President Obama nominates Chuck Hagel for SEcretary of Defense and John Brennan to serve aa CIA Director.
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Hagel Nomination A Clean Break From Bush Foreign Policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/chuck-hagel-defense_n_2427786.html#comments
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s nomination Monday of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as secretary of defense reignites an uncomfortable, and potentially combustible, debate over the foreign policy of the George W. Bush presidency.
The anticipated nomination had been under fire for weeks, as Hagel critics sought to use his positions on Israel and gay rights to fight the appointment. But under the surface, the controversy centers on Hagel’s outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq, and Republican fears that the appointment would represent a clean break for Obama from the policies of the Bush years.
Hagel, after all, rose to national prominence for his blunt criticism of Bush’s policy in Iraq and his “realist” — even skeptical — outlook on the use of U.S. military force as a tool of international engagement.
[wpvideo yb0LbUCm]
Chuck Hagel Already Knows How To Be Defense Secretary
By Charles P. Pierce-at 5:05PM
SNIP
Hagel is a grunt. He always has been. He always will be. He’s one of the people who has to kick in the doors. He’s one of the people who has to look gingerly around the corner. He’s one of the people who had to live at war 24-7, and who walked through Indian country and nearly died there. (By comparison, as he himself has said, until he got shot down, John McCain had a pretty good Vietnam war, flying back to the carrier every day for hot meals.) He is the first grunt to make it as far as he has since Elliot Richardson, who landed in the first wave at Utah Beach. The rest have been a passel of career spooks and think-tank bombardiers. It is impossible to imagine Hagel sending an army into battle without proper body-armor, or suggesting, idiotically, that “you go to war with the army you have.” Unless he’s changed radically since I talked to him last, Hagel’s primary constituency in his new job will not be the men and women who have to kick in the doors. (This is why his earlier comments about gay people do not trouble me. Gay Americans can now serve openly, and that is all Hagel really needs to know.) His vote in favor of the AUMF in Iraq still mystifies me, especially since, in explaining the vote, he sounded very much like a man who was going to vote against it. (He baffled his own brother with that one.) And I probably wouldn’t vote for him for president, because his ideas on entitlements are pretty daffy. But, for this job, at this time, with two wars winding down and thousands of battered and damaged people coming home, I can’t think of anyone better to run the department that sent them all to war.
SNIP
Read more: Chuck Hagel Defense Nomination – The Hagel Nomination – Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/chuck-hagel-defense-secretary-nomination-010713#ixzz2HOOO5ozy
Why Hagel Matters
According to various reports, Obama will nominate Chuck Hagel for defense secretary. Beinart puts the nomination in context:
What makes Hagel so important, and so threatening to the Republican foreign-policy elite, is that he is one of the few prominent Republican-aligned politicians and commentators (George Will and Francis Fukuyama are others, but such voices are rare) who was intellectually changed by Iraq. And Hagel was changed, in large measure, because he bore within him intellectual (and physical) scar tissue from Vietnam. As my former colleague John Judis captured brilliantly in a 2007 New Republic profile, the Iraq War sparked something visceral in Hagel, as the former Vietnam rifleman realized that, once again, detached and self-interested elites were sending working-class kids like himself to die in a war they couldn’t honestly defend.
To my mind, this is his core qualification. Unlike so many of the lemmings and partisans of Washington DC, Hagel actually called out the catastrophe of the Iraq War as it happened. The neocons cannot forgive him for exposing what they wrought on the nation and the world. For good measure, he has a Purple Heart and has served in combat. Not easy to say about most of the Iraq War armchair warriors and war criminals.
Which is to say, as Chuck Todd said this morning, this nomination is about accountability for the Iraq War. All those ducking responsibility for the calamity – Abrams, Kristol, Stephens – are determined that those of us honest enough to resist, having supported in the first place, be erased from history. Or smeared as anti-Semites. Or given that epithet which impresses them but baffles me: “outside the mainstream”. Rephrase that as – after initial support – being “outside the Iraq War mainstream” in DC – and you have a major reason to back him. Ambers explains the personal background:
Why isn’t Obama replacing Panetta with a Democrat? Simple: Of all the possible candidates, he trusts Hagel. Hagel was the head of Obama’s intelligence advisory board, and was a frequent informal “red cell” brain that Obama privately turned to when he wanted a second opinion. He has been picking Hagel’s brain on subjects as diverse as Afghanistan, China, special operations force posture, and intelligence for several years now. (Hagel has all the required clearances.
……………………………..
And that is the real opportunity of this nomination. At the hearings, we can see McCain’s vision versus Hagel’s, and see the difference between a man who refuses to adjust his global mindset after Iraq and a man who has had the strength and character to do so. So many Americans are likely to agree with Hagel over military restraint, diplomatic patience, and cutting defense bloat. The reason the Greater Israel lobby is in such a froth is that the weakness of their arguments could be publicly exposed – by a Republican. And there isn’t enough AIPAC money and intimidation to stop that happening.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
Here’s to smooth sailing towards their nominations and anyone else that my President Obama nominates!
Hagel hurt Ms. Lindsey’s fee fees AND doesn’t lie prostrate for the 51st state. sounds good to me.
THIS
Me too!
Good luck, Chuck Hagel!
Exclusive: Hagel says critics distort his views on Israel, Iran
By DON WALTON / Lincoln Journal Star
Chuck Hagel said Monday an accurate assessment of his record will demonstrate “unequivocal, total support for Israel” and endorsement of tough international economic sanctions against Iran.
Critics have “completely distorted” his record, the former Nebraska senator said in his first interview as President Barack Obama’s designated choice to be secretary of defense.
http://journalstar.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/article_c4f3da0a-af78-5496-b62f-a89ca28c4bac.html#.UOse0DdWBHc.twitter