. Hagel mentioned this theme several times – comprehensive, he said, in the sense that all tools should be used to achieve American foreign policy objectives (diplomatic, political, economic, and military), but also comprehensive in the James Baker sense of addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict holistically as both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have proved too lazy and too incompetent to do.

Reached by phone, Ajjan confirmed his 2007 account of the event, saying he was “taking notes as [Hagel] was speaking.”

“If I wrote it, then that’s what happened at the time,” Ajjan told the Free Beacon.
He added that the event, which was cosponsored by the Rutgers University Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the American Iranian Council, was closed to the press.

“When [Hagel] said the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli ministry, I think that was during the Q&A,” said Ajjan. “Even in the blog, I was surprised that he said that. It was a very bold statement.”

Rutgers is a hotbed of vociferous anti-Israel activity, and its Middle East Studies Depart has enjoyed significant funding from the Saudis and others who, shall we say, are not exactly friendly to Israel. Hagel was obviously in his element and felt he could open up.

Ajjan, by the way, is vehemently anti Israel, going back a long way.

No wonder Hagel didn't disclose this.

The Senate should insist that Hagel disclose full information about these and any other speeches he made, as well as the financial disclosures demanded by the senate.

I have to wonder at the Democrats still backing Hagel. His views on Iran directly contradict what President Obama has said publicly. What message do they think his appointment would send to the Ayatollahs? And what kind of message would it send to Israel?

And that's particularly true of Democrats like Chuck Schumer, whom claim to be pro-Israel. It's time they stood up and sent this remarkably unqualified and unfit candidate back to his career shilling for Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and performing for the other demented purveyors of the myth of the 'Jewish Lobby'.

Hagel Will Need 60 Votes To Get Confirmed As Defense Secretary

Former Senator Chuck Hagel was narrowly approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, 14-11 in a straight party line vote. The committee's Democrats decided to vote for him in spite of his execrable performance before the committee and his refusal to disclose foreign funding.According to a number of sources, one of those foreign funders Hagel is reluctant to disclose is a group called Friends of Hamas.

However, Senator James Inhofe made it plain that Hagel isn't going to be confirmed in the Senate without 60 votes:

Inhofe's demand for 60 votes is related to his overall objection to Hagel becoming defense secretary, which is based on Hagel's past record on issues ranging from Iran, Israel, Hamas, and cuts to the defense budget. Inhofe also wants Hagel to further disclose financial records related to his past speeches.

"We're going to require a 60-vote threshold," Inhofe told The Cable. {....}

Inhofe insisted that his demand for a 60-vote threshold is not a "filibuster." Inhofe said he will object to unanimous consent for a simple majority vote, which will prevent Reid from bringing the Hagel nomination to the floor without first filing for cloture, which requires 60 votes to proceed to a final vote.

"It's not a filibuster. I don't want to use that word," Inhofe said.

It may be a distinction without a difference, but it's a distinction that GOP senators like [Arizona Republican John] McCain are prepared to embrace. McCain has repeatedly said he is opposed to filibustering Hagel but told The Cable Tuesday that he would vote against a cloture vote this week if the White House doesn't provide the information he has requested on the president's actions the night of the Benghazi attack.

"We need to know what the president's conversations were," McCain said. "I would vote no [on cloture] on Thursday [unless the information is provided]."

Graham is also opposed to a "filibuster" of Hagel, but told The Cable today he would place a "hold" on the Hagel nomination after the committee vote.

"I think the president has stonewalled the Congress on Benghazi. I think a lot of people are worried that we don't have all the information on Chuck Hagel," said Graham. "I'm not inclined to filibuster. I'm going to hold him and Reid is not going to not honor my hold and try to hold the vote on Thursday."

There are two Republicans who have said they support Hagel, Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Mike Johanns (R-NE). There are 55 Democrats.Are they all prepared to have an obviously tainted and unqualified nominee like this heading the Department of Defense? Do they really think so little of themselves and of the country?

We'll find out.

Panetta And JCS Gen. Dempsey's Testimonies Before Congress On Benghazi Contradict Each Other

After several Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations committee threatened to put a hold on Chuck Hagel's nomination going out of committee, Secretary of defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey agreed to appear before the committee and testify on the debacle in Benghazi. What ensued was basically a game of hot potato.

Panetta prepared the ground by going on several of the administration Sunday shows, notably NBC's 'Meet The Press', where he trotted out the narrative he pushed in his testimony today. It boils down to 'I salute the brave dead, everything happened so quick we weren't able to get the military in to rescue people in time, and anyway, we couldn't send anyone in because we lacked the intelligence information.'

Here's the money quote:

“The United States military, as I’ve said, is not and, frankly, should not be a 911 service capable of arriving on the scene within minutes to every possible contingency around the world. The U.S. military has neither the resources nor the responsibility to have a fire house next to every U.S. facility in the world,” Panetta said in his opening statement.

“We have some key bases, particularly in this region. We have some key platforms from which we can deploy. And we have forces on alert, and we’re prepared to move,” he continued. “But our ability to identify threats, to adjust posture, to prevent plots, and respond to attacks to our personnel at home and overseas depends on actionable intelligence — and it always will.”

This raises quite a few questions. The main ones, the ones Secretary Clinton, SecDef Pannetta and virtually the entire administration have been avoiding like a pretty girl with a herpes sore on her lip at an orgy is this: what were Ambassador Stevens and his crew doing in Benghazi in the first place? If getting a fleet of Chevy Volts and a state-of-the-art charging station for the embassy in Vienna was a higher priority than addressing Ambassador Stevens' repeated requests for more security, why were our people left in a location we couldn't secure, for whatever reason?

As for the rest of what Panetta had to say, I'm surprised no one apparently mentioned several inconvenient facts. First of all, the assault in Benghazi took place over 7 hours, a drone was overhead in minutes, the White House was in phone contact with both the consulate and the CIA annex a few blocks away with a clear line of sight of the consulate. And there was an ex-Navy SEAL with a laser site in the CIA compound who was actually was calling out target coordinates that could have easily been used for those gunships or F-16s that were well within range but never came.

