Chuck Hagel - Not Crazy Enough

It would appear that President Obama is going to nominate Chuck Hagel to be the Secretary of Defense.

President Barack Obama’s administration has backed down from one major Senate confirmation fight — and may be running headlong into another one.
Some in the Jewish community and other Israel backers are reacting with alarm to reports that Obama is preparing to nominate former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as secretary of defense. A senior administration official told POLITICO Friday that Hagel is the leading contender to replace Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who’s expected to step down early next year.

While Hagel is certainly no dove he is not one that approves of the Israeli tail wagging the US dog.  This has the Israeli lobby and the neo-cons up in arms.  Daniel Larison has a couple of posts here and here on the attacks on Hagel.
Not too surprisingly Bill Kristol jumps in:

As we go to press on Friday, December 14, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel appears to be the leading candidate to become the next secretary of defense. Anti-Israel propagandists are thrilled. Stephen Walt, junior partner of the better-known Israel-hater John Mearsheimer, writes that if President Obama nominates Hagel, it will be “a smart move.” Why? Because, “unlike almost all of his former colleagues on Capitol Hill, he hasn’t been a complete doormat for the Israel lobby.” Indeed, a Hagel pick would “pay back Benjamin Netanyahu for all the ‘cooperation’ Obama received from him during the first term.” Furthermore, Walt writes approvingly, Hagel is “generally thought to be skeptical about the use of military force against Iran.”
Hagel certainly does have anti-Israel, pro-appeasement-of-Iran bona fides. While still a senator, Hagel said that “a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option.” Hagel, one of only two senators who voted in 2001 against renewing the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, also voted in 2007 against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization and opposed the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act.
Hagel also has a record of consistent hostility to Israel over the last decade. He boasted in 2008 that, unlike his peers, he wasn’t intimidated by “the Jewish lobby.” The next year, he signed a letter urging President Obama to open direct negotiations with Hamas. Later in 2009, he revisited another of his longstanding foreign policy fixations​—​his belief in the good intentions of the Assad regime​—​and told a J Street conference, “I believe there is a real possibility of a shift in Syria’s strategic thinking and policies.

So Chuck Hagel is sane - he realizes that a military attack on Iran would be insanely foolish and he refuses to kiss the boots of the AIPIC lobby.  A real plus in my book.

After all but endorsing  Mitt Romney during the recent Presidential campaign it would seem to be very unwise for  Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies to fight the Hagel nomination.  Like it or not Bibi has 4 more years of Obama.  The United States is about the only friend that Israel has left in the World.

Some are saying this nomination is an attempt to undermine the pro Israeli community.

Can anyone doubt that Obama falls within the substantial circle of politicans that bitterly resents the Israel lobby? This is the man who spiritually followed the rabidly anti-Israel Rev. Wright; who gave a tribute to former PLO operative Rashid Khalidi so explosive that it hasnever seen the light of day; who has never visited Israel during his time in office, despite having been as close as thirty minutes away in Egypt, and managing to go to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq; who told Jewish leaders in July 2009 that he was deliberately adopting a policy of putting daylight between America and Israel; and who snubbed Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC and complained to Nicolas Sarkozy about having to deal with the Israeli prime minister.

I don't agree with much of Obama's foreign policy but if he can successfully stop the tail from wagging the dog good for him.

My thoughts five years later

Yesterday was a day when former supporters of the invasion and occupation documented how wrong they were. For Andrew Sullivan it was:

• Historical Narcissism.
• Narrow Moralism
• Unconservatism.
• Misreading Bush

John Cole admits he was wrong about everything including "I was wrong not to trust the dirty smelly hippies." On the other side Jim Henely tries to explain why he got it right. I think what Jim ends up saying is that he was paying attention.

Now I opposed the invasion and occupation - I got it right. But I didn't get it all right, I am guilty of under estimation. Now I knew that the neocons and the AIPAC Zionists were delusional and crazy but I underestimated just how delusional and crazy they were. I didn't fully appreciate that the only way you could get them to listen to you was to say exactly what they wanted to hear. And that worked even if you were a known con man and Iranian spy (Chalabi). I underestimated how little these mad men knew about the Middle East and as important how little they knew about unsuccessful occupations in the past. I also underestimated just how evil their real motivations were. Perhaps most of all I underestimated their incompetence which I suppose is a result of underestimating their delusions.

I was right - I knew the invasion was a mistake but I really didn't appreciate just how big a mistake it would turn out to be.

Does Admiral Fallon have to go?

Now we all know that George W. Bush wants to do whatever his bat shit crazy Vice President, Dick Cheney, wants to do and we all know that Dick Cheney and the rest of the lunatics want to attack Iran. According to Thomas P.M. Barnett there is someone standing in their way, the head of U. S. Central Command, Admiral William "Fox" Fallon.
The Man Between War and Peace

So while Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century's Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone--to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: "This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions."

What America needs, Fallon says, is a "combination of strength and willingness to engage."

