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Keyword: chuckhagel

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  • I Went Halfway Around the World with Chuck Hagel—and All I Learned Was That He Was Doomed

    11/26/2014 6:27:08 AM PST · by SeekAndFind · 20 replies
    TNR ^ | 11/26/2014 | By Reid Cherlin
    Last August, I flew halfway around the world with Chuck Hagel to try to see what made him tick, and why he’d been chosen as Secretary of Defense at such an unsettled, seemingly crucial period for our national security. I watched Hagel in bilateral meetings with Southeast Asian ministers of defense, and I watched him take questions from American marines in Hawaii. I saw him in a bathing suit (he’s an avid morning lap-swimmer), and I saw him in a business suit, and I saw him in leisurewear on the interminable flights across the Pacific. I interviewed him twice, generating...
  • How Big of a Problem Is Susan Rice?

    11/26/2014 5:39:00 AM PST · by SJackson · 53 replies
    Commentary ^ | 11.25.2014 | Seth Mandel
    Chuck Hagel’s unceremonious dismissal as secretary of defense has refocused attention, once again, on the insularity of President Obama’s inner circle, its suspicion of outside voices, and its distaste for dissent. But it has changed in one way: this time, the concerns about secrecy, enforced groupthink, and high school clique behavior don’t center on Valerie Jarrett. Instead, the name that keeps surfacing is that of National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s true that this isn’t the first time we’re hearing of the toxic atmosphere and mismanagement at Rice’s National Security Council. But it’s striking how clearly the battle lines appear...
  • Did pressure on Gitmo releases doom Hagel?

    11/25/2014 5:11:45 PM PST · by SeekAndFind · 8 replies
    Hotair ^ | 11/25/2014 | Ed Morrissey
    It’s no secret that Barack Obama wants to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, although his zeal for the project has often been questioned. Obama’s first action as President consisted of a directive to close the prison, but almost six years later, it’s still in operation — and relatively popular, at least in contrast with the alternatives. Obama has embarked on a strategy to close Gitmo through default by emptying it of its detainees, but there has been one impediment to that strategy. Congress requires the Secretary of Defense to attest that any released detainees pose no threat...
  • Michèle Flournoy Takes Herself Out of Running for Top Pentagon Job

    11/25/2014 4:54:30 PM PST · by SeekAndFind · 21 replies
    Foreign Policy ^ | 11/25/2014 | BY JOHN HUDSON , YOCHI DREAZEN
    Michèle Flournoy, widely seen as the front-runner to replace Chuck Hagel as the next secretary of defense, abruptly took herself out of the running for the job Tuesday, complicating what will be one of the most important personnel decisions of President Barack Obama's second term. Flournoy, the co-founder and CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a think tank that has served as a farm league for future Obama administration officials, would have been the first female secretary of defense had she risen to the position. The news of her decision to withdraw was first reported by...
  • Hagel Didn't Start the Fire

    11/25/2014 2:18:19 PM PST · by Kaslin · 22 replies
    Townhall.com ^ | November 25, 2014 | Pat Buchanan
    Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam war veteran and the lone Republican on Obama's national security team, has been fired. And John McCain's assessment is dead on. Hagel, he said, "was never really brought into that real tight circle inside the White House that makes all the decisions which has put us into the incredible debacle that we're in today throughout the world." Undeniably, U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles. But what were the "decisions" that produced the "incredible debacle"? Who made them? Who supported them? The first would be George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq, a war...
  • Let’s Put the White House on Lockdown (Yesssssssssssssss)

    11/25/2014 12:51:49 PM PST · by Kaslin · 12 replies
    Townhall.com ^ | November 25, 2014 | John Ransom
    Forget shutting down the government. Lock down the White House instead. This morning a news story alerted me to the fact that an Army base in Texas was on lockdown after a suspicious vehicle was found.“A lockdown was ordered at a U.S. Army base in San Antonio on Sunday night in what a military spokesman described as a ‘high-security incident,’” reported Reuters, “while adding there was no threat.”But since a vehicle was involved one can assume a bomb was suspected. Since an arrest was made, perhaps more than suspected. Similarly tensions are high in Ferguson Missouri, after a combination of...
  • Military Hates White House ‘Micromanagement’ of ISIS War

    11/01/2014 7:36:15 AM PDT · by LSUfan · 46 replies
    Daily Beast ^ | 31 Oct 14 | Josh Rogin and Eli Lake
    The Pentagon brass placed in charge of implementing Obama’s war against ISIS are getting fed up with the short leash the White House put them on. Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army. As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained...
  • Is Hagel’s resignation a first sign of the administration’s implosion?