The same is true of units of a unit of the Commander's In-extremis Force (CIF), a unit specifically designed for exactly these kinds of situations already deployed at our base in Sigonella, Sicily, less than a two-hour plane ride away. Why weren't they called in if, as Panetta claims, the F-16s and gunships weren;t available in time?

Veterans who've served with the CIF forces have been quite vocal about the fact that they're frequently deployed with a lot less intelligence info than they had available in Benghazi.

Another interesting change in today's narrative..Panetta has said before that that President Obama was was briefed by Panetta himself about what was going on by 5PM Washington time according to Panetta's own statements, and we also know that a CIA report further informed the president within 24 hours that this had been a well-organized terrorist attack.Yet for 9 days, the nation was deliberately lied to and told this was a spontaneous protest over an obscure video. Why?

And today, Panetta's story changed yet again. He now says that he only gave a perfunctory briefing to the president at their scheduled briefing at 5PM, which apparently was done by phone. And that the president gave no specific direction on what to do, "He left it up to us."



But that contradicts the president's own account.

First, in an interview on MSNBC, President Obama claimed that he had been briefed but that the intelligence was unclear and he was still trying to find out what had happened:

JS: Was it the intel community giving you bad information early on, because that’s…the stories keep changing.

BO: Well, that’s what we’re going to find out from the investigation. But the truth is that you know, across the board, when this happened, my number one priority was secure Americans, figure out what happened, bring those folks to justice. We are in the process of doing that right now Congress has been getting the flow of information continuously from day one, and what my attitude on this is, is if we find out that there was a big breakdown and somebody didn’t do their job, they’ll be held accountable. Ultimately, as commander-in-chief, I’m responsible, and I don’t shy away from that responsibility. My number one responsibility is to go after folks who did this, and we’re going to make sure that we get them. I’ve got a pretty good track record in doing that.

And later on, when he was pressed further, President Obama's story changed again. On the campaign trail in Denver on October 26,2012, he said, “The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive,” he said, “to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military knew the number-one priority was making sure our people are safe.”

A directive is a legal order from the president, and a written copy would have been kept. Where is it? And if the military got that, so did State and the CIA. Why wasn't it acted on?

Or is President Obama being less than truthful about that too?

Interestingly General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today that there was no directive:



That might explain a few things. If a directive was never issued by the president or anyone else, perhaps because he was otherwise occupied, it explains why the CIF forces were never sent. General Ham, then the theater commander of AFRICOM whose responsibilities included Libya would have been a direct recipient of a presidential directive if it were sent. Yet he's claimed he never got any orders in that regard, directly contradicting Panetta on the matter.

And in his testimony today, General Dempsey appears to be backing General Ham up, saying there was no request from the State Department for military assistance.

Once we start getting answers to these questions, what actually happened in Benghazi that night is going to become a lot clearer.

Until then, we're stuck with Hillary Clinton's "What does it matter?"

John McCain Seals The Deal For Hagel To Be Made SecDef

Yes, you have that right.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was making progress piecing together a bi-partisan coalition to filibuster the obviously unqualified Chuck Hagel's appointment as Secretary of defense when he ran into - who else- Senator John McCain:

“I do not believe that we should filibuster,” McCain told POLITICO. “To vote against is entirely the judgment of each individual senator, but a filibuster I think would be inappropriate.”

Asked if he would vote for cloture if a filibuster were mounted, McCain answered, “Yes.”

The White House and Democratic leadership are already confident that a solid majority exists for the Hagel to be confirmed on a simple majority vote. McCain’s opposition to a filibuster should make it easier to get the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.

Senator McCain considers himself someone who is actually interested in America's defense, but that's absolutely impossible to square with this decision of his. The Democrats need 5 Republicans to vote for cloture to put Hagel's appointment to a simple majority vote, With McCain and Republican Senators Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, they already have three.

I hope I'm wrong, but I stand by what I said when Hagel was first nominated...he was almost certain to be confirmed, along with John Brennan and John Kerry. So we're gong to wind up with a trifecta of appeasement oriented apparatchniks who support Islamists and like the president, figure that doing so along with creating daylight between America and Israel President Obama has spoken of wil but us peace and quiet.

Rest assured, it won't.

McCain ought to know better, but as I've said before he's a great American but a lousy and egotistical excuse for a Senator.

Committee vote on Hagel ought to come along around this Thursday.

SecDef Panetta Admits Enhanced Interrogation Works, Led Us To Bin-Laden

Well, well.

Remember all of the noise from Democrats about waterboarding being torture? Remember how President Obama released confidential memos after the entire intelligence community begged him not to,because it would tell our enemies exactly the techniques we'd be using to interrogate them? Remember how Attorney General Eric Holder and the president were going to prosecute the CIA interrogators involved and the government attorneys who wrote legal opinions for the Bush Administration used to authorize waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques?

Remember how President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and a slew of other Democrats used this issue to play partisan politics and the media amplified it?

Today on NBC's Meet The Press, ex-SecDef Leon Panetta admitted that those techniques provided the intelligence that led the U.S. to Osama bin-Laden.

(h/t, Jim at Gateway)

Of course Panetta was quick to try to qualify it with a quick remark that 'we worked out most of it without resorting to those techniques', but he admitted that waterboarding and enhanced interrogation got the results we needed. And it's not the first time he's said it.

This is the same man who, at his 2009 CIA confirmation hearing conformation hearings called waterboarding "torture" and said it was something he would never use. Until he needed to, I suppose.

These same people demonized President Bush for making the same decision, one that, according to then Vice President Cheney, prevented subsequent al-Qaeda attacks and saved American lives. After all the obscene noise from the Left, no one has ever provided any evidence whatsoever that Cheney was wrong.

And of course, you're never going to hear Panetta, Mrs.Clinton or the president admit they were badly mistaken.

In other remarks in today's interview, Panetta touted Chuck Hagel's appointment as the new Secretary of defense, saying he had no doubt Hagel was 'ready to take over his job.'

If by that he meant being a clueless sycophant with no understanding or appreciation of national defense who would cheerfully carry out the orders for the hollowing out of America's military, Panetta might be right.

