By Rick Manning — President Obama’s second term national security team is in trouble on Capitol Hill, but the trouble is not just a few Republican Senators, but instead revolves around nasty ties to Islamic terrorist groups, waterboarding and drone killings and a stunning revelation by the former Defense Secretary.
Hagel’s troubling relationships
It should have been a slam dunk. The Democratic President nominates a former Republican Senator, who served in the Armed Forces to be his next Secretary of Defense. But instead of getting the treatment that Bill Cohen received when President Clinton nominated him, nominee Chuck Hagel is getting the John Tower treatment.
Between a somnolent appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee where it appeared that the former Senator was unaware that a Secretary of Defense should have a passing knowledge of basic weapons systems among other challenges, and revelations that Hagel has been sitting on the board of the George Soros funded Ploughshares Foundation that is reported to fund the pro-Iranian mullah group, National Iranian American Council, which has been accused of being the Iranian regime’s lobbyist in the U.S..
To make matters worse for Hagel, Breitbart News is reporting that one of the reasons the former Senator is refusing to hand over documents requested by the Senate is because they would identify one of his personal funders to be the Islamic terrorist tied group Friends of Hamas.
These concerns forced Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin to postpone a vote on moving the nomination out of committee.
Of course, it is not like the question of a potential Defense, Secretary’s alleged ties to both the Iranian government that announced it is now a nuclear power as well as a potential relationship with a group that supports the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas should cause anyone any concerns. After all, this is the same Administration that is insisting on going forward with selling Abrams tanks and fighter jets to the new Islamist Egyptian regime who will likely use them against either its own citizenry Tiananmen Square style or against Israel in a concerted attack with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Nothing to see here, move right along.
John Brennan: Waterboards and Drones
Obama’s pick for CIA Director has the left in a tizzy because of his support for the enemy combatant interrogation technique known as waterboarding while at the CIA. Ironically, while there seems to be an uproar on the left about waterboarding, Brennan’s oversight of the drone assassination program seems to be getting a pass from Senate Intelligence Committee members. Only in D.C. can it be bad to simulate drowning someone, but okay to send a missile through their windshield.
Leon Panetta’s bombshell
Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stirred the Benghazi pot in testimony where he revealed that President Obama was AWOL while the U.S. facility was under siege resulting in the death of four Americans including the Ambassador to Libya.
Panetta also testified that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was nowhere to be found during the crisis involving the facility that she failed to provide adequate protection to in spite of numerous requests.
It is not surprising that Obama and Clinton were unavailable, after all, who would have ever suspected that a U.S. facility in the Islamic World would come under attack on the anniversary of 9/11?
Either Panetta perjured himself or else both Obama and Clinton revealed themselves to be beneath the offices they hold, and definitely not people you’d want to depend upon when that infamous 3AM phone call comes.
Of course, Panetta, in his best Alexander Haig impression, was Johnny on the spot and on top of everything, denying that he declined to provide military assistance to the besieged embassy contradicting multiple reports on the ground.
Benghazi is a true Washington, D.C. story, where the truth will never come out, the cries from the graves of the victims and their surviving loved ones’ ignored for political expediency’s sake. After all, what difference does it make, so long as the Hillary 2016 machine keeps rolling.
Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is the Vice President of Public Policy & Communications for Americans for Limited Government.
