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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; resignation</title>
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		<title>Hagel Takes the Fall</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-takes-the-fall</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:55:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama makes the Defense Secretary the scapegoat for his foreign policy failures.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245969" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992-450x337.jpg" alt="gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992" width="339" height="254" /></a>Chuck Hagel is out at the Department of Defense, and one administration official <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">explained</span></a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/24/hagel-unchained-departing-defense-secretary-fire-parting-shots-in-interview-last-week/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Bryan Preston of PJ Media has noted</span></a>, he perhaps pointedly left Obama and Joe Biden off this list of concerned officials.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120388/chuck-hagel-retires-despite-gop-attacks-he-became-israels-friend"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Hagel’s surprisingly cordial relations with Israeli officials</span></a>?</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/07/barack-obama/what-obama-said-about-islamic-state-jv-team/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">famously dismissed</span></a> in January 2014 as a “JV team.”</p>
<p>Did Chuck Hagel whisper that notorious analogy in Obama’s ear?</p>
<p>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,” <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/obamas-vetted-moderate-free-syrian-army-collaborating-with-islamic-state"><span style="color: #0433ff;">said Obama</span></a> 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 <a href="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2013/08/christians-massacred-by-free-syrian-army-terrorists-rebels/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh</span></a> and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area.</p>
<p>This was not an isolated incident. <a href="http://www.worthynews.com/12470-free-syrian-army-massacre-christian-village"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Worthy News reported</span></a> 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.&#8221;</p>
<p>Then in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/09/07/Syrians-Rebels-Kerry-Called-Moderate-Post-Videos-Of-Their-Attack-On-Christian-Town"><span style="color: #0433ff;">FSA took to the Internet</span></a> 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.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/us-air-strikes-syra-driving-anti-assad-groups-support-isis"><span style="color: #0433ff;">now the U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State are reportedly being used by FSA fighters as a pretext</span></a> 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.</p>
<p>Is that Hagel’s fault?</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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		<title>Hagel Ouster Won&#8217;t Solve the Obama Foreign Policy Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/hagel-ouster-wont-solve-the-obama-foreign-policy-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-ouster-wont-solve-the-obama-foreign-policy-crisis</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/hagel-ouster-wont-solve-the-obama-foreign-policy-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:45:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic Terrorism]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245965</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The real problem remains in the White House. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/458110428-1024x682.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245966" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/458110428-1024x682-412x350.jpg" alt="458110428-1024x682" width="338" height="287" /></a>Secretary of Defense Charles Hagel has resigned his position under pressure from the Obama White House. According to one senior administration official, “He wasn’t up to the job.” Of course, if competence were the standard, President Obama himself should resign.</p>
<p>Hagel is being made the fall guy for Obama’s own national security failures, including not forcefully addressing the ISIS threat at a more opportune time to destroy ISIS. After all, it was Obama who derided the jihadist militants earlier this year as being akin to a junior varsity team.</p>
<p>Obama had precipitously pulled all American troops out of Iraq in 2011, against the advice of his military advisers, which helped create a vacuum filled by ISIS. Then he watched and did nothing while ISIS racked up victory after victory in Iraq during the last year, ignoring warnings from Iraqi government officials, U.S. intelligence and U.S. military leaders. Hagel added his own warning, declaring that ISIS represented an “imminent threat to every interest we have.”</p>
<p>Finally, in response to mounting criticism from home and abroad that he was showing no leadership while multiple global crises were exploding around him, President Obama first ordered air attacks on ISIS positions in Iraq while telegraphing to the enemy what he would not do. Then he expanded the air attacks to parts of Syria, while gradually increasing the number of U.S. troops he was willing to send back to Iraq, ostensibly to play a non-combat role.</p>
<p>Incredibly, senior administration officials are reported by the <i>New York Times</i> to have claimed, as justification for the pressure on Hagel to resign, that Hagel lacked the skills to deal with the ISIS threat. It was Obama – not Hagel – who had so recklessly minimized the ISIS threat in Iraq when it could have been dealt with more readily. And it was Obama – not Hagel – who admitted he had no strategy to deal with the ISIS threat in Syria. Hagel had his eyes open and saw the ISIS threat more clearly. Obama looked away as long as he could. But Hagel takes the fall.</p>
<p>President Obama chose Hagel for the Pentagon chief post in the first place to serve as the nominal Republican in his cabinet. Hagel also shared Obama’s skepticism about the Iraq War. Hagel’s combination of actual war experience as a Vietnam veteran and his cautiousness in committing American troops to vaguely defined missions suited Obama’s own inclinations. After having experienced the strongly opinionated Robert M. Gates, the former defense secretary, who went on to criticize the president in his memoir, Obama appears to have wanted someone he thought would focus more on internal management of the Pentagon than embroiling himself in national security policy debates.</p>