Those are fighting words to your average neocon--not to mention your average supporter of Israel, a good many of whom in Washington seem never to have served a minute in uniform. But utter those words for print and you can easily find yourself defending your indifference to "nuclear holocaust."

How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?

The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.

Yes, the last thing on earth the Bush/Cheney cabal, the neocons and the AIPAC crowd wants is a sane man in their asylum.

Go read the entire article and Tom Ricks' half hearted rebuttal.

Wingnuts in attack mode

Obama's honeymoon is over and he's about to find out that Hillary went pretty easy on him. The Neocon - Likud - AIPAC crowd are about to bring out the big guns. Yesterday Bill Kristol accused Obama of hating America because he won't ware a flag lapel pin. Well this should send Bill and the rest of the lunatics up the wall:
Obama: Pro-Israel needn't be pro-Likud

"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud ap-proach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel," leading Democratic presidential contender Illinois Senator Barack Obama said Sunday.

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than "just crushing the opposition" is being "soft or anti-Israel."

Now it fills me with hope that a politician running for president would actually give AIPAC the finger. Of course Obama will soon be able to add antisemitic Nazi to his closet Islamic Terrorist tag.

And also today we are told that the Pentagon is afraid that Obama might just not be crazy enough.

Military fears 'unknown quantity'

Members of Washington's military and defense establishment are expressing trepidation about Sen. Barack Obama, as the Illinois senator comes closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination and leads in national polls to become commander in chief.

Of course there are more than a few in the Pentagon who would like a little less crazy in the White House.

But his backers, including a former Air Force chief of staff, say the rookie senator believes in a strong military, and with it, a larger Army and Marine Corps.

It took the criminally insane neocons a long time to get their hands on the controls and they are not going to give up without a nasty fight.

Target Obama

They have Obama in their sights. No, I'm not talking about the Clintons but AIPAC and the neocons. Justin Raimondo reports that:
The War Party Targets Obama
They'll never let him become president

He's said it many times, in many different venues, and perhaps the words change a bit over time, and the cadences, too, but the message is always the same:

"I think the pundits have it wrong. I think the American people have had enough of politicians who go out of their way to look tough, who say one thing in a caucus and another in a general election. When I am the nominee of our party, the choice will be clear. My Republican opponent won't be able to say that we both supported this war in Iraq. He won't be able to say that we really agree about using the war in Iraq to justify military action against Iran, or about the diplomacy of not talking and saber-rattling. He won't be able to say that I haven't been open and straight with the American people, or that I've changed my positions. And you know what? The American people want that choice. Because I believe that's what we need in our next President.

"We've had enough of a misguided war in Iraq that never should have been fought – a war that needs to end."

Barack Obama said that in a Des Moines speech back in October, but he's been repeating it – with added emphasis – as his campaign has taken off. It's that last line that always gets the loudest, most prolonged applause: the audience goes wild, people stand and cheer – as well they should. We are told that the ideological differences between Obama and the Clintons aren't all that great, that in fact they barely exist, which I think is a highly dubious proposition, but, in any case, on this issue – the vital question of war and peace – the gulf between them could not be wider, or deeper.

She, after all, voted for the war, and she's been saber-rattling over Iran – much to AIPAC's delight. Obama, on the other hand, has taken a clear and consistent antiwar position on the Iraq war, as angular as one could hope for in a mainstream politician, while her insincere pandering to the antiwar instincts of the Democratic base has been absolutely shameless.

This of course scares the hell out of the Israel is always right crowd - the neocons and they are mining for dirt.
Jewish functionaries stirring the Clinton-Obama race

Tensions in the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination are mirrored in the American Jewish community. As the gap between the front-runners narrowed in the primaries, the clash between the two Jewish camps has become more heated.

Official Israel is making an effort to maintain a respectable neutrality. Has-beens are being called into the ring, like a former ambassador to Washington, Dan Ayalon, who jabbed Obama in a sensitive spot - the volume of his support for Israel. Ayalon is not alone. Jewish advisers and non-Jewish supporters are almost obsessively occupied with searching for skeletons in the black candidate's past.

The Republican Party's neoconservative clique is trawling archives for "anti-Israeli" essays by advisers who had been seen in Obama's staff. Robert Malley, who was President Bill Clinton's special assistant during the Camp David talks, joined Obama. The neoconservatives reached Malley's father, a Jew of Egyptian descent, who, alas, kept childhood ties with Yasser Arafat. Malley junior is accused of publishing a joint article with an Oslo-supporting Palestinian, in which they dared to argue that Ehud Barak played a major role in the Camp David summit's failure in July 2000.

Obama is working hard to allay the fears of "Israel's friends," a description reserved mainly for activists of the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC and for Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents. As far as they're concerned, whoever doesn't support the Israeli government's policy 100 percent is unfit for leadership.

