Hagel Takes the Fall

gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992Chuck Hagel is out at the Department of Defense, and one administration official explained that it was because “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus” – apparently one that doesn’t shed such a bright light upon the smoking ruin that is Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

Hagel may have sealed his fate last week, when Charlie Rose asked him in an interview about the decline of the U.S. military. “I am worried about it,” Hagel responded with unexpected candor, “I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution” – as Bryan Preston of PJ Media has noted, he perhaps pointedly left Obama and Joe Biden off this list of concerned officials.

Yet who is the single individual most responsible for the decline of the military? Hagel must have known the answer to that question when he added: “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.”

Did Obama take that as a reference to his steep defense cuts at a time when the world is on fire? Or did he object to Hagel’s surprisingly cordial relations with Israeli officials?

We may never know what the true story is. It may be that Obama chose Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, to be the one to take the blame for his spectacular misjudgment of the Islamic State, which he famously dismissed in January 2014 as a “JV team.”

Did Chuck Hagel whisper that notorious analogy in Obama’s ear?

Or maybe Hagel is walking the plank for Obama’s insistence upon referring to jihad terrorists in Syria as “vetted moderates.” “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” said Obama in September 2014. What was he working with them for? To get them to fight the Islamic State. Yet long before that, in July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area.

This was not an isolated incident. Worthy News reported that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.”

Then in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the FSA took to the Internet to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.

And now the U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State are reportedly being used by FSA fighters as a pretext to join the Islamic State. If this is true, they were never going to fight the Islamic State, and were never “vetted moderates.” Obama’s whole Syria strategy is based on fantasy.

Is that Hagel’s fault?

It is November 2014. It is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for Obama at this late date to blame George W. Bush for his foreign policy disasters. Another scapegoat had to be found. Hagel, with his unexpectedly warm relations with Israel (in sharp contrast to the chill between Israeli officials and Barack Obama and John Kerry) and concern over the gutting of the military as the jihad rages more violently than ever and the JV team controls a land expanse larger than Great Britain, was the logical stand-in. He is even a Republican!

And so he will be gone from the Department of Defense, as soon as Obama peers at his gaggle of sycophants and chooses one of them for a big promotion. Likely gone with Hagel will be any remaining obstacle to an increasing chill with Israel, and any murmur of dissent from Obama’s mad plan of demolishing the military while simultaneously expecting it to hold back the Islamic State, Ebola, and a host of other threats.

Times are tough when Chuck Hagel looks like a voice of reasoned pro-American foreign policy. And times are indeed very tough, and about to get a great deal tougher.

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  • Bamaguje

    Hagel was fired is because he opposed gutting the military and wasn’t on board Obama’s antisemitic agenda to emasculate Israel.
    Why am I not surprised?

    • Russell Lissuzzo

      hagel is an a**hole.

      • Bash Brannigan

        He is?? Don’t know about that, but he/the pentagon had some rather strange ideas about global warming.

        • Russell Lissuzzo

          BB, hagel doesn’t deserve a dissertation of facts. I don’t care that he saw some mud and blood in VN, BFD. benedict arnold, was a decorated hero for his actions in the F&I WAR. Then he sold out his Brothers in Arms and a STAR of FREEDOM fighting against TYRANNY. arnold did it all for $$ and promised power. Damn his name, ALSO! hagel is nothing but a bureaucrat apparatchik!

  • namberak

    ‘The main responsibility of any leader is to prepare your institution for the future.’ Really? The main responsibility? I knew this guy wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed but dayum …

  • DontMessWithAmerica

    As I recall Hagel had revealed some very pointed anti-Semitic and anti-Israel remarks long before Obama appointed him and it seemed clear that Obama brought him in exactly for that reason. Since Hagel had to refute his previous stance he might have watched his moves in that sphere after being appointed, which would have disappointed Obama. Obviously, his final speaking out about the mismanagement of defense is what brought the ax down on him. So many disappointments for poor Barry. The Ferguson decision must be giving him bad indigestion. If the GOP came to life and started impeachment efforts Barry might finally freak out and have a total breakdown and wouldn’t that be nice.

    • wildjew

      Impeachment (and the prospect of a partial government shutdown) shouldn’t have been taken off the table. Why announce surrender and defeat before the battle commences?