<p>Opposition to Hagel’s nomination among his former colleagues in the Senate and among some analysts stemmed in part from the remarks he has made about the Iraq War over the years and his evident anti-Israel bias. Questions were also raised about his overall fitness for the job. Hagel did himself no favors in that regard with his widely criticized poor performance during his Senate confirmation hearings. Nevertheless, Hagel was eventually confirmed as defense secretary by the Senate in a 58-41 vote.</p>
<p>During his relatively brief tenure, Hagel served as Obama’s manager of a diminishing U.S. military footprint. Hagel oversaw the draw-down of troops in Afghanistan that Obama had ordered, and began the process of looking for ways to trim the Pentagon’s budget.</p>
<p>However, on matters of national security and crafting responses to emerging threats such as ISIS, Hagel never made it into the inner circle of decision-makers in the Obama administration. He is reported to have remained mum during cabinet meetings, as he concluded that his advice was not being taken seriously by those who had the president’s ear. Hagel is said to have provided his advice to Obama in one-on-one phone calls, but he was still relegated to the outer periphery of influence on Obama’s final decisions.</p>
<p>While Hagel came across during his Senate confirmation hearings and in some public appearances since he became defense secretary as tentative and unsure of himself, he is no shrinking violet. He has at times expressed the kind of sharp-edged skepticism about the direction that the current president is taking the country’s military and national security that he displayed as a senator regarding former President George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War.</p>
<p>For example, Hagel wrote a memo to National Security Adviser Susan Rice last month raising concerns about the administration’s Syria strategy, particularly how to best deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad while simultaneously fighting ISIS in Syria.</p>
<p>Rice is at the heart of Obama’s inner circle and does not take kindly to disagreements with her patron’s policies. “I guess I could be a testosterone-driven, territorial kind of personality in this role,” Rice was quoted by the <i>New York Times</i> last month as having said. “My view on this is that it’s an asset to have a partner down the hall.”</p>
<p>Hagel did not have that kind of access to the president. He had also been losing patience with what he regarded as interference on his own turf by an inexperienced White House national security team.</p>
<p>Said Senator John McCain, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: “I know that Chuck was frustrated with aspects of the Administration’s national security policy and decision-making process. His predecessors have spoken about the excessive micro-management they faced from the White House and how that made it more difficult to do their jobs successfully. Chuck’s situation was no different.”</p>
<p>During an interview with Charlie Rose last week, Chuck Hagel’s frustration seemed to have boiled over. Hagel expressed concern about the military’s declining capability under President Obama’s watch.  “I am worried about it, I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution,” Hagel said, referring to the Pentagon. Then, in a not-too-subtle slap at the dithering that Obama brings to decision-making when a quick response from a capable and confident leader is required instead, Hagel added 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.”</p>
<p>President Obama has displayed a thin skin time and time again. Truly believing that he is always the smartest person in the room, Obama wants yes-people around him. Hagel, for all his faults, did not fit that mold.</p>
<p>During a White House ceremony Monday at which Hagel’s resignation was officially announced, Obama said he and the defense secretary had determined it was an “appropriate time for him to complete his service.” Obama’s praise for Hagel as an “exemplary defense secretary” rings no truer than all of Obama’s other statements on a variety of topics. Hagel served as Obama’s scapegoat. Sadly, this president’s national security failures will continue.</p>
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		<title>Consequences of the Petraeus Scandal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/alan-w-dowd/the-consequences-of-the-petraeus-scandal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-consequences-of-the-petraeus-scandal</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Nov 2012 04:45:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affair]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=165262</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The political and -- geopolitical -- ramifications. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/alan-w-dowd/the-consequences-of-the-petraeus-scandal/davidpetraeus_affair_1280_110119340_1_480x360/" rel="attachment wp-att-165286"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-165286" title="DavidPetraeus_Affair_1280_110119340_1_480x360" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/DavidPetraeus_Affair_1280_110119340_1_480x360-450x337.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="236" /></a>The unfolding scandal surrounding former CIA Director David Petraeus has many layers, far more than we can see today. But even at this early hour, some things are clear. For ease of discussion, let’s put these things—“known knowns” as Don Rumsfeld would call them—under four broad headings: the human, the military, the political and the geopolitical dimensions of the Petraeus scandal.</p>
<p><em>Human</em></p>
<p>A month ago, putting those last two words—“Petraeus” and “scandal”—next to each other or even in the same sentence or article would have been unthinkable. Such was his stature and public image. But this sad story is yet another reminder that all of us have feet of clay; all of us are capable of doing great and inspiring things as well as dumb and ugly things. Our reputations are only as good as the depth of our next mistake. And as Petraeus now knows, the bigger the reputation, the bigger the fall.</p>
