Proving that the once-conservative DOD is now firmly controlled and run by pacifists wishing to disarm the US in concert with their fellow pacifists at the State Department, the Obama DOD has released a pamphlet of blatant lies intended to make Obama SECDEF nominee Chuck Hagel look good. The pamphlet attacks what it calls 7 “myths” about Chuck Hagel and invokes what it falsely claims are “facts”, but which are actually blatant lies.
On America’s nuclear deterrent – which Hagel would like to do away with (and could, if confirmed as Secretary of Defense), the DOD falsely claims that Hagel is committed to retaining a nuclear deterrent “as long as nuclear weapons exist”, but at the same time shares Barack Obama’s “goal of a world without nuclear weapons”.
Leaving aside the fact that such a world will never exist, that the world is currently going in the exactly opposite direction (with more countries joining the nuclear club), and that nuclear disarmament is undesirable (the risk of war between great powers will be much higher without nuclear weapons being there to restrain them), the fact is that Hagel is NOT committed to maintaining a nuclear deterrent: He’s virulently opposed to it.
Chuck Hagel is a board member of two extremely leftist, pacifist organizations seeking deep unilateral cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal: Global Zero and the Ploughshares Fund. Both seek to disarm the US unilaterally while claiming to seek universal nuclear disarmament. Both also grossly overstate the cost of America’s nuclear deterrent. Ploughshares also pays millions to media outlets each year to slant their stories in favor of unilateral arms cuts and against America’s nuclear deterrent (the NPR has been particularly biased in that, and receives $5 mn per year from Ploughshares) and virulently opposes any military action against Iran.
Global Zero has, for its part, released a “report” co-authored by Hagel which calls for deep UNILATERAL cuts in America’s nuclear deterrent, including the elimination of all US ICBMs, deep cuts in the bomber and ballistic missile submarine fleets, scrapping all US cruise missiles, and scrapping America’s tactical nuclear weapons.
This would be the deepest cut ever in America’s deterrent, bringing it down to only 450 “active” and 450 inactive warheads, and Global Zero wants the US to be unable to use even the “active” warheads until 72 hours after an enemy strike on the US.
This – as experts such as Dr Keith Payne and Rebeccah Heinrichs have pointed out – would dramatically reduce the number of targets America’s enemies would need to destroy in a first strike, from 455 to just 5: 3 above-ground bomber and 2 submarine bases, plus the few SSBNs that Global Zero’s plan would allow America to retain.
This would be a recipe for and a guarantee of a Russian or even Chinese nuclear first strike, as they’d have only 5 targets to retain. Moreover, an arsenal of only 450 warheads would be woefully insufficient to hold the majority, or even any significant share, of Russian or Chinese military assets at risk, meaning such a tiny “deterrent” would be ineffective and wouldn’t be a deterrent at all.
And Hagel signed the plan calling for such an ineffective pseudo-deterrent. (It was sensibly and promptly rejected by USAF and Strategic Command leaders.)
To be effective, a nuclear deterrent must be large – to be survivable as well as to hold the vast majority of enemy assets at risk, thus guaranteeing that he’d pay an unacceptably high price for any aggression. But Hagel doesn’t understand that.
So contrary to the DOD’s lies, Hagel does NOT support the nuclear deterrent – he supports gutting it. (Of course, the DOD is silent on Hagel’s support for that plan.)
On the defense budget, the DOD again tries to have it both ways: claiming that Hagel doesn’t want to cut the defense budget too deeply but also that the DOD „must do its part” in cutting the budget deficit.
But the DOD has already done more than its part in addressing that problem: it has already contributed over 900 bn to deficit reduction, while no other federal agency has contributed ANYTHING towards that goal. And that’s without counting sequestration.
Besides, Hagel doesn’t just want the DOD to „do its part”: he wants to deeply cut its budget for ideological reasons. He has also falsely claimed that it’s „bloated”, when it’s not: it amounts to only 4.2% of America’s GDP, less than 18% of the total federal budget, and is quite modest considering the gravity and wide array of military threats America is confronting: from a rapidly building-up and modernizing China whose military already has a lot of modern, lethal weapons, to a Russia that retains a huge nuclear and conventional arsenal and is run by an anti-American KGB thug, to a nuclear- and ICBM-armed North Korea, to an Iran racing towards nuclear weapons, to various terrorist organizations.
To cut the defense budget under such circumstances would be pure folly.
On Israel, the DOD conveniently cherry-picked the facts, while completely omitting Hagel’s virulently anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic statements, such as „the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here”, „let the Jews pay for it” (the USO facility in Haifa), etc., as well as his calls for US to directly negotiate with Hamas and Hezbollah, thus belying the DOD’s claim that Hagel has been tough on these terrorist organizations.
In fact, Hagel was one of only 12 US Senators to refuse signing a letter calling on the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
On Iran, the DOD conveniently omitted Hagel’s vote AGAINST designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group while calling for direct talks with Iran and ardently opposing any military option WRT Tehran, claiming that it’s „not a viable or responsible option.”
Last but not least, Hagel completely lacks the experience and qualifications necessary to be SECDEF. Again, the DOD has lied to make him look good. Hagel has never run any large business, university, government agency (being deputy administrator of VA doesn’t cut it), or any military unit. His ability to act as the DOD’s CEO is completely untested.
So the DOD’s „facts” in defense of Chuck Hagel are all blatant lies. Contrary to Hagel’s defenders’ claims, no one is „smearing” Hagel – we, his critics, are merely using his own words and actions to show people who he really is. Hagel is his own worst enemy. He has no one but himself to blame for the criticism he’s receiving. No one ordered him to support a treasonous unilateral disarmament plan, call for appeasing terrorist groups and regimes, insult Israel and the Jews, or call for deep defense budget cuts at the most dangerous time since WW2. It’s all his fault.
It is the moral and Constitutional duty of the Senate to reject Hagel. Any Senator who fails to carry out that duty must be voted out of office. No exceptions.
Folks, please call both of your Senators and tell them that you will never vote for them again if they vote to confirm Chuck Hagel. Also, please call Republican Senators and tell them to filibuster Hagel’s nomination.
