Free Republic

Obama administration officials are downplaying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s comments that by late next year U.S. troops could switch away from a combat role in Afghanistan to an advise-and-assist mission. Panetta’s remarks caught members of Congress, as well as European and Afghan allies, by surprise, and some surmised that his comments were a trial balloon for a strategy shift. En route to a meeting in Brussels with NATO defense ministers, Panetta said Wednesday that it was his hope that U.S. and NATO troops would transition to a training-and-advisory mission in Afghanistan in mid- to late-2013. “Hopefully, by mid- to the...

[caption id="attachment_7584" align="alignright" width="123" caption="Hugh DeLacy, 1940s"][/caption] From at least the mid 1970s, until 1986, President Barack ; Obama's nomination for Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, had a close personal friendship with; Hugh DeLacy, a Santa Cruz, California activist, and a life long Marxist-Leninist. Then Congressman Panetta and DeLacy exchanged letters over many years - almost all of which dealt with defense and foreign policy issues. Many involved requests by DeLacy for information, policy papers, etc, which Panetta went out of his way to supply. What Panetta hopefully did not know was, that in the year before this correspondence began,...

Senate conservatives proudly call themselves “Reagan Republicans” because of Reagan’s “Peace Through Strength” military policies. But in Leon Panetta, whose nomination comes up for a full Senate vote for Secretary of Defense on Tuesday, they are being asked to endorse a man whose Congressional career was dedicated to fighting Reagan’s defense build-up and anti-communist policies. That is why the unanimous vote in favor of Panetta in the Senate Armed Services Committee is so mystifying. Based on the facts about Panetta’s record and curious connections to a major figure in the Communist Party, which are only lately starting to get the...