    11/24/2014 10:24:01 AM PST · by SeekAndFind · 50 replies
    Hotair ^ | 11/24/2014 | Noah Rothman
    The White House’s defenders will attempt to knock down claims that Defense Sec. Chuck Hagel’s resignation is loaded with implications for the future of this administration. Cabinet officials come and go, they’ll note, but this White House has made a point of standing by its embattled figures. Former Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius resigned in Aril of this year, well after the controversy surrounding the botched debut of Healthcare.gov. Some speculated that the delay was an intentional effort to disassociate her resignation from the controversy that likely hastened it. Similarly, the political press was shocked when Obama...
  • CHUCK HAGEL FIRING: TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT

    11/24/2014 7:51:13 AM PST · by SeekAndFind · 76 replies
    Breitbart ^ | 11/24/2014 | by JOEL B. POLLAK
    The New York Times reports that President Barack Obama is about to dismiss Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. The reason given? That the White House recognized that "the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ." In other words: Hagel was brought on to downgrade the military radically, but now the military turns out to be necessary, after all. Yet that cannot be the only reason, absent any sign that Obama is committing to a sudden, steep increase in the defense budget, and reversing the non-sequester...
  • Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure

    11/24/2014 6:26:14 AM PST · by ilovesarah2012 · 124 replies
    nytimes.com ^ | November 24, 2014 | Helene Cooper
    WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and a beleaguered national security team that has struggled to stay ahead of an onslaught of global crises. The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.
  • Pentagon got duped, made ransom payment for Bowe Bergdahl to con man

    11/20/2014 5:15:53 AM PST · by Cincinatus' Wife · 27 replies
    Washington Times ^ | November 20, 2014 | Bill Gertz
    The Pentagon is under fire for making a ransom payment to an Afghan earlier this year as part of a failed bid to win the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, according to U.S. officials. Sgt. Bergdahl was released in May after nearly five years in captivity as part of a controversial exchange for five terrorists held at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The ransom payment was first disclosed by Rep. Duncan Hunter in a Nov. 5 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Mr. Hunter stated in the letter that Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) made...
  • Ronald Reagan: The American Spirit by U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel

    06/10/2004 11:29:55 AM PDT · by ambrose · 9 replies · 279+ views
    Article Posted: 06/10/2004 7:49:53 AM Ronald Reagan: The American Spirit by U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel June 10, 2004 On January 20th, 1981, Ronald Reagan, after being sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, looked out over the Mall and addressed the nation. He told us that the challenges of our day required: "Our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And, after all, why shouldn’t we believe...
  • Rand Paul Explains His Surprise Vote For Chuck Hagel (1 of only 4 Republicans to vote for)

    02/26/2013 3:29:41 PM PST · by Corporate Democrat · 124 replies
    Buzzfeed ^ | Feb 26, 2013 | Rosie Gray
    WASHINGTON — Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said his support for a filibuster against Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel never meant that he would vote against Hagel's confirmation. "I voted no because I wanted more information and I think that part of what the Senate does is try to get information about the nominees," Paul told reporters in the basement of the Capitol after Hagel's confirmation Tuesday. "I've said all along that I give the president some prerogative in choosing his political appointees." "There are many things I disagree with Chuck Hagel on, there are many things I disagree with John Kerry...
  • Possible Defense Nominee Faulted for Record on Gays

    12/20/2012 11:25:08 PM PST · by WilliamIII · 10 replies
    New York Times ^ | Dec 21 2012 | Mark Landler
    Chuck Hagel, the former Nebraska senator on President Obama’s short list for defense secretary, came under fire again on Thursday, this time for his record on gay rights and remarks he made 14 years ago about an openly gay nominee for a diplomatic post. Since Mr. Hagel’s name emerged as a candidate for the Pentagon last week, he has been sharply criticized for his record on Iran, Israel and militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as comments he made about pro-Israel lobbying groups in Washington. The new round of criticism is focused on comments Mr. Hagel made in...
  • Sen. Hagel Is At It Again