Chuck Hagel's Confirmation Hearings..And What They Tell Us About President Obama

There was some real comedy gold in the Senate conformation hearings on Obama's choice for Secretary of Defense today, Chuck Hagel.And some other things  that were decidedly not funny.

Okay..we know Hagel was appointed  because like the president, CIA appointee John Brenner and newly confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry, he thinks the solution to America's problems with Islamist fascism lies in retreat from the region while appeasing and empowering the Muslim Brotherhood and its various affiliates at home and abroad and creating what the president called 'daylight' between America and Israel. We know that like them, Hagel is  soft on Iran, thinks Hamas and Hezbollah shouldn't be labeled terrorists and is a big fan of trying to force Israel back to indefensible borders.

And mostly, we know that Hagel is President Obama's 'Republican' fig leaf for the the huge cuts the president wants to make in our military.

But until today, there were three things we didn't know for sure.

The first one is that Hagel, aside from his dark fantasies about the Evil Jewish Lobby, aside from being clueless on most foreign policy questions, is someone who makes Joe Biden look well informed and articulate.To mangle an apt quotation from Vergil, Hoc opus, hic labor est..to descend to that level is no big thing, but coming back is a tough row to hoe.

Even Lefties who were touting Obama's pick as the sharpest tool in the foreign policy shed since Otto von Bismarck or William Gladstone were shocked at Hagel's disastrous outing today.


The highlights? Well let's start with Hagel's stammering non-reply when Senator Lindsay Graham asked Hagel to back up his famous statement about the 'Jewish Lobby' and to name one Senator who'd been pressured into doing anything stupid by that 'Lobby'. And the repeat performance when Hagel was asked  to name anything he considered stupid that the Senate had done because of 'Jewish pressure'.



I know, the Lefties were screaming at their television sets '"Say Iraq! Say Iraq, dammit!" Ah, the myths die hard, although it would have been amusing to watch Hagel get taken apart by other senate questioners if he had.

Then there was his stumbling and refusing to  answer a direct question over whether Hagel agreed that the Iraq surge worked:



Then, there was  Texas Senator Ted Cruz catching him in a lie over an interview Hagel did with Al Jazeera where he agreed with host Riz Kahn that America was 'the world's bully' and slapping him upside the head with it:



(by the way, here's the actual interview...so that the Left can't lie about the quote from Hagel being out of context)

There was also Hagel's inability to explain his constant shilling for his pals, the Iranian government. In the first clip, he gets asked by Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe why the Iranian government has cheered his appointment and endorsed him as our next Secretary of defense:



Actually, the Iranians are not the only anti-semites backing Chuck Hagel. Here's well known anti-semite,  anti-Israel shill and former member of George Soro's Media Matters M.J. Rosenberg, who tweeted: "I spent a couple of hours with Hagel a few years ago. Talked about Israel. Happily, he is lying today & knows it. He'll be a good SeDef".

Whoopsie.

In the next clips, he refers to Iran as a 'legitimate government' in an attempt to explain why he refused to vote to classify Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, even after the last bogus election and even though the Guards have  been indulging in terrorism against civilian targets for years..and then tries to walk it back a few minutes later in the third clip after an anxious consultation with someone:






The worst one is actually the second thing we found out today that we didn't know for sure. In spite of all his rhetoric to the contrary, President Obama has no intention of stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but is counting on containment working - and Hagel stupidly let the cat out of the bag, and then tried to walk it back:



The third thing? As CNN's Dana Bash pointed out, senators on both sides of the aisle were shocked at how ill prepared and dim witted Hagel appeared in the hearings, especially since he used to be on the other side of proceedings like this and knows how they work.

As you might imagine, for even mid-level cabinet positions, appointees are normally groomed carefully, given answers and told what to say to questions that are likely to come up, and for an appointment like Secretary of Defense, they go through rehearsals.

Hagel was not put through this regimen, or if he was, he wasn't well prepared at all. And that tells us something important.

It tells us that President Obama has total contempt for the office of Secretary of Defense if he feels this buffoon is the best our warriors deserve. Hagel was appointed not to actually contribute anything, but to do what he's told and be a reliable stooge in presiding over the hollowing out of our military and creating that closeness to Islamist regimes and that 'daylight' between Israel and America this president wants.

It also tells us that President Obama has total contempt for the Senate and the conformation process itself. He likely knows he has enough votes to get Hagel confirmed on a straight party line simple majority vote, and not only could care less how the conformation hearings go, but actually looks forward to forcing through an obviously unqualified and inappropriate nominee as an egotistic power game.

While the senate Republicans could filibuster, it's not going to be easy, and you would only need five Republicans - or four Republicans and one Independent - to vote for cloture to stop it.

There's also the remote possibility that President Obama is using Hagel as a political decoy to get Kerry and Brennan confirmed quickly, let Hagel take the flak and then nominate someone else just as bad for SecDef, but withut6 Hagel's public record to latch on to. It's not the first time something like that's been done in Washington, but if that's what's going down, it changes nothing about the nature of the contempt President Obama seems to be evidencing for our military, the office of Secretary of Defense, the Senate, and the American people he's supposed to be serving....not good.

Looks Like Chuck Hagel Has An Armenian Problem As Well As A Jewish One

Or to put it more accurately, he's simply pro-Islamist at all times, when it's the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Iran, Hamas or or the Islamist government of Turkey.

Turns out that Senator Hagel opposed a 2005 congressional resolution recognizing Turkey’s genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. the direct precursor to the Holocaust, cited by Hitler himself as a model at the Wannsee Conference in 1942 when the Final Solution for Europe's Jews was decided on.

How 'bout that?

The genocide of the Armenians was planned and executed by the Turkish government of that time at the highest levels, but unlike the Germans, the Turks, cynically, have yet to admit it happened.They've taken genocide denial to new heights.

Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard quotes Hagel at the time:

“What happened in 1915 happened in 1915,” Hagel said during a 2005 trip to Armenia when he was serving in the Senate. “As one United States senator, I think the better way to deal with this is to leave it open to historians and others to decide what happened and why.”

