Why are neocons so down on Chuck Hagel?

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Back in 1998, Chuck Hagel, who had been Senator from Nebraska for two years, made news by criticizing the tactics of the Republican candidate for governor, Jon Christensen, who was running a negative ad campaign. The biggest threat to the American political system, Hagel said, were those who “debase and degrade the political process by straight-out lies and misleading spots on television. It’s a cancer to our system.” It’s darkly ironic that Hagel himself has faced very similar attacks from hawkish neoconservatives in the weeks since he was named as a likely nominee for secretary of Defense. But while these attacks represent an extremely distasteful side of Washington, it’s worth considering what they intended to achieve, and what they say about the current era of U.S. foreign policy.

Israel’s enormous airstrike gamble

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:33:00 +0000

The rocket that landed in the Mediterranean Sea south of Tel Aviv yesterday represents yet another troubling escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not since the 1991 Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles fell on the city, has Tel Aviv come under similar missile attack. There are reports of more rockets fired at Tel Aviv this morning, and the world waits to see whether the 160,000 Israeli reservists called up today means a ground invasion of Gaza similar to 2008-2009’s Operation Cast Lead.

Salon.com > Matthew Duss

Why are neocons so down on Chuck Hagel?

Israel’s enormous airstrike gamble