Now these same people would be more than happy with Hillary. As I discussed here Hillary Clinton can rattle sabers with the best of the neocons. Raimondo reports that the Likudniks in Israel and their neocon allies in the US are ready for an all out attack on Obama.

This election year, warns Hoenlein, is signaling a sea change away from unconditional support to Israel, which most Americans see, he avers, as "a dark and militaristic place." Gee, I wonder why? Could it be the repeated invasions of neighboring states by the IDF? Or perhaps it's the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, which is both brutal and seemingly never-ending.

Oh well, never mind that: what Señor Hoenlein is worried about is "the greater tolerance of anti-Israel statements that wouldn't have been allowed in the past." Could he perhaps be referring to Obama's statement that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinians."? By the standards of our American Likudniks, such a remark is evidence of vehemently "anti-Israel" sentiments. After all, doesn't he know that the Israelis have a monopoly on suffering? Has he no respect?

[....]

In fact, I give it until sometime next week, when we'll be hearing that Obama is an anti-Semite – or, at least, that he is close to "known" anti-Semites (specifically, the Nation of Islam and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright); that he's anti-Israel, and that he – Barack Hussein Obama – is an "appeaser" whose foreign policy views are way to the "left" of right-reason. I wonder if Marty Peretz will assign Jamie Kirchick to do the job….

[....]

The War Party's agenda is clear and simple: de-legitimize anyone who advances foreign policy ideas that go against the grain of militarism and slavish appeasement of Israel. Anyone who questions why we are in a war in the midst of Mesopotamia for no apparently good reason is going to be smeared, and brought down. The War Party – and by that I don't just mean Republicans – plays dirty, and they play for keeps.

We know they will try to slime Obama but with a war weary electorate will they be able to make it stick?

Noam Chomsky is as Jewish as Irving Kristol

It seems at times that AIPAC is in control of US foreign policy. The neocon movement was fathered by Irving Kristol and a large percentage of the neocon movement still consists of Jews. Those of us who have Jewish friends know that AIPAC and the neocons don't represent the American Jewish community. Murray Polner explains just how unrepresentative AIPAC and the neocons are in:
We Aren’t One: American Jewish Voices for Peace

Back in the 1980s the major American Jewish welfare organization adopted as its fundraising slogan "We are One." The implication was that American Jews were a united bloc. But we are not "one" and never have been. Ideologically, we are everything from anarchists to Zionists, working people to the gilded rich. Noam Chomsky is as Jewish as Irving Kristol, and Norman Finkelstein as Jewish as Alan Dershowitz. We are neither angels nor saints. And we are certainly not monolithic, despite perennial efforts to paint anyone critical of various aspects of Israeli policies as "self-hating" Jews.

The truth is that the overwhelming number of America’s estimated 6 million Jews is opposed to the Cheney-Bush-neocon regime as their voting patterns have shown time and again. In 2000 and 2004 the overwhelming majority of us voted for Gore and Kerry. In the 2006 congressional elections 80% of the Jewish vote went Democratic. And repeated surveys of Jewish college students show them to be overwhelmingly liberal to moderate. Tikkun Olam or "saving the world" remains our true heritage and legacy.

Go read the entire article but this is worth repeating:

The overwhelming majority of American Jews has supported a negotiated "land for peace" settlement between Israel and Palestinians and has no interest in pursuing this or any Administration’s fantasies of perpetual war.

Indeed, one of the shrewdest American Jewish commentators, M. J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, has rightly written: "There is nothing pro-Israel about supporting policies that promise only that Israeli mothers will continue to dread their sons’ 18th birthdays for another generation."

So AIPAC doesn't represent the American Jews so who do they represent and why do they have so much power?

It doesn't take much!

It doesn't take much to be labeled anti-Semitic these days. A majority of American Jews and a large block of Jews in Israel would qualify. No, you don't have to wear a brown shirt with a swastika; all you have to do is talk about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a Likud/Neocon lobby in Washington. Just ask Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.)
Moran Upsets Jewish Groups Again
U.S. House Democrat Said Pro-Israel Lobby Promoted War
In fact as it turns out all you have to do is tell the truth about AIPAC.

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) has again come under fire from local Jewish organizations for remarking in a magazine interview that the "extraordinarily powerful" pro-Israel lobby played a strong role promoting the war in Iraq.

In an interview with Tikkun, a California-based Jewish magazine, Moran said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is "the most powerful lobby and has pushed this war from the beginning. I don't think they represent the mainstream of American Jewish thinking at all, but because they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power."

Moran's remarks were criticized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the National Jewish Democratic Council. Ronald Halber, executive director of the first group, said Moran's remarks are anti-Semitic and draw on ugly stereotypes about Jewish wealth, power and influence.

What upset them was that Mr Moran spoke the truth; it is "the most powerful lobby and has pushed this war from the beginning. I don't think they represent the mainstream of American Jewish thinking at all, but because they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power."


It's kind of like being called an Un-American traitor when you talk about Der Leeder.