Friday, February 1, 2013

Hagel, McCain and Iraq

Republicans hammered secretary-of-defense nominee Chuck Hagel over his positions, but his confirmation is expected. *********************** Yesterday, Sens. McCain and Lindsey Graham made ol’ Joe McCarthy seem like a religious saint. McCain went for Hagel’s jugular, demanding to know if Hagel regrets his earlier opposition to the Iraq “surge”. McCain: “I think history has already made a judgement on the surge, and you’re on the wrong side of it.” There is the story of Nixon’s national security guru, Dr.Henry Kissinger making chit chat, small talk, with China’s Zhou Enlai. Using his definition of small talk, Henry asked Zhou whether he thought the French Revolution was a positive event. Zhou replied that “it was too soon to tell.” Now if I was Hagel, I would have cut McCain off by telling him it was too soon to tell if the surge was successful. That’s why I never would have been nominated for Defense Secretary. LOL. The Iraqies will have to work hard to keep its’ Western style parliamentary democracy intact. The Shiites and Sunnies are still battling; and the Kurds want their own nation. Hagel opposed the Bush 2/neo-con invasion of Iraq. It was an unnecessary war of choice, with few international supporters (except for Tony Blair). When the costs of tending to the wounded soldiers over time is included, the Iraq war will cost us trillions, paid for without raising taxes (in fact, fought after Bush 2 reduced taxes).

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