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Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure[W:56]

cpwill

cpwill

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Well. This is not entirely unanticipated.

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 the struggles of his national security team amid 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.

The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration...
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Sort of. Hagel was brought on board to be the whipping boy, to put a Republican in charge of drawing down so as to partly shield Democrats from charges of being Soft On Defense. Whether that means he isn't up to the task of crafting a counter-ISIL policy is an interesting claim, given that he has generally been out in front of the President on this.

So Hagel is being told to resign. I wonder how he's going to take that?

But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State...

In Mr. Hagel’s less than two years on the job, his detractors said he struggled to inspire confidence at the Pentagon in the manner of his predecessors, especially Robert M. Gates. But several of Mr. Obama’s top advisers over the past few months have also acknowledged privately that the president did not want another high-profile defense secretary in the manner of Mr. Gates, who went on to write a memoir of his years with Mr. Obama in which he sharply criticized the president. Mr. Hagel, they said, in many ways was exactly the kind of defense secretary whom the president, after battling the military during his first term, wanted....

He raised the ire of the White House in August as the administration was ramping up its strategy to fight the Islamic State, directly contradicting the president, who months before had likened the Sunni militant group to a junior varsity basketball squad. Mr. Hagel, facing reporters in his now-familiar role next to General Dempsey, called the Islamic State an “imminent threat to every interest we have,” adding, “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” White House officials later said they viewed those comments as unhelpful, although the administration still appears to be struggling to define just how large is the threat posed by the Islamic State.
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So.... in other words, they don't like Hagel because he pointed out how they didn't take ISIL seriously... so they are firing him in order to prove that they are going to take ISIL seriously......



Thus far every single SECDEF to have served under Obama has gone on to write a memoir smashing the administration for being generally unwilling and incapable to the task of effectively pursuing foreign policy in a complex and rapidly moving world. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for Hagel's book. Especially if this is done so that they can put the blame for failing to respond in time to the growth of ISIL, we might get a response that is quite interesting.
 
cpwill said:
Well. This is not entirely unanticipated.



Sort of. Hagel was brought on board to be the whipping boy, to put a Republican in charge of drawing down so as to partly shield Democrats from charges of being Soft On Defense. Whether that means he isn't up to the task of crafting a counter-ISIL policy is an interesting claim, given that he has generally been out in front of the President on this.

So Hagel is being told to resign. I wonder how he's going to take that?



So.... in other words, they don't like Hagel because he pointed out how they didn't take ISIL seriously... so they are firing him in order to prove that they are going to take ISIL seriously......



Thus far every single SECDEF to have served under Obama has gone on to write a memoir smashing the administration for being generally unwilling and incapable to the task of effectively pursuing foreign policy in a complex and rapidly moving world. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for Hagel's book. Especially if this is done so that they can put the blame for failing to respond in time to the growth of ISIL, we might get a response that is quite interesting.
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Hagel just found out the hard way that, while he thought of himself as someone that could work across party lines, today's progressive liberal only saw him as a useful idiot....Now he is no longer useful.
 
j-mac said:
Hagel just found out the hard way that, while he thought of himself as someone that could work across party lines, today's progressive liberal only saw him as a useful idiot....Now he is no longer useful.
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purty much.
 
cpwill said:
Well. This is not entirely unanticipated.



Sort of. Hagel was brought on board to be the whipping boy, to put a Republican in charge of drawing down so as to partly shield Democrats from charges of being Soft On Defense. Whether that means he isn't up to the task of crafting a counter-ISIL policy is an interesting claim, given that he has generally been out in front of the President on this.

So Hagel is being told to resign. I wonder how he's going to take that?



So.... in other words, they don't like Hagel because he pointed out how they didn't take ISIL seriously... so they are firing him in order to prove that they are going to take ISIL seriously......



