It's mystifying why so many people are defending Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. Of course, the defense campaign is understandable from right-wing libertarians like Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com. Hagel has perfectly respectable Republican & reactionary credentials for the position--which is precisely why he was selected. That means he won't be the least bit squeamish about expanding wars & occupations, Drone bombing innocent civilians, or the use of special forces, mercenaries, assassination teams, or for that matter collusion in drug trafficking as in Guatemala.
If you stand against US military policy which only grows more aggressive & brutal by the year, you don't give a rat's ass who they select for the job. The only possible demand is to dismantle the entire US war machine, shut down the Pentagon, & prosecute the whole lot of them for war crimes. If you get caught up in this farce of supporting Hagel just because he is opposed by AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, you put yourself in a regrettable position & have reduced politics to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." (Caricature by DonkeyHotey at Flickr)
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There was an article on this very subject on Mondoweiss last week. The reason why the "left" has embraced Hagel is due to the massive orchestrated attack the Israel lobby is directing at him. He's been labeled as an anti-Semite for daring to be critical of Israel. That's about it.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading the articles on Mondoweiss--most of which are quite equivocal on Hagel. In one article they favorably cite a Jewish Voice for Peace petiton to Obama endorsing Hagel's nomination. This is the political travesty of left Zionism. Is Israel the only country that matters!? What about Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Guatemala, Yemen, Pakistan, and on and on? It's deplorable that those who consider themselves progressive would get involved with lobbying for the US war minister.
ReplyDeleteIt should also be noted that J Street and Glenn Greenwald are campaigning for Hagel.
ReplyDeleteActually, based on this article by an editor at Mondoweiss, they are not equivocal at all on Hagel but actively campaigning for him: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/28-7
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