Hagel out - Flournoy maybe?

 
So, Hagel is out.  He is evidently the loser in a struggle between the military leadership and the Children's Crusaders at the White House and State Department.  The military want more clearly defined goals across the Islamic culture continent and "the kids" want to run foreign affairs on the basis of the crap they write in magic marker on white boards in their seminars. 

The armed forces are being asked to assume larger and larger missions in the Middle East, Afghanistan and West Africa.  At the same time the money needed to maintain DoD operations and perform such functions as Strategic Triad modernization has largely disappeared in the welter of sequestration and general reductions in budget. 

Understandably the generals and admirals are pushing back and the constitutional way for them to do that is through the civilian head of the Department of Defense.

The back pressure was probably displayed last week in a loosening of ROE in Afghanistan.

Obama, true to his nature, will, IMO, choose someone to replace Hagel who will not challenge him and who will "play nice" with the other boys and girls without regard to the realities of life. 

That woman is likely to be Michele Flournoy.   This woman is just another member of the Washington/New York playcircle of academics who think they understand war.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mich%C3%A8le_Flournoy

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Comments

[eakens]

Flournoy attended Beverly Hills High School in Los Angeles, California, and has a bachelor of arts degree in social studies from Harvard University.

Just who I want to be leading me into a war

[Aka]

sir,
Obama obviously needs a quite life in his last year. If non around you contradicts you, that counts as a quite life, yes?

So next would be a new chairmen for the JCS?

[turcopolier]

AKA

Yes. I would expect some kind of minority, perhaps an openly gay, National Guard colonel could be promoted into the job. pl

[The beaver]

@ eakens

That's what caught my eyes also - a bit like Wendy Sherman.
Ann Marie Slaughter will be happy if that happens - the beltway Amazones will lead the way.

[Cee]

Co. Lang,

I said almost the same thing that you did regarding children when this was announced!
What a shame that Hagel hasn't been valued and listened to.

[gemini33]

This scares the living hell out of me. There's no doubt in my mind they'll provoke a world war. We'll be lucky if we survive their tenure.

[Aka]

sir,
I curious point came to my mind after reading your comment. Why exactly does people (many in the west) think that being a women, part a minority or being gender confused person makes a one a automatic nice guy (or girl) genius? Is this some sort of a weird anti-racist, anti-homophobic, pro-feminism thing?

I mean we (my country) has had female leaders and they were full of sh*t like their male counterparts.

[turcopolier]

AkA

It is all just identity politics here. That is Obama's specialty. pl

[Fred]

It looks like the women war mongers will demand an extention of their strategy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. I sure hope the women do a better job of getting the millenials to sign up for #peace in our time than Samantha Power managed:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mariahsummers/extremely-on-message-protestors-target-samantha-power-at-fus

[William R. Cumming]

Michele Flournay cannot be confirmed by the US Senate after January 20, 2015. Despite meager leadership credentials she is a serious person IMO with GRAVITAS!

John McCain has veto power IMO over the new SECDEF pick even now!

[Charles Dekle]

Col Lang,

I read the link that you provided and thought that I would add this. She is married to W. Scott Gould who also is well connected within DoD. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Scott_Gould).

I also found this article which is a brief discussion of her possible appointment in 2012 to SECDEF before the appointment of Secretary Hegel. (http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/michele-flournoy-for-secretary-of.html) She is in favor of something called "fair access to the global commons." The author of the article concludes that she is a war hawk and wishes to expand the empire by increasing the size of the military.

I am afraid that like the Red Queen she will be screaming for the heads of any national leaders that resist the NEOCON vision of the New American Century. Very scary.

Regards,

[sceptic]

Col.

Lt. Col (Ret.) Jennifer N. Pritzker may fit the bill. Family is close to Obama too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_N._Pritzker

[JohnH]

Flournoy started her career at DOD as a strategic planner. My initial reaction is that what US foreign policy sorely needs is a coherent sense as to what the hell we're doing. However talented Flournoy may be, politics will most likely stymie any coherence, particularly given the set of Strangeloves running the show in the Senate and from think tanks. And she certainly won't be able to look to her boss to back any ideas she might suggest to bring order to the mess.

On the up side, nothing succeeds in Washington like failure, so a stint SecDef might actually burnish her credentials.

[Ex 11B]

Oh lovely.
I liked Hagel and thought he was one of the last of the respectable Republicans and practitioner of "Realpolitik".

So of course he had to go

[The beaver]

Re: Flournoy

Reading her bio on Wikipedia, the Belfer Center rang a bell and then I remembered the law suit involving UANI, or at least one of its major funders and a Greek businessman Victor Restis wrt Iran.

I just saw this that details the lawsuit:
"Samore, who served as Obama’s advisor on “weapons of mass destruction,” was one of the founding members of the Israeli lobby group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), an establishment that has been lately in the news for receiving classified US government information on Iran and is being protected by the Obama Administration in a law suit. Samore left the Obama Administration in 2013 and returned to UANI to become its president. He also became the executive director of the Harvard University’s Belfer Center that is also linked to UANI, according to some investigative reports."

Well, if she does get the job at the Pentagon,I guess Dennis Ross would have a link not only directly to the WH but across the Potomac also.

[different clue]

This morning on the radio I heard it said that Hagel was forced to resign because he was "taking a harder line on Assad" then what the Obama Group wanted.

Has anyone else heard the same thing? Could that possibly be the slightest bit true?

[Imagine]

[for some needed humor on the subject, watch the old SNL video at top before reading its article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/snl-lands-in-hot-water-with-anti-defamation-league-over-hagel-sketch.html] puts things in perspective.

[turcopolier]

imagine

I have deleted one of your comments in which you suggest that IS is an instrument of US policy. If you persist in this calumny I will ban you. pl

[turcopolier]

WRC

"Michele Flournay cannot be confirmed by the US Senate after January 20, 2015" I don't believe that. she will prostrate herself before McCain and that will take care of that. The Pritzker family woman is an possible alternative as is the Slaughter woman. pl

[The beaver]

@ different clue

May be what your heard on the radio was in reference to the two-page memo Hagel wrote , back in October, sharply criticizing White House policy on Syria for not focusing sufficiently on how the United States will deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Obama previously had said Assad “must go,” but is now apparently being regarded as the lesser of two evils, compared to IS.

https://news.yahoo.com/hagel-blasts-us-syria-strategy-memo-official-183757158.html

[The beaver]

Re Flournoy

Forgot link:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/21/is-israel-losing-the-battle-to-wage-war-on-iran/

[shepherd]

From what I can tell, there is a lot of second hand reporting that said the NY Times had a story about a leaked memo to that effect. However, it does not appear to be on the New York Times' website, nor do the Times' recent stories reference it. I could be wrong...

[Fred]

sceptic,

The Pritzker's have been backing Obama from the beginning but this might just be a bit too much for the Senate:
"This announcement made Pritzker the world's first openly transgender billionaire."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2013/09/16/jennifer-pritzker-becomes-first-transgender-billionaire/

[jr786]

Is that really the extent of her qualifications?

I seizure for my country.

[Tyler]

Hagel toed the line when it came to rolling over for turning thr military into a giant AA program whose mission was to push the Left's social insanity.

"Combatting sexual assault" is the Army's number 1 mission goal now? Good riddance, Hagel.