1. Loved the flea joke.Originally Posted by Odysseus
2. Could you point out some anti-semitic statements? Not picking a fight just looking for some insight. A little back and forth.
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12-21-2012, 01:25 PM
1. Loved the flea joke.
2. Could you point out some anti-semitic statements? Not picking a fight just looking for some insight. A little back and forth.
12-21-2012, 01:46 PM
I'd call Hagel a 'RINO', but that would elevate him from gutter-snipe.
12-21-2012, 02:35 PM
The first one is from the list above: "The political reality is that … the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.” Belief in the existence of a nefarious Jewish lobby that secretly controls U.S. foreign policy is pretty basic antisemitism.
Another is his comment, "I'm a United States Senator, not an Israeli Senator. I'm a United States Senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that." Implying that persons who care about Israel are conflicted by dual loyalty is another common antisemitic meme. A former member here, Gator, used to to it repeatedly. Then, there are his actions. For example the American Jewish Committe, which is usually pretty liberal, came out against him because of his stance on anti-Semitism in Russia:
The first AJC encounter with Sen. Hagel I recall was when we sought his support, in 1999, for a Senate letter to then Russian President Boris Yeltsin urging action against rising anti-Semitism. We were unsuccessful. On June 20, 1999, we published the letter as a full-page ad in The New York Times with 99 Senate signatories. Only Sen. Hagel’s name was absent.
Our concern then has only grown since, as we have witnessed his stance on a range of core U.S. national security priorities.
Not signing an open letter against anti-Semitism is pretty obvious, especially when he was the only holdout in the senate. Even Bernie Sanders signed it. It's pretty much a no-brainer.
Last edited by Odysseus; 12-21-2012 at 02:46 PM.
01-08-2013, 12:57 PM
He's not. He's a REALIST in International Relations. What Ody's upset about is that he won't kiss William Kristol's ass and that PNAC is losing their hold on American foreign policy for the past 15 years. That's a good thing.
Unbelievable...This is the ONLY smart thing Obama has done for the past 4 years. We might get a good Republican in this office and people want to be critical.
in other words: He won't get us in another stupid war with some podunk third world country
01-08-2013, 01:29 PM
Sounds fair to me. It's about time American elected officials started putting America first over ANY foreign nation.
Sometimes putting US interests first may clash with the policies of the Israeli government.
Last edited by Molon Labe; 01-08-2013 at 02:08 PM.
01-08-2013, 02:25 PM
Okay.
If Teddy had such a well-trained dog, he probably should have let the dog drive.
01-08-2013, 02:30 PM
Channeling your inner Gator, there? I'm upset about an anti-semite with a long history of foolish and wrongheaded ideas in foreign policy becoming the SECDEF, but since that's not as effective as playing the NeoCon card, you went ad hominem right off the bat. Go figure. And his comment about not being an Israeli senator is meant to imply that anyone who considers backstabbing Israel a policy mistake may not be loyal to the US (another Gatorism, and a standard anti-semitic trope). Even the Washington Post, which is hardly a NeoCon outlet, considered him unacceptable just a month ago:
Chuck Hagel is not the right choice for defense secretary
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...391_story.html
By Editorial Board, Published: December 18
FORMER SENATOR Chuck Hagel, whom President Obama is reportedly considering for defense secretary, is a Republican who would offer a veneer of bipartisanship to the national security team. He would not, however, move it toward the center, which is the usual role of such opposite-party nominees. On the contrary: Mr. Hagel’s stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term — and place him near the fringe of the Senate that would be asked to confirm him.The current secretary, Leon Panetta, has said the defense “sequester” cuts that Congress mandated to take effect Jan. 1 would have dire consequences for U.S. security. Mr. Hagel took a very different position when asked about Mr. Panetta’s comment during a September 2011 interview with the Financial Times. “The Defense Department, I think in many ways, has been bloated,” he responded. “So I think the Pentagon needs to be pared down.”
While both Republicans and Democrats accept that further cuts in defense may be inevitable, few have suggested that a reduction on the scale of the sequester is responsible. In congressional testimony delivered around the same time as Mr. Hagel’s interview, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the sequester would lead to “a severe and irreversible impact on the Navy’s future,” “a Marine Corps that’s below the end strength to support even one major contingency” and “an unacceptable level of strategic and operational risk” for the Army.
Mr. Hagel was similarly isolated in his views about Iran during his time in the Senate. He repeatedly voted against sanctions, opposing even those aimed at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which at the time was orchestrating devastating bomb attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. Mr. Hagel argued that direct negotiations, rather than sanctions, were the best means to alter Iran’s behavior. The Obama administration offered diplomacy but has turned to tough sanctions as the only way to compel Iran to negotiate seriously.
Mr. Obama has said that his policy is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and that containment is not an option. Mr. Hagel has taken a different view, writing in a 2008 book that “the genie of nuclear weapons is already out of the bottle, no matter what Iran does.” The former senator from Nebraska signed on to an op-edin The Post this September that endorsed “keeping all options on the table” for stopping Iran’s nuclear program. But Mr. Hagel has elsewhere expressed strong skepticism about the use of force.
We share that skepticism — but we also understand that, during the next year or two, Mr. Obama may be forced to contemplate military action if Iran refuses to negotiate or halt its uranium-enrichment program. He will need a defense secretary ready to support and effectively implement such a decision. Perhaps Mr. Hagel would do so; perhaps he would also, if installed at the Pentagon, take a different view of defense spending. (Mr. Hagel declined through a spokesman to speak to us about his views.)
What’s certain is that Mr. Obama has available other possible nominees who are considerably closer to the mainstream and to the president’s first-term policies. Former undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy, for example, is a seasoned policymaker who understands how to manage the Pentagon bureaucracy and where responsible cuts can be made. She would bring welcome diversity as the nation’s first female defense secretary.
Mr. Hagel is an honorable man who served the country with distinction as a soldier in Vietnam and who was respected by his fellow senators. But Mr. Obama could make a better choice for defense secretary.
No, but then the SECDEF doesn't decide who we go to war with, he simply executes policy. This, as the WAPO OP-ED pointed out, means that Obama's SECDEF would be undermining his policies in the event that he decided that we did need to use the military, through draconian cuts and misaligning our focus away from the the threat that we now face. Whether we go to war or not is a legitimate question, but even you can't want a half-hearted prosecution of a war once the decision has been made to engage. That's a recipe for failure and dead Americans, in the short and longterm.Unbelievable...This is the ONLY smart thing Obama has done for the past 4 years. We might get a good Republican in this office and people want to be critical.
in other words: He won't get us in another stupid war with some podunk third world country
It clinches it for most of us. Molon has a blind spot in foreign policy, where he believes that we can disengage from the world without consequences. It's isolationist idiocy, in the Ron Paul mold.
01-08-2013, 02:36 PM
Bibi Netanyahu put Israeli interests first when he told us to get out of the way, Israel can handle themselves. I see no problem with Hagel's comments.
01-08-2013, 02:42 PM
For the umteenth time, not trying to legislate other countries =/= isolationism. See: Switzerland.
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