“The fact is that this region needs to move forward,” Hagel continued. “We need to find a lasting, just peace between Turkey and Armenia and the other nations of this region. I am not sure that by going back and dealing with that in some way that causes one side or the other to be put in difficult spot, helps move the peace process forward.”

Move along, nothing to see here..as if real 'peace' and any kind of reconciliation is possible when one side refuses to admit that there's anything to reconcile or address about the past in the first place!

I wonder...does Senator Hagel feel the same way about the Holocaust of the Jews? it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he did.

Nor would it surprise me if he was just as blase' about a modern Holocaust of Jews in Israel at the hands of his Islamist friends.

It's an embarrassment to America and a smear on this president's already besmirched character that someone like this would even be considered for a cabinet post.

It's an embarrassment that President Obama even put his name forward...and even worse, I see it likely he will be confirmed by the Democrat dominated Senate.

AIPAC Sitting Out The Hagel Fight

 

As Eli Lake reports, AIPAC, one of the most prominent pro-Israel American lobbying groups has decided not to get into the battle of Chuck Hagel's nomination as Secretary of defense, at least openly.

AIPAC has a long standing position of not weighing in publicly on presidential cabinet nominations, although Chuck Hagel and this administration are unique circumstances that you would think might have changed things.

I don't think they're being cowardly as much as attempting to make the best out of a bad situation. Like me, they've probably looked at the numbers and realize that unfortunately, Chuck Hagel probably has the votes to get confirmed barring something crazy happening. The Democrats have the Senate plus Vice President Biden as a potential tie breaker, President Obama has put a lot of weight behind getting this anti-Israel, pro-Iran nominee in and most of the Democrats will go along, to their shame.

Like it or not, American support for our ally Israel is now becoming a partisan issue especially when it comes to the left, largely thanks to President Barack Obama. This poll, done by Pew is interesting:



The way AIPAC figures it, there are plenty of people shocked enough by the Hagel pick willing to fight this every step of the way, but if AIPAC stays out of it they may at least be able to keep the lines of communication open.

Unfortunately, they're likely  mistaken in my view, but it's probably worth a try from their standpoint, especially if they see Hagen's confirmation as a forgone conclusion anyway.

Biden: Obama May Bypass Constitution, Congress To Enact New Gun Laws By Executive Order

Vice President Joe Biden suggested today that the White House was prepared to take unilateral action to create strict new gun laws.

"The president is going to act," said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. "There are executives orders, there's executive action that can be taken. We haven't decided what that is yet. But we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required."

Biden said that this is a moral issue and that "it's critically important that we act."

Attorney General Eric Holder will also be at the meeting , and that's irony if there ever was.

Imagine..this from the people that brought you Fast and Furious.

According to a Washington Post article cited in the link, the White House wants to reinstate the ban on assault weapons (whatever those actually are) and high-capacity magazines ( which can be manufactured in anyone's garage with a little knowledge and some basic tools).

The president also wants to institute universal background checks for gun buyers, a national gun database, increased mental-health checks and penalties for people carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors. A ban on semi-automatic weapons is also being considered.

The old traditional American rite of passage that still exists in some parts of the country, where Dad buys his teenage son that first .22 in his early teens and teaches him gun care and gun safety hands on is to be criminalized if President Obama has his way.

As a matter of fact, this entire campaign gives the president a win, regardless of what happens. If congress opposes his attempt to gut the Second Amendment, he will simply do what he wants by executive order and blame congress for forcing his hand and 'not caring about the lives of average Americans.'

Whether he's able to get this new legislation he has in mind passed or decides to simply impose it, it will have the effect of criminalizing a significant part of the electorate that opposes him anyway, and give him leeway to call for even more executive power to deal with the 'criminals'.

If you think I'm going overboard or overreacting, just wait. President Obama's primary reference point in everything he does is whether it makes political rather than common sense. I expect him to go this way, although I hope I'm wrong.

It occurs to me that all three of this president's new cabinet appointees appear to be a trifecta for his radical agenda.

As Secretary of State, John Kerry will not only oversee U.S. action on the UN's proposed small arms sales ban treaty, but the man who claims that Global Warming is the greatest crisis America faces will be negotiating American acceptance of things like an international tax on all financial transactions payable to the UN and international cap and trade agreements.

John Brennan, who has publicly called for drones to be used extensively for domestic surveillance will be head of the CIA.

And Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense will be the point man for further hollowing out our military and attempting to pressure Israel, the president other great issue.

All three men agree on appeasing and allying with the new Muslim Brotherhood regimes in the Middle East, standing by and allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and creating what President Obama called 'daylight' between America and our only reliable ally in the region, Israel.Both Hagel and Kerry were outspoken advocates of normalized relations with Syrian Dictator Basher Assad.It's obvious that President Obama agrees with them, or rather that they all agree with what are obviously this president's true views on these issues, regardless of what he's said in public.

And to top it all off, the president and his allies in Congress are mulling over unilaterally bypassing Congress on the debt ceiling.

Can you wait to see who takes over Eric Holder's job in the Justice Department?

What we're seeing now is the real Obama, free from any obligation to voters.

Hagel's Nonexistent Political Courage

 

Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel's admirable military record is something he and his Democrat supporters will be sure to wave like a placard, as though that excuses everything else.

But given that, it's worth looking at Senator Hagels' political courage over the years, as Brett Stephens does in today's Wall Street Journal. Do his supporters on the left know, for instance, that he's on record as opposing abortion, even in cases of rape or incest? :

Oh, by the way, in 1995 Mr. Hagel told the Omaha World Herald that his opposition to abortion was total and made no exception for cases of rape or incest—a view that helped get him elected to the Senate the following year. He later voted repeatedly against allowing servicewomen to pay for abortions out of their own pocket, according to the left-wing magazine Mother Jones. Now that Congress has authorized the Defense Department to pay for abortions in cases of rape, it would be worth asking Mr. Hagel if he has evolved on this one, too.

Stephens also caught the same thing I did, Hagel's cowardice on Iraq:

In 2002, also when it was overwhelmingly popular, Mr. Hagel voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The lack of political courage is especially noteworthy here, because Mr. Hagel was, in fact, prescient in warning his Senate colleagues that "imposing democracy through force in Iraq is a roll of the dice."