      • Gislef

        Because at least for impeachment, there’s no way that Obama can be successfully “convicted” on impeachment charges.

        • wildjew

          Why?

  • MattBracken

    I was shocked to learn today that under Obama, the total White House national security staff has ballooned from under 50 to 400! Instead of coordinating policy with the DOD, DNI, DHS etc, they are running policy from the WH, and simply passing orders down to them. Hagel had fewer visits to the White House than Gruber. He was locked out of the decision-making process, basically occupying an office in the Pentagon where the phone seldom rang. I think he got tired of being played for a dupe or a stooge, and when he had a chance, spoke out against the ISIS threat realistically, and that was enough to have him fired shortly after. You just do NOT go off of Team Obama’s message!

    • Russell Lissuzzo

      This is how communism/socialist marxism becomes cancer. Career/generational bureaucrats are what has murdered this Nation! Almost 3,500 new control regulations by the socialists on the “books” this month!
      The Black Book of Communism…most of it reads like a current news report. Get the book at your library; if you want to buy it, listed as a textbook will make you poorer by about $150.

      • MattBracken

        I am surprised that there is no Kindle edition for a cheap download. The point of this type of “reprint” in pixels is maximum dissemination not maximum profits to the heirs of copyright. That’s why I put my books on Kindle free runs all the time, the max Amazon allows. And all of my short pieces are available freely on the internet to google and read.

        • Oger

          Matt– thanks for the kindle downloads. I tell everyone to support your work. In the end, we will all need to support each other the way things are going…

    • nightspore

      400, eh? There’s a light bulb joke here somewhere.

  • James Foard

    You called Obama’s foreign policy a “smoking ruin”. Don’t you think that’s being a bit optimistic?

  • unmergood

    Chuck must not have been properly vetted! The clown shown show needs dummies who will do the dance even when there is no music. Chuck wasn’t a eunuch after all. I’m surprised.

  • Russell Lissuzzo

    benedict arnold was a decorated hero in the frech/indian war.. He betrayed his fellow soldiers (just like a**hole Kerry) and the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that he lied about believing in, for money and the promise of power.
    Sound familiar?

    • MattBracken

      Benedict Arnold was at the time a somewhat embittered multiply wounded war hero, one of the only victorious American generals early in the war. SO at least he had that going for him, unlike Dear Leader who thinks a Navy Corpsman is a corpse-man. Several times, until corrected.

      Arnold was commandant of the key Hudson River fort at West Point, the key to defending New York from British attack. Arnold’s treason was going to be to sabotage the defenses (bring in the chain for “repairs” and sabotage it, move cannon away for “drills).

      Obama is much, much worse. On every level, he is sabotaging our defenses. The open border and “come on in!” policy. All but supplying ISIS, by sending advanced ordnance to the FSA, thence to Al Nusra and ISIS. Iran. Purges at the military flag ranks. It doesn’t end.

      Obama is the worst traitor mole in history. Nobody comes close. Kim Philby was a head of British intelligence for a period in the Cold War. Obama is POTUS. He can do anything. God help us.

      • Virgil Hilts

        There you go, Matt! the genuine Article!

  • DilloTank

    Is this why Hagel was chosen in the first place? So he could be fired and blamed for Obama’s plan to strengthen our enemies?

  • Virgil Hilts

    Hagel was an in E-7 in the US Army…senior NCO’s USUALLY run a pretty tight ship. President Ebola wants fawning sycophants who will drool over his every word, scheme and every brain-fart which he generates…which occurs whenever he is speaking. Hegel understands tactics, strategy and the dealings with America’s enemies. Look who ‘Ebola’ surrounds himself with; brainless simpletons who worship him! Hello! John Kerry?

  • catherineinpvb

    Was there ever another reason he chose Hagel; beyond the fact thay he had an ‘R’ in front of his name? (Such as it was. . .but smart play. . .Obama knew he would need another major ‘fall guy’. . .best that it be a Repub.; ‘how much of one, never matters.)

  • catherineinpvb

    We need a ‘gathering.of Military Patriots, to stand up to Obama; and to make public; the damning spectacle of Obama. A ‘coup’ would be so helpful; if only by the Right hands. . .