Thus far every single SECDEF to have served under Obama has gone on to write a memoir smashing the administration for being generally unwilling and incapable to the task of effectively pursuing foreign policy in a complex and rapidly moving world. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for Hagel's book. Especially if this is done so that they can put the blame for failing to respond in time to the growth of ISIL, we might get a response that is quite interesting.
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[emphasis added by bubba]
can't find any reason to disagree with your assessment
i too, can't wait to read his book about this matter
this appears to be the crux of the matter:
He quarreled with the White House’s National Security Council, especially over the best approach to deal with the three-year old Syrian civil war, which incubated ISIS. Hagel recently sent a memo to National Security Adviser Susan Rice arguing for more clarity on how to deal with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. “Hagel was chosen for pliability,” former Army officer and scholar Ralph Peters says. “Yet, in the end he emerged as a man of conscience telling the President things he did not want to hear.”
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he said things the president, susan rice and to a lesser degree, john kerry, didn't want to hear; especially about our position of opposition to assad in syria
again some unexpected [read unwanted] candor:
Hagel conceded last week that the U.S. and its military is facing challenges well beyond ISIS, stretching from Iran to Russia. “If we’ve had such good policies over the years, then we probably wouldn’t be in this situation,” he told PBS’s Charlie Rose on Wednesday.
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[emphasis added by bubba]

Chuck Hagel: Why the Secretary of Defense Is Resigning
 
Listening to Obama right now lie about why Hagel is out is pathetic....He's making it sound like this was Hagel's idea....
 
j-mac said:
Listening to Obama right now lie about why Hagel is out is pathetic....He's making it sound like this was Hagel's idea....
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the alternative is to acknowledge the president fired hagel
something hagel would not want
it allows them both to save 'face'
that's not a bad thing
 
justabubba said:
the alternative is to acknowledge the president fired hagel
something hagel would not want
it allows them both to save 'face'
that's not a bad thing
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So? Just one more chance to lie to the people....I guess that's ok now.
 
j-mac said:
So? Just one more chance to lie to the people....I guess that's ok now.
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does it really matter why he left, voluntarily, of his own free will, or at the president's request? either way, he is gone
hagel was a former enlisted man, viet vet, who rose to become secdef after a career in the US senate
why tarnish that good reputation by publicly proclaiming that he was fired from his job? it serves no good purpose

but keep on looking for any excuse to find fault with Obama. it is a disease
 
justabubba said:
[emphasis added by bubba]
can't find any reason to disagree with your assessment
i too, can't wait to read his book about this matter
this appears to be the crux of the matter:

he said things the president, susan rice and to a lesser degree, john kerry, didn't want to hear; especially about our position of opposition to assad in syria
again some unexpected [read unwanted] candor:
[emphasis added by bubba]

Chuck Hagel: Why the Secretary of Defense Is Resigning
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Worth highlighting from the OP article in this context:
several of Mr. Obama’s top advisers over the past few months have also acknowledged privately that the president did not want another high-profile defense secretary in the manner of Mr. Gates​

In other words, with major portions of the world collapsing, the President didn't want anyone who might challenge his status as the Smartest Man In Any Room He Walks Into. :doh
 
justabubba said:
does it really matter why he left, voluntarily, of his own free will, or at the president's request? either way, he is gone
hagel was a former enlisted man, viet vet, who rose to become secdef after a career in the US senate
why tarnish that good reputation by publicly proclaiming that he was fired from his job? it serves no good purpose

but keep on looking for any excuse to find fault with Obama. it is a disease
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Not at all, I am just saying that it is already known that he was fired, even before this dog and pony show for the camera's...Why come out there and make it seem like Hagel was leaving of his own accord? It was a political move to fire him, and now those with two shreds of common sense saw yet another opportunity to lie for Obama, and he does it seamlessly....He is pathological.
 
If I was in Obama's position, I would want as many people around me that had different points of view, with the stakes being so high.

I guess he doesn't.
 
cpwill said:
Well. This is not entirely unanticipated.