Yet as the inimitable David Corn notes, "Bottom line: Hagel feared the resolution would lead to a war that would go badly but didn't have the guts to say no to the leader of his party."

In 2006, when the war in Iraq had become overwhelmingly unpopular, Mr. Hagel was on the right side of conventional wisdom. "The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq," he wrote in the Washington Post that November. Still swimming with the tide the following year, he called the surge "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."

The surge turned out to be George W. Bush's finest hour—a genuine instance of political courage as opposed to Mr. Hagel's phony ones. It rescued the U.S. from humiliating defeat. It gave Iraq a decent opportunity to stand on its feet. It allowed the U.S. to conduct an orderly withdrawal of its forces. And it might have led to a long-term security relationship with Baghdad had the Obama administration not fumbled the endgame. Again there is no public record of Mr. Hagel acknowledging any of this.

Hagel has already made a convenient apology for gay bashing Clinton nominee James Hormel for being "openly, aggressively gay," which Hagel felt disqualified him a for becoming our ambassador to Luxembourg.

But he's never been held to account for his completely wrong stance on other items, like his support for appeasement of Iran, normalizing relations with Hezbollah, Syria's Basher Assad and  Hamas or the other items Stephens mentions above.

But...Hagel  has certainly been consistent through the years when it comes to his animus towards Israel.No doubts there.

That's precisely why he was nominated by President Obama to be Secretary of Defense, and you won't see him apologizing for any of it - although we can probably expect a few pro forma remarks about a 'commitment to Israel's security'.

Hagel's supporters on the Left probably love his stance on Israel, Iran, Islamist terrorism and the Middle East in general.Are they prepared to swallow his views on abortion along with it?

The Hagel And Brennan Nominations And What They Tell Us about Obama

As I expected, President Obama nominated ex-Senator Chuck Hagel today as Secretary of Defense and  John Brennan to head the CIA. Both nominations tell us something interesting about this president and about the future.

I pretty much figured out that Hagel would get the nod  once the White House put the word out to the usual suspects to start  pushing him after his abysmal record  on Israel and on Iran came to light.It was especially a giveaway when they enlisted Obama surrogates with Jewish names like Tom Friedman and Jeffrey Goldberg.

I would be very surprised if Hagel didn't get confirmed by the Senate, barring something unusual happening. The body has 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans and 2 left leaning independents who mostly caucus with the Democrats, as well as a potential tie breaking vote in Vice President Biden. I doubt that President Obama didn't discreetly have his own caucus polled before he put Hagel up for nomination.

Hagel would have to lose at least 6 Democrat votes to be denied confirmation, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Administration gave behind-the-scenes permission to Senate Democrats in states with large Jewish populations like like Chuck Schumer (D-NY) or Ben Cardin (D-MD) to choose to vote no if there's enough of a margin to get Hagel across the finish line without them.

There's no question about Hagel's consistently  pro-Iran and  anti-Israel stance.  He was a reliable anti-Israel vote during his entire senate tenure, becoming one of the handful of senators refusing even to sign on to resolutions that were essentially just measures of support for an ally.

At the same time, his positions on Iran make one almost think he should have registered as a foreign lobbyist at some point.He's been a consistent opponent of even President Obama's relatively mild sanctions, no matter what he says now. He favors direct US negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah, and was one of only 12 Senators who refused to lobby  the EU asking them to declare Iranian proxy  Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

In fact, Hagel has long been an advocate of taking Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah off the State Department's list of terrorist groups, and while he was a sitting senator Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.And remember, as Senator Hagel starts burnishing his veteran's credentials, that until 9/11 Hezbollah killed more U.S. servicemen than any other terrorist group. And that the Revolutionary Guard has the blood of American soldiers on its hands as well.

Just as a coincidence, Hagel also sits on the board of  Deutsche Bank, which is now  being investigated by U.S. authorities for violations of the same Iran sanctions Hagel voted against when he was in Congress.

Even worse is the message this nomination sends to Iran.They now realize that President Obama was not telling the truth about not allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and has no interest whatsoever in stopping them. They have a green light.

Is Hagel an anti-Semite?  A number of his former Jewish constituents in Nebraska seem to think so. Many of them  recall him as hostile and unfriendly not just on Israel but towards the community in general:

The flavor of the accounts is given in a headline in one Jewish website: “Nebraska Jews Recall Senator Chuck Hagel as ‘Unfriendly’ and ‘Unmovable’ on Israel, ‘Didn’t Give a Damn About the Jewish Community.’” The former editor of the Omaha Jewish Press recalled that “Hagel was the only one we have had in Nebraska, who basically showed the Jewish community that he didn’t give a damn about the Jewish community or any of our concerns.” Another community leader commented that  “During his last year in office, we knew he was not going to run again, he never returned any of our calls.”

It's also a matter of record that in 1999, when the American Jewish Committee asked members of the U.S. Senate to sign an advertisement condemning anti-Semitism in Russia the AJC subsequently ran in the New York Times during Russian President Boris Yeltsin's U.S. visit, the only Senator who refused to sign was yes, Chuck Hagel.

More troubling is Hagel's tendency to conflate 'Jews' and Israel. Aside from his quaint belief that the 'Jewish Lobby' runs DC, ( as quoted by  author Aaron David Miller's 2008 book "The Too Much Promised Land"), there's also a disturbing incident I wrote about previously, Hagel's campaign to shut down the Haifa USO facility when he was president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990:

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational.

Hagel’s campaign to close the storied USO port struck many observers, including the U.S. Navy and congressional leaders, as misguided. Those same critics argue today that Hagel’s animosity toward the Jewish state leaves him unsuited to be the nation’s next defense secretary.

“He essentially told us that if we wanted to keep the USO [in Haifa] open—and when I say ‘we’, he meant ‘the Jews’—he said the Jews could pay for it,” said Halteman, who recalled being taken aback by the comment.

Again, note that Hagel never said something like 'maybe we can seek outside funds to keep it open' or talked about shutting down other USOs by telling, say, Italian Americans to pay for the USO in Palermo or Naples if they wanted to keep it open. He made a point of demanding it be shut down unless the Jews paid for it.