<p>To be sure, a key contributing factor in Petraeus’s outsized reputation was his impressive record, which we will discuss in a moment. But another contributing factor was the notoriety and even celebrity that blossomed around him, which he appears to have cultivated in some ways. (Just consider the book written by Ms. Broadwell.) This “celebrification” of military and political leaders is not new, but it is reaching epidemic levels. And it’s unhealthy for the republic, especially in relation to military leaders.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be this way. As Derek Leebaert reminds us in his essential history of the Cold War, <em>The Fifty Year Wound</em>, after Gen. George Marshall ended his career of military and public service, he “joined no corporate board…gave no paid speeches” and refused a million-dollar book deal, “at least the equivalent of a $7-million book deal today.” Marshall’s answer to the offer: “The people of the United States have paid me for my services.”</p>
<p>Douglas MacArthur, who was indeed a celebrity general, counseled that America’s military should stand “serene, calm, aloof,” always guided by “those magic words: duty, honor, country.”</p>
<p>Fueled by that very-human flaw known as pride, celebrity poisons that formula of effective command, as MacArthur and Petraeus learned in different ways.</p>
<p><em>Military</em></p>
<p>By resigning and taking responsibility for his lapse in judgment, Petraeus did the right thing. But by doing the wrong thing, he jeopardized his reputation and capsized his career—a career that was far from over.</p>
<p>Petraeus came into the public’s field of vision at a time when nothing was going right in Iraq—and virtually no one thought the Iraq project could be salvaged. But that’s exactly what Petraeus did. After rewriting the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency manual, he put it to the test in Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi; altered the course of the war; saved Iraq from itself; and rescued America from defeat. President Obama then asked Petraeus to make lightning strike twice by repeating in Afghanistan what he accomplished in Iraq. And then, the president tapped Petraeus to work his counter-insurgency and counter-terror magic at the CIA.</p>
<p>Petraeus was remarkably suited for the post-9/11 campaign of campaigns, able to fuse together intelligence, diplomacy, counterinsurgency and kinetic operations to wage a fusion war. Before Petraeus took his CIA post, a veterans group was even pushing the President to award Petraeus a fifth star for his exceptional command and leadership during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>At barely 60 years old, Petraeus had fought and vanquished America’s enemies on several fronts. No one will ever know what this outstanding general officer might have done had his career not been cut short by his misconduct.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that people don’t deserve second chances, but after falling from such a high perch, it seems unlikely that Petraeus will ask for a second chance to lead in a public way.</p>
<p><em>Political</em></p>
<p>That brings us to some of the political dimensions of this scandal. A Petraeus run for the presidency or pick as vice president seems remote now, as does a role for Petraeus as defense secretary or Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. Fair or not, his indiscretion, in effect, disqualifies him from consideration for these roles because it could have compromised issues related to intelligence, national security, etc.</p>
<p>This invites comparison to the Clinton scandal, of course. Perhaps the most that can be said in this regard is that after he recognized his failing, Petraeus had a sense of honor and resigned for the good of his family and country.</p>
<p>The other political dimension at play here is far more important to the nation. After all, this is a scandal within a scandal. It pays to recall that Petraeus knew a great deal about the Benghazi scandal. Petraeus made it clear that his agency did not cover its ears when Americans under fire called out for help. “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate,” a CIA official <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/">declared</a> as the White House began to search for a scapegoat. Doubtless, that statement was released with Petraeus’s assent.</p>
<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/petraeus-personally-investigated-benghazi-attack-libya/story?id=17706615#.UKOYi4fXaHy">ABC</a> News reports that “Petraeus traveled to Libya to conduct his own review of the Benghazi attack…While in Tripoli, he personally questioned the CIA station chief and other CIA personnel who were in Benghazi on Sept. 11.” This was just weeks before the sex-scandal story broke—conveniently two days after the presidential election.</p>
<p>Some, like Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (USA RET), think Petraeus knew so much that the scandal was used to keep him quiet. “The timing is just too perfect for the Obama administration,” Peters recently said in an <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/11/09/lt_col_ralph_peters_on_petraeus_timing_is_just_too_perfect.html">interview</a>. “Just as the administration claimed it was purely coincidence that our Benghazi consulate was attacked on the anniversary of September 11th. Now it’s purely coincidence that this affair—extra-marital affair—surfaces right after the election, not before, but right after, but before the intelligence chiefs go to Capitol Hill to get grilled. As an old intelligence analyst…the way I read this—I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation—is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100 percent on their party-line story…I don&#8217;t like conspiracy theories, I may be totally wrong, but the timing of this, again, right after the election and right before Petraeus is supposed to get grilled on Capitol Hill, it really smells.”</p>
<p>In fact, ABC reports that “Petraeus is telling friends he does not think he should testify.”</p>
<p><em>Geopolitical</em></p>
<p>Finally, there is the geopolitical dimension. Considered alongside the Secret Service sex scandals and a number of general officers being relieved of command for various indiscretions, the unfolding and widening Petraeus scandal conveys a lack of seriousness, lack of judgment, lack of restraint and lack of propriety among people in key leadership positions—people who should possess all of these traits. It sends a terrible message to the world. Friends will wonder about decision making and stability in Washington, and foes could try to exploit the distractions, disorder and discontinuity.</p>
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