Free Republic

Republican (in name only) Senator Chuck Hagel, darling and hero of the leftist media, appeared on 'This Week' yesterday. It was there that he used the "I" word....impeachment. Hagel's all upset about the war and says some see impeachment of the president as an option to stop said war. Of course, Hagel is running for president...and whenever he criticizes George Bush the media considers him the most important, solid, hard-core Republican ever. This is all despite the fact that 99% of Americans outside of Nebraska have never heard of Chuck Hagel and couldn't pick him out of a lineup. The...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has just a 26 percent approval rating among individuals currently serving within the national security community, according to findings from a new survey commissioned by Defense One. The findings come as scrutiny on the Obama administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and Syria grows. At the same time, a variety of media reports hint that President Barack Obama, himself trailing in the polls after a poor showing for the Democrats in Tuesday’s election, is considering a shake-up of his national security staff. That could include Hagel. The “Defense One National Security Survey” released Friday found...

The Pentagon will offer medical examinations and long-term health monitoring to servicemembers and veterans exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq as part of a review of how the military handled encounters with chemical munitions during the American occupation, The New York Times reported Wednesday. An Oct. 15 Times story found that while the United States had gone to war looking for an active weapons of mass destruction program, troops instead quietly found and suffered from the remnants of the long abandoned arsenal. Since that article, which detailed instances of exposure that the military kept secret in some cases for...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a new Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap at the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Peru today, saying the Pentagon has “nearly completed a baseline survey to assess the vulnerability” due to global warming of more than 7,000 bases, installations, and other facilities.The 20-page document details three “broad adaptation goals”: “Identify and assess the effects of climate change on the Deparment,” “integrate climate change considerations across the Department and manage associated risks,” and “collaborate with internal and external stakeholders on climate change challenges.”“Initial analysis indicates that four primary climate change phenomena are likely...

You may have thought you’d heard the last of Chelsea Manning, given that he’s currently doing the long haul in the Big House, but apparently you’d be wrong. (For the record, we are now referring to the prisoner as “Chelsea” because the guy has done the paperwork and had his name legally changed. This does not, however, mean that I’m obliged to change pronouns.) There is no change in his status as a semi-permanent resident of Fort Leavenworth, but he still wants hormone treatments for gender dysphoria and his legal team is willing to sue Chuck Hagel to get...

"Congress must now vote to support the first steps of what will be a long march toward victory," said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Following this clarion call, 71 House Republicans bolted to join 85 Democrats in voting no to U.S. funds to train and arm Syrian rebels. Why the hesitation? Because our strategy in Syria is to rely on a Free Syrian Army that has been the least effective force in that civil war, and untrustworthy to boot. Units of the FSA have handed their U.S. weapons over to ISIS. Yet these "feckless" rebels, says Sen. Bob Corker, constitute "our...

The clearest expression of a foreign policy doctrine President Obama has articulated came in 2012 when he announced that the "tide of war in Afghanistan" had "turned" and that this was lucky because it was "now time to focus on nation building here at home." Al-Qaida, defined so narrowly as to exclude everyone save Osama bin Laden and his closest friends, was declared "defeated," and a satisfied commander in chief confidently turned to domestic matters. Obama's assumption that a vigorous foreign policy and a successful domestic agenda are in conflict is wrong. The U.S. experienced high rates of economic growth...

Considering the social conflict between cops and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, the terrorist group commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is using the strategic moment in American history to recruit African-Americans to join the Islamic State's jihadist movement. Those fighting alongside ISIS, a globally growing terrorist group in which U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said was "as sophisticated and well-funded as any terrorist we have ever seen", have made no secret that they have vowed to bring turmoil to America. ISIS members promised to "divide America in two", while their spokesman Abu Mosa promised...

The US military has yet to offer Pte First Class Chelsea Manning sex change treatment despite medical recommendations, her lawyer has said. Defence secretary Chuck Hagel approved treatment for a condition known as gender dysphoria in July. But lawyer David Coombs says her requests for hormone therapy and other accommodations have been "ignored". The soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking secret files to Wikileaks. "This time last year I publicly asked that I be provided with a treatment plan, to bring my body more in line with my gender identity," Pte Manning said...