Yet, with all that, I'm not particularly interested in labeling him an anti-Semite,although it's worth looking at how virtually every anti-Semite and Israel hater in in public life has lined up solidly behind him. Andrew Sullivan and Pat Buchanan, for instance, are absolutely ga ga over the president's pick and so are the kameraden over at Stormfront. If Hagel isn't actually a Jew hater, he apparently likes how he looks in the uniform, if you take my meaning. I fully expect him to make the same sort of pro forma vague remarks about 'commitment to Israel's security' you'd expect in this situation, but let's just say the man's entire history belies anything he says during his Senate hearings.

Odd, isn't it how many of President Obama's present and former close associates have a similar Israel or Jewish problem? If you look at the president's other close associates over the years like Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said and a host of others, Hagel fits right in, and he and the president are said to be quite close personally.

One can only imagine what might be said about a prominent white politician with long time close associations with David Duke, Tom Metzger, Barry Mills, or Don Black, but the media isn't going to go there. Jew hatred - ooops sorry, 'anti-Zionism' - is fashionable in a lot of circles nowadays. And it is a mainstream opinion in a significant part of the Democrat party.

Another point I don't expect to be raised during Hagel's hearing but should be is his craven behavior on Iraq. After voting for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when it was easy, he later had a change of heart and began doing his best to sabotage our war effort. Anyone can have a change of heart, and considering the way AfPak and Iraq were run it might even be considered commendable to some degree. But Hagel joined up with Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and yes, Senator Barack Obama in doing their very best to sabotage the Surge strategy by starving it of funds, doing their best to destroying morale on the home front and publicly maligning and insulting its originator and Iraq'a commander, General Petraeus while it was underway and our troops were under fire.

The Surge successfully accomplished what it was meant to accomplish, to allow America to make a more or less graceful withdrawal from Iraq. But the games played in DC by people like Senator Hagel made it just that more difficult, and it was frankly despicable behavior. I'd expect that sort of thing from Harry Reid, but not from someone who makes a point of letting us know he's seen combat. Politics did not stop at the water's edge with these people, and our troops suffered because of it.

So what does President Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel tell us about the president, and about what we can expect in the future?

Along with President Obama's new pick for the CIA, John Brennan, Hagel is quite outspoken about America normalizing its relationship with Hamas and Hezbollah.The prsiddnt and both men all agree, to put it bluntly, that the way to end any conflicts between America and Islam is to forge closer ties with the emerging Muslim Brotherhood governments, withdraw from the region, be careful not to 'offend' Islam here at home and to distance ourselves from Israel.Or in other words, let's give them the Jews and they'll go away.Brennan once famously referred to Jerusalem as 'al-Kuds' its Arab name and is a vociferous and out spoken advocate of treating Islamist terrorism as a crime problem. He even supported mirandizing the Underwear Bomber, after which we stopped getting information out of him, of course. That should give you a pretty good idea where Brennan's coming from.

History has proven what a fallacy this sort of policy is many times before, but that pretty much is their position - and this president's- in a nutshell.

Hagel is also an outspoken foe of military spending, so you can expect him to continue Leon Panetta's work in hollowing out our military to provide more revenue for the president's pet domestic projects.

I've said for some time that President Obama is not at all serious about preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, or at least not having America do it.It may very well be that the president fully intends for the Israelis to do it themselves and take the onus..after which he can use Israel's 'aggression' to push for a dictated settlement to the Arab Israeli conflict and for sanctions against the Jewish State. In any event,expect a much more adversarial relationship with Israel, even to the point of our terminating joint weapons projects that actually benefit the United States or refusing to sell arms to them any more.

The way to squeeze and pressure Israel is directly through the Department of Defense simply holding up any shipments of arms and spare parts at a crucial moment. President Obama did it for the first six months of his administration in 2009 by executive order, and with  Hagel's emnity towards the Jewish State,  he can be counted by the president to be an enthusiastic backer of such policies.

The Israelis will no doubt cope, having been through this before, but our disengaging from the Middle East will come back to haunt us.

President Obama's ideal is to turn America into a European style socialist state. But he apparently hasn't noticed the financial turmoil going on in Europe these days as the system there collapses or the fact that the only reason the Euro Socialist states have lasted this long is because the U.S. allowed them to farm out their national defense to America.

There's no one waiting in the wings to take over the job of defending America.

Obama Expected To Nominate Anti-Israel Pro Iran Chuck Hagel Next Week

According to a number of sources former Senator Chuck Hagel, who endorsed President Obama in 2008 and in 2012 is set to be nominated as Secretary of Defense by the president Monday or Tuesday of next week. And if Hagel is nominated, this is a significant signal.

I pretty much called this last week once I saw how the White House coordinated a media assault in his favor. Prominently featured, of course, were left wing pro-Obama writers with Jewish last names like Tom Friedman and Jeffrey Goldberg.

In Goldberg's case, he even had the asininity to admit he was 'uncomfortable' with the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel nature of a lot of the people backing Hagel, but wrote, essentially, that his (Goldberg's) hatred of those he terms 'settlers' and Israelis on the right trumps that.

I've already had a lot to say about Chuck Hagel's record previously. Aside from a consistent anti-Israel stance, he is so pro-Iran that he might need to register as a foreign lobbyist. Aside from vociferously working against labeling Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist organizations, he's also on record as being opposed to even the Obama Administration's relatively mild sanctions against Iran's illegal nuclear weapons program.

And it seems it's not just Israel Hagel apparently dislikes. Aside from well-known remarks about how 'the Jewish lobby runs DC', there's also a revealing story about the USO in Haifa that's surfaced.

Israel, unlike many other countries we call allies gives America carte blanche use of many of its facilities. One of them is the Mediterranean port of Haifa, a very popular stop for the U.S. Navy.

Senator Hagel initiated efforts to shut down the USO club in the city when he served as president and CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990:

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational.

Hagel’s campaign to close the storied USO port struck many observers, including the U.S. Navy and congressional leaders, as misguided. Those same critics argue today that Hagel’s animosity toward the Jewish state leaves him unsuited to be the nation’s next defense secretary.

