Danger, there is still a muddy road ahead for Hagel. Sens. McCain and Lindsey
Graham are busy trying to prevent the Senate from “consenting” to Hagel as Secretary
of Defense. You might be lulled into thinking this is old hat and relax; after all, they both
have said publicly they believe the Senate will approve him in 10 days. Their fight against Hagel is not based his qualification but an attempt to vindicate of
their own failed and unpopular ideas. Therefore, if you believe they are not
out working furiously during this 10 day hiatus they engineered to prevent confirmation
from happening, you will be naive enough to believe that Mitch McConnell will
honor his handshake deal with Reid about gentlemanly conduct by conservatives
on cloture—sorry, McConnell has already dishonored that deal.
It is time the American people seriously evaluate what they say
they really have against Chuck Hagel. First, Hagel criticized George W. Bush
for his illegal war in Iraq. Hasn’t time proved beyond reasonable doubt that the
Iraq War was ill conceived, illegal, and costly and harmed our image in the
world? Would anyone in his or her right mind want a Secretary of Defense who
approved of that war? In fact, it is one
of the best if not the single best argument Obama had for nominating Hagel.
The next argument is that Hagel thought the surge in Iraq was
a failure, which it was. The war “makers” sold the “success” of the surge as
deftly as they sold the reason for going to war in the first place. The troops
all went to city of Baghdad, where the incidents of violence went up, while the
incidents went down in all other cities and areas of the country resulting in
perception of an overall decrease in violence; thus, a consequence of the
surge, but it wasn’t. The improvement was a consequence of the waning of the
war.
Hagel saw the surge in both the Iraq and Iranian Wars as being
the result of weak Presidents allowing generals run the war. The surge in
Afghanistan was during Obama’s administration; the power the Pentagon and conservative
Senators like these two military sycophants compromised Obama’s judgment—shame
on him. Hagel criticized Obama for the surge. Had Hagel been Secretary of
Defense at the time, the surge in Afghanistan probably would not have happened.
Because Obama can appoint a rival on some issues to his cabinet, only means he
is a great president.
Obama is drawing down the war in Afghanistan. The hawks, Sens.
McCain and Graham want to keep fighting there. Why? For what purpose? In contrast, Hagel has said he wants to
withdraw from that war, but more importantly knows that the Secretary of
Defense is not the one who makes war policy. Which is just more of the disconnect
from reality affecting these two men. They want information about Benghazi terrorist’s
attack on our ambassador there, which Hagel had absolutely nothing to do with
or has no information. They want him to disclose information from
corporations on which he had served on the board of directors; everyone one
knows it would be illegal for him to do that.
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