Fresh off a trip to India and Australia, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel addressed a group of Marines in San Diego, California Tuesday, and may have delivered a line that will show up in Republican campaign ads this election cycle. After updating the troops on some issues in the Pacific region and the Middle East, Hagel took questions from some of the Marines and gave a stark assessment of the global security situation: "The world is exploding all over." The remark came in response to a question about the Obama administration's realignment of the military towards the Asia-Pacific theater:

Ron Paul, House representative of the 14th district of Texas, believes that US foreign policy must be reformed to avoid conflicts around the world. The interview was conducted outside the Foreign Relations Committee. Press TV: What is your opinion on the idea of the US blocking Iran's oil exports and preventing its gasoline imports from reaching the country (based on H. Con. Res. 362 previously sought by US congressmen)? Paul: I think it is an outrage I think it is a blockade. It is the use of force to stop the inflow of petroleum products and people and goods,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered an aircraft carrier — the USS George H.W. Bush — to move from the northern Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf as President Barack Obama considers possible military options for Iraq.</p>

Bowe Bergdahl: a Prisoner of WAR, a deserter taken hostage by the Taliban or an enemy combatant? If it isn't the first of the three rather the second, why then are all cable news outlets describing this as a prisoner swap? Why aren't they calling this an enemy combatant ( Taliban 5)/deserter or a EC/deserter swap? If Bowe Bergdahl deserted, then would he have then as well forsake the military, and thus his uniform? Would Bowe Bergdahl then be an enemy combatant?

The last question asked at Monday night's closed-door briefing of members of the House of Representatives was a simple one: Who made the decision to transfer five top Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for the return of the Taliban's lone American POW, Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl? According to Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services committee, the Obama administration's briefers told he gathered House members that the person responsible for the decision to make the deal was not President Obama but Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense. "Now wait a minute, are you...

Susan Rice, United States National Security Advisor under the Obama administration, said that Bowe Bergdahl 'served the United States with honor and distinction.' Sounds like praise to me. But Chuck Hagel, who said very recently that Americans should not pre-judge Bowe Bergdahl, seems to take one line with - I guess "regular" Americans - and another with Susan Rice. Hmmm... Should Hagel and Rice both say that Bowe Bergdahl should be neither judged nor praised until all the facts are in? Funny how some WH aides can accuse Bergdahl's fellow soldiers of 'swift boating,' but won't tell people to not...

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel met with members of the special operations team who participated in the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in Afghanistan, Sunday. He also spoke before a large group of US troops in a Bagram Air Field hangar, and when he announced the "happy" news about Bergdahl, he was met with complete silence. "This is a happy day. We got one of our own back," Hagel said cheerfully. *Crickets*

I mean, we shouldn't have a "rush to judgment" and pre-praise him...right? Hailey, Idaho Mayor, Fritz Haemmerle released a written statement Monday urging people not to judge Bowe Bergdahl until all the facts are in, given that there are opposing sides to this issue. Does that also mean that since there are opposing sides that Bergdahl shouldn't be pre-praised either until all the facts are in? But how can all of the facts come in if Obama is going to hamper an investigation from occuring?

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan—There is excitement and enthusiasm among the senior leadership of the military now that Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, the only U.S. soldier held as a prisoner of war, is on his way home. But among rank-and-file troops at Bagram Air Field on Sunday, there was much more ambivalence. SNIP Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived for a two-hour stop at Bagram and met briefly with some of the elite special-operations forces who brought back Sgt. Bergdahl from a group of Taliban officials. Speaking before a group of more than 200 troops, Mr. Hagel thanked those "who had something to...

Does the WH believe that all terrorists are equal, it's just some terrorists are more equal or rather worse than others? If the Obama administration is willing to use third parties (such as Qatar) to procure the release of individuals such as Bergdahl, and in the process, undesirables such as the 5 GITMO detainees are released, then the issue isn't the use of third parties, the issue(s) rather are which terrorists will the WH consider for release/swapping? If the WH says that they won't ever swap Al Qaeda for U.S. soldiers because AQ are terrorists (and they are terrorists --...

Yesterday, Jani Bergdahl and Bob Bergdahl, the parents of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, were invited to the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington DC. Bob Bergdahl spoke about the release of his son Bowe. Then he praised Allah and Obama hugged him.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sgt. Bergdahl, 28, had been held prisoner by the Taliban since June 30, 2009. The Daily Caller reported: At the end of brief event, the soldier’s father, Bob Bergdahl, recited the most frequent phrase in the Koran — “Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim” —which means “In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate.” After Bergdahl finished his...