“He essentially told us that if we wanted to keep the USO [in Haifa] open—and when I say ‘we’, he meant ‘the Jews’—he said the Jews could pay for it,” said Halteman, who recalled being taken aback by the comment.

I'd call this anecdotal, except that there are numerous sources cited who reported similar remarks by Hagel on this issue.

What it signifies, just as Hagel's remarks on the so-called 'Jewish Lobby' do, is that he coflates Jews and Israel. To him, they appear to be the same.

There will be major opposition to Hagel's appointment as Secretary of Defense on Capitol Hill, and President Obama has to know that. If he is willing risk that kind of fallout to go ahead an dtry to push Hagel's nomination through when Hagel’s views on Iran and Israel are supposedly out-of-step with those of President Obama, that raises the question about whether the president’s real positions on Iran, Israel and national defense are the same as the ones he’s voiced publicly.

If Hagel is nominated, let alone appointed, it tells us essentially that regardless of the rhetoric, President Obama is unconcerned about a nuclear Iran and plans on vastly increasing the 'daylight' he wants between Israel and America.

There is simply no other way to read it.

And if Hagel is indeed nominated, I have to wonder how America's Jews - and Jewish Democrats - will regard the matter. Most of them voted for Obama, disregarding this president's previous record on Israel, his support and enabling of the Muslim Brotherhood and his long time association with a number of figures like Jeremiah Wright, Rashid khalidi, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Edward Said, Bill Ayres and a number of others who could justifiably be considered anti-Semites. Many of America's Jews essentially bought President Obama's statements about his commitment to Israel's security, although what happened at last year's Democratic Convention should have opened a few eyes.

Now that President Obama no longer needs Jewish votes or campaign donations, does he simply feel free now to be more open about his real views?

Stay tuned..because we're about to find out.

Obama Enlists The Usual Suspects to Try To Save Anti-Israel Chuck Hagel's Nomination As SecDef

Yes, the call from the White House definitely went out. There are a whole slew of op-eds out in the usual Obama Media outlets, including one from Journolista Jonathan Martin at Politico, the WAPO, and of course Tom Friedman in Pravda-on-the-Hudson.

Friedman, of course has no problem with Hagel's long record of anti-Israel positions:

The disgusting is the fact that because Hagel once described the Israel lobby as the “Jewish lobby” (it also contains some Christians). And because he has rather bluntly stated that his job as a U.S. senator was not to take orders from the Israel lobby but to advance U.S. interests, he is smeared as an Israel-hater at best and an anti-Semite at worst. If ever Israel needed a U.S. defense secretary who was committed to Israel’s survival, as Hagel has repeatedly stated — but who was convinced that ensuring that survival didn’t mean having America go along with Israel’s self-destructive drift into settling the West Bank and obviating a two-state solution — it is now.

Actually, it's been more than once, and of course Friedman doesn't even mention Hagel's long record on voting against Israel in congress and advocating for the appeasement of genocidal terrorist organizations and Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.

You might remember that it wasn't too long ago that Friedman himself was shilling for the Saudi 'peace' ultimatum' and bragging about President Obama listening to him about forcing Israel back to the pre-'67 lines. Talk about something self-destructive for Israel! If they listened to Tom Friedman,it would be downright suicidal. You could justifiably call Friedman a member of the far better funded and more pervasive Arab Lobby.

He also skirts over Hagel's position on Iran, something so pervasive that Hagel could almost be considered an unregistered lobbyist for the Ayatollahs.The Washington Post made that very argument just a couple of days ago. So did I:

Just a coincidence, But Senator Hagel is apparently quite enamored of Iran. In edition to what I mentioned above, he's long been an advocate of taking Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah off the State Department's list of terrorist groups,

In fact, while he was in the Senate, not only did he refuse to call on the EU to name Hezbollah a terrorist group, Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. He also consistently voted against sanctions on Iran for their illicit pursuit of nuclear weapons.

One might almost suspect one of those cladestine lobbying contracts so well known in DC Land.

In fact..just another coincidence of course...The Washington Free Beacon reported on Thursday that Hagel is also on the board of directors of Deutsche Bank, which is now being investigated by U.S. authorities for violations of the same Iran sanctions Hagel voted against when he was in Congress.

Friedman's real motives are revealed pretty plainly:

Israel’s friends need to understand that the center-left in Israel is dying. The Israeli election in January will bring to power Israeli rightists who never spoke at your local Israel Bonds dinner. These are people who want to annex the West Bank. Bibi Netanyahu is a dove in this crowd.

*Gasp!*

For one thing, it isn't the 'center left'. What's dying is the pro-Oslo crowd in Israel, especially since those Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians just unilaterally abrogated the agreements they signed, the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, at the UN. Unlike Friedman, most Israelis now understand that Oslo was just a swindle foisted on a people desperate for peace by some highly culpable politicians, with more than a little arm twisting by President Clinton. And a lot of cheer leading by the Tom Friedmans.

None of it led to peace, and as Arafat said more than once, in Arabic, it was never intended to. The only thing it did was give some of the most murderous of Israel's enemies a base on Israel's borders, and hundreds of Israelis paid the price for that obscene folly.

Very few people in Israel are willing to buy that used car again from the likes of Tom Friedman any more, although I'm sure it plays well in certain circles here, since they don't have to live with the consequences.

Now, the Israeli public is going to punish those politicians and those who think like them in a democratic election, and put an end to the charade. Only clueless idiots like Tom Friedman have their lips clamped on the dead corpse of the Two State Solution, trying to breathe life into it. It's D-E-A-D. And Hamas, Arafat and his loyal henchman Abbas killed it, if it ever was alive in the first place.

Interesting how someone like Friedman takes major exception to the idea that Israelis might make a choice to vote for politicians who understand that reality, but has no problems with the Arab Spring and quasi-fascist Muslim Brotherhood governments being voted into office because of it.

What he really wants is for Israel to die more or less peacefully so that it ceases to embarrass him in front of his leftist friends. Because, you see, he cares about Israel!

Harnessing the Obama Media to shill for him tells me that the president might very well decide to take the plunge on Hagel. If he's confirmed and actually becomes Secretary of Defense because enough Senate Democrats vote for him, it will be yet another signal like this one to America's Jews on which way the wind's blowing.