Sort of. Hagel was brought on board to be the whipping boy, to put a Republican in charge of drawing down so as to partly shield Democrats from charges of being Soft On Defense. Whether that means he isn't up to the task of crafting a counter-ISIL policy is an interesting claim, given that he has generally been out in front of the President on this.

So Hagel is being told to resign. I wonder how he's going to take that?



So.... in other words, they don't like Hagel because he pointed out how they didn't take ISIL seriously... so they are firing him in order to prove that they are going to take ISIL seriously......



Thus far every single SECDEF to have served under Obama has gone on to write a memoir smashing the administration for being generally unwilling and incapable to the task of effectively pursuing foreign policy in a complex and rapidly moving world. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for Hagel's book. Especially if this is done so that they can put the blame for failing to respond in time to the growth of ISIL, we might get a response that is quite interesting.
Click to expand...

Hagel is a RINO. He never should have taken that job in the first place.
 
I'm surprised he lasted this long.
 
Personally, I was fan of Hagel. If anything because he axed Panetta's retarded "Drone Medal" that was supposed to be a senior award to a Bronze Star. That started it off right for me. Then, his handling of the attempted integration of females to combat arms MOS' s. He has definitely taken a more measured, methodical approach to it compared to Panetta with the repeal of DADT. Both were/are social engineering crap that has no place in the military. It should have been/be strictly about performance. Can a gay man fight capably? Yes. Let him serve regardless of orientation. No surveys, questionnaires, etc are needed. Especially since Panetta didn't even wait on the friggin results to come back before the repeal. Can a woman fight capably? No, she cant. No surveys, questionnaires, etc needed. Just make the correct choice in a performance vacuum. Im betting whomever takes over for Hagel makes that his first order of business. We'll have females in the infantry before we know it.
 
Perhaps Obama will now find a SOD that agrees with his military micromanagement. He certainly hasn't been able to convince the military that he knows what he is doing. Politics and war are like oil and water, driving and alcohol.
 
fmw said:
Perhaps Obama will now find a SOD that agrees with his military micromanagement. He certainly hasn't been able to convince the military that he knows what he is doing. Politics and war are like oil and water, driving and alcohol.
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Who would you pick as defense secraterry?
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
Who would you pick as defense secraterry?
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Not my job. I don't care who he picks. I care about the micromanagement of the military. We should have learned our lesson from Vietnam where we engaged in white house micromanagement and mission creep. The problem hasn't been the secretaries of defense. I think all three of them have been fine. The problem has been Obama who can't get past his political agenda to handle the country's business. He doesn't appear to need or want a SOD. Perhaps he just needs to have the joint chiefs visit once per week to get their marching orders.

The right way for the president to handle the DOD would be.

1. State a mission and a desired outcome.
2. Ask what DOD needs to get it done.
3. Work with congress to get it funded.
4. Tell DOD to keep him informed on progress.

Pretty simple, really. The only politics involved should be with Congress, not DOD. The only management of the mission should be at DOD, not the white house.
 
fmw said:
Not my job. I don't care who he picks. I care about the micromanagement of the military. We should have learned our lesson from Vietnam where we engaged in white house micromanagement and mission creep. The problem hasn't been the secretaries of defense. I think all three of them have been fine. The problem has been Obama who can't get past his political agenda to handle the country's business. He doesn't appear to need or want a SOD. Perhaps he just needs to have the joint chiefs visit once per week to get their marching orders.

The right way for the president to handle the DOD would be.

1. State a mission and a desired outcome.
2. Ask what DOD needs to get it done.
3. Work with congress to get it funded.
4. Tell DOD to keep him informed on progress.

Pretty simple, really. The only politics involved should be with Congress, not DOD. The only management of the mission should be at DOD, not the white house.
Click to expand...

Generals that have too much power are just as bad. Case in point: Douglas MacArthur.
 
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