  • Americana

    What a crazy mishmash of ideas in this column. Robert Spencer ranges from budget cuts to Pres. Basher al-Assad as if they’re synonymous in the types of dangers they represent. He also fails to appreciate the point behind Sec. of Defense Hagel’s statement 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.” To try to invert that statement and claim that Sec. Hagel was aiming that statement at Pres. Obama rather than at each and every Secretary of Defense is disingenuous in the extreme.

    As for Pres. Obama “peer(ing) at his gaggle of sycophants and choos(ing) one of them for a big promotion,” NONE of Pres. Obama’s Secretaries of Defense have been unfamiliar with the military nor the military role in American foreign policy. Here’s a short list for the most likely candidates to succeed Sec. Hagel: (From the NY Times) “Even before Mr. Obama appeared with Mr. Hagel at the White House to announce the Pentagon chief’s departure, officials inside and outside the administration were speculating that Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense who would be the first woman to head the Pentagon, and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense, would be top candidates for the job.

    Both are seasoned national security professionals whose credibility among members of both parties and Defense Department experience would be considered assets in managing the threat from the Islamic State, budget cuts and other challenges.

    “If what they’re looking for is someone to help them figure out strategic approaches to the biggest challenges we face, that sounds like the slate that they’ve put together,” said Kathleen H. Hicks, the director of the International Security program at the policy group CSIS, who until last year was a senior Defense Department official. “If they’re looking for someone who keeps the Defense Department out of their hair, I don’t think they’ve stumbled upon that person with this list.”Photo

    Michèle A. Flournoy is among those being considered as a successor to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.CreditRichard Perry/The New York Times

    Mr. Hagel — a Republican, former senator from Nebraska and Vietnam veteran — was seen as a Pentagon outsider who was steeped in politics and whose personal friendship with Mr. Obama and opposition to the Iraq war helped him land the top Defense Department post last year.

    Ms. Flournoy, 53, and Mr. Carter, 60, have “grown up in the Pentagon and have great institutional support from inside,” said Roger Zakheim, the former general counsel and deputy staff director of the House Armed Services Committee. Mr. Obama and his team “need somebody who can really push what essentially is re-engagement in the Middle East as well as maintain the fight in Afghanistan and handle sequestration.”
    _________________________________________________________________________

    This was a post I directed at Daniel Greenfield but since many of the same concerns can certainly be aimed at the misdirected, miscalculated criticism coming from Robert Spencer, I’ll repost it here.

    You’re actually hawking in (Daniel Greenfield’s) blog post that the ROOT ISSUE behind the request for his resignation is Sec. of Defense Hagel taking issue w/Pres. Obama (supposedly) closing Guantanamo and repatriating FOUR AFGHAN Gitmo detainees who may yet prove exceedingly dangerous to the U.S. (Just FYI, but releasing FOUR DETAINEES doesn’t equate w/”closing Gitmo.”) In the meantime, you’re actually trying to make the case in this very same blog post that Sec/Def Hagel is “too hawkish” for Pres. Obama because Hagel recognizes the U.S. must figure out how the U.S. can deal with Pres. Bashar al-Assad and his forces. (Can the civil war against Pres. Assad’s regime and Pres. Assad’s repudiation by his people be salvaged and his Presidency and his political faction saved and used against the myriad Islamist factions arrayed against Assad?) Meanwhile, in yet another recent post you’ve made the claim that there was GUN-RUNNING TO SYRIAN REBELS and SYRIAN AL QAEDA FACTIONS under the guidance of Ambassador Stevens because the U.S. is desperate to find Syrians willing to fight against the Islamic State fighters? You don’t understand how mutually incompatible all those wannabe story lines are?

    Yet you included this sentence in your blog post so you’re aware of this: “White House officials also expressed annoyance over a sharply critical two-page memo that Mr. Hagel sent to Ms. Rice last month, in which he warned that the administration’s Syria policy was in danger of unraveling because of its failure to clarify its intentions toward President Bashar al-Assad.”

    Please, tell me you’re not so partisan as to fail to understand what a HUGE ELEMENT Pres. Assad and the future of his Syrian faction may yet play in figuring out what the U.S. is ultimately intending to do in Syria as far as identifying potentially staunch political and ideological allies within the Syrian populace?