Because no matter what idiots like Friedman say, the whole controversy over Israel is very much about Jews. If it wasn't trust me, you'd hear far less of the old anti-Semitic canard about the insidious 'Jewish Lobby'.

Iran Loves The Idea Of Chuck Hagel As SecDef

You'd think the president would get a clue from the Iranian response to his pick of pro-Iranm, anti-Israel Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense to replace Leon Panetta. Uh, no.

Here's Iran's state-owned PRESS-TV on the matter in a piece titled, "Obama expected to nominate anti-Israel Hagel as secretary of defense" :

US President Barack Obama is expected to nominate former Senator Chuck Hagel, an outspoken critic of Israel, as the next Pentagon chief.”

Hagel has not yet been officially nominated for the defense secretary position, but all indicators suggest he’s at the top of President Obama’s list. {...}


Some in the Israeli lobby have reportedly reacted with alarm to reports of Hagel’s nomination as he is known as an outspoken critic of the Zionist lobby in Washington.

Josh Block, a former AIPAC spokesman has lashed out at Hagel for “consistently voting against sanctions on Iran” over the country’s nuclear energy program and refusing to call on the European Union to name Lebanon’s Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The top nominee for the post of Defense Secretary was the first Republican senator to publicly criticize the war in Iraq, calling it the worst foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam War, and he has consistently opposed any plan to launch military strike against Iran.

Yeah, he's Iran's man alright. As a matter of fact, he's on the board of directors of Deustche Bank, who are being investigated by American Authorities for violating sanctions against Iran...the same ones he's always been a vociferous opponent of.

Stay tuned....

Ft. Hood Victims Sue Obama Administration

Families and victims of the jihad attack in 2009 at the Fort Hood military base in Texas have filed a wrongful death suit against the U.S. government, the accused killer Major Nidal Hasan and the estate of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born imam who was part of al-Qaeda's Yemen operation. Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last year.

Since the Army under ordes from the Obama Administration has dubbed this 'workplace violence' rather than a terrorist attack, the victims and their families have had trouble accessing benefits they're entitled to:

Survivors have expressed frustration about repeated delays over the past three years in bringing Hasan to trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces indefinitely postponed Hasan's court-martial last month pending further review.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia alleges that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other officials disregarded the safety of soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood. It also alleges that they allowed Hasan to be in a position to open fire on the troops despite knowing he was a "radical extremist."

"The government seems to have gone out of its way to give the stiff arm to these victims. They have made their lives miserable," said attorney Neal Shur, who is the lead counsel in the case.

The lead plaintiff is Shawn Manning, who was an Army staff sergeant three years ago and was shot six times.

"The Army has refused to acknowledge this was a terrorist attack, and I have exhausted all other options," he said.{....}

The lawsuit includes allegations of civil conspiracy, gross negligence, assault and battery, due process violations and intentional misrepresentations.

Anwar al-Awlaki's estate is involved because an independent review headed by former FBI Director William Webster found that Hasan had exchanged e-mails with Awlaki, who encouraged him to fire on his fellow soldiers...and because he apparently may own some assets that can be attached and liquidated, I'd guess.

Amazing that the Obama Administration would go to these lengths to spare Muslim 'sensibilities' and hide its head in the sand.

Obama's Next Mideast War? Ground Troops In Jordan

 

The U.S. now has boots on the ground in Jordan.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that 'about 150' U.S. special forces troops were now deployed in Jordan to monitor the situation in neighboring Syria and to train the Jordanian military.

"We have a group of our forces there, working to help them build a headquarters and to ensure that we make the relationship between the United States and Jordan a strong one so we can deal with all of the possible consequences," he said.

"We've also been working with them to try to develop their own military and operational capabilities in the event of any contingency there."

There's a great deal left unsaid in those two paragraphs.

Part of the reason our troops are there is to monitor what's going on with Syria's chemical and biological weapons, which the Assad regime might attempt to move or deploy, as Panetta acknowledged. However, if those weapons were to be moved, it would likely be in the other direction, towards Assad's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

While the Obama Administration pointedly refuses to name any red lines when it comes to Iran, President Obama has been quite vocal that any attempt to move or use biological or chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be crossing a "red line" and would prompt a swift U.S. military response.

But that's only part of the story.

Jordan is a U.S. client state, and King Abdullah, the Hashemite monarch of the country is literally sitting on a powder keg.

Back in 1923, when Britain partitioned the Palestine Mandate and set 79% of it aside as the Arab part of Palestine, they attempted to kill two birds with one stone by placing the present king's grandfather, also named Abdullah on the throne as Jordan's ruler. This original King Abdullah was a Bedouin, son of the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca Hussein. His Jordanian subjects, however, were Quraysh or town Arabs, an entirely different group.

Thus, what was supposed to have become the Arab Palestinian state became a place where 75% of the residents were saddled with what amounted to an imported foreign aristocracy that quickly took charge of the leading positions in the military and government and reserved these positions for themselves.

This has manifested itself over the years in the assassination of the original King Abdullah in 1951 on the orders of Palestinian leader Haj-Amin al Husseini and in Yasser Arafat and the PLO's attempt to overthrow Abdullah's successor, King Hussein in 1970. That attempt was brutally suppressed by King Hussein's Bedouin troops in his Arab legion, but tension between Jordan's Bedouin ruling class and their Palestinain subjects has remained.

This situation has been exacerbated by the increased presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda affiliated groups, who would like nothing better than to overthrow the present King Abdullah,who they see as a U.S. tool. Muslim Brotherhood groups now operating just over the border in Syria ups the ante.

The other contingencies Panetta mentions almost certainly include training the Jordanians in counter-insurgency techniques and increasing intel and surveillance not only within Jordan but on the Syrian border in an effort to help preserve King Abdullah and the status quo.

That job will get increasingly more difficult once the Muslim Brotherhood group Hamas takes over the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West bank)as the Fatah Old Guard who now rule these areas fades away and retires to live on the aid money they have squirreled away in Europe and the Emirates.