    08/30/2004 10:31:21 AM PDT · by miloklancy · 35 replies · 2,201+ views
    Omaha World Herald ^ | August 30, 2004 | Jake Thompson
    Sen. Hagel chides Bush, Kerry BY JAKE THOMPSON WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER NEW YORK - Sen. Chuck Hagel admonished both of the 2004 candidates for president in a speech Monday to Iowa's delegates to the Republican National Convention. Sen. Chuck Hagel Hagel said the candidates, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., have hurt the political process by focusing on division rather than unity in the flap over Kerry's service 30 years ago in Vietnam. "We've got to unite America. We've got to bring this country together in common purpose," the Nebraska Republican told about 70 Iowa delegates, alternates and party...
  • Hagel: McCain Treading On Very Thin Ground (Hagel, STFU and get out of the party!)

    07/27/2008 12:36:46 PM PDT · by tobyhill · 57 replies · 114+ views
    CBS ^ | 7/27/2008 | cbs
    Sen. Chuck Hagel, who accompanied Sen. Barack Obama on his trip to South Asia and Iraq last week, criticized the McCain campaign for its latest television ad attacking the Democratic candidate. The ad blasts Obama for not visiting wounded troops during his visit to Germany. Obama has said he chose not to cancel a visit to a military hospital there after consultations with the Pentagon, due to concerns that such a visit might be seen as using wounded troops for political purposes. The McCain ad, which contains footage of Obama bouncing a basketball before U.S. military personnel in Kuwait, implied...
  • A message for the prez - Sen. Chuck Hagel has some unvarnished advice for George W. Bush

    05/22/2004 4:57:58 PM PDT · by areafiftyone · 37 replies · 301+ views
    U.S. News ^ | 5/22/04
    Battered by the bad news out of Iraq, President George W. Bush decided it was time to stiffen the spines of some anxious Republicans on Capitol Hill last week. So he went to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and held an hourlong pep rally in a basement conference room at the Capitol. Many of the 200 House and Senate Republicans in attendance emerged to say they were reassured. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander called it "choir practice." But not for Chuck Hagel. The 57-year-old Republican senator from Nebraska said the appearance by the president left more than a little to...
  • Obama: "I released the Taliban because Screw You."

    06/10/2014 9:20:18 AM PDT · by Lazamataz · 97 replies
    Original Content | 6/10/2014 | By Laz A. Mataz
    With regards to the release of five deadly Taliban generals for one deserter Islam-sympathizing US soldier, the excuse machine has become more and more ludicrous by the day. First Bowe Bergdahl's health was in danger. Next, we heard that Bergdahl was a soldier who served with honor and distinction,, so we had to rescue him.Next, we heard that platoon members who knew Bergdahl, and who criticizing him, were 'Swiftboating' him.Next, we were told that Bergdahls fellow soldiers may be psychopaths. Next, Obama fell back on the old, tired, 'racism/everyone hates me' card.Then, we were told by Obama that he has...
  • Israel requests six-aircraft V-22 purchase

    01/15/2014 6:47:45 AM PST · by sukhoi-30mki · 12 replies
    Flight International ^ | 01/15/2013 | ARIE EGOZI
    Israel is advancing with its plans to field the Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor transport, with its acquisition of a six-strong fleet to be worth more than $1 billion. New details of the planned purchase were disclosed by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on 13 January, in a notification to Congress. The government of Israel's request includes six aircraft in a "V-22B Block C" configuration, with these to be optimised for search and rescue and special operations duties, the DSCA says. Also counting related aircraft equipment, support services and personnel training, "the estimated cost is $1.13 billion", it adds....
  • Ted Cruz Takes Stand Against Gun Control and Hagel in "No Compromise" Strategy

    01/08/2013 10:30:29 AM PST · by Red Steel · 17 replies
    Fox Latino ^ | January 07, 2013
    Watch full video interview above. Freshman Republican Senator Ted Cruz is the newest Texan in the Senate and so far he has not been shy to criticize Washington. In a 12-minute interview on Fox News Sunday, Cruz said he does not believe in compromise in D.C. He also said he will not support the confirmation of former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary, and is adamantly against current gun control proposals and the fiscal cliff deal, which he called a "lousy deal." During a time in which the Republican Party seems to be in search of a new identity,...