US/NATO War on Russia

[David Guyatt]

Chuck Hagel fired as SecDef. Connected? He was supposedly not on message with the White House.

If Thierry Meyssan at VoltaireNet is correct, Obama was not on message with Obama? Which, if correct, presents an interesting and alarming dilemma: the Neocons rule supreme - private war is now official Washington war.

Does Obama still have a military policy?

by Thierry Meyssan

Thierry Meyssan, who was the first to predict Chuck Hagel's possible appointment as Defense Secretary, speculates over the reasons behind his dismissal. They are not to be found in Hagel's conduct, but in the President's policy changes. Moreover, he observes, Washington no longer has a specific policy and the Obama administration is carrying out dangerously contradictory actions.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 1 DECEMBER 2014 FRANÇAIS ESPAÑOL TÜRKÇE عربي PORTUGUÊS DEUTSCH ITALIANO РУССКИЙ فارسى POLSKI

Chuck Hagel, who had been appointed to implement the policy of Barack Obama, refused to follow him when he veered off course, preffering to resign.It is undeniable that the Obama administration has lost its compass in terms of defining its national security policy. In May 2013, the White House scuttled the President's Intelligence Advisory Board without renewing it and, this week, it ditched its loyal Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. Most importantly, it keeps on delaying the release of the new national security doctrine, which should have been submitted to Congress by law already 7 months ago.Whereas there are clear guidelines for long-term goals (thwarting the economic development of Russia and China) and the means to achieve them (shifting troops from Europe and the Gulf to the Far East), no one knows what the goals are in the face of the Arab world today.It would seem that in 2010 the "Arab Spring" - long time in the State Department pipeline to install the Muslim Brotherhood in power everywhere in the region took President Obama by surprise, at least partially. The same applies to the regime change orchestrated in Ukraine, in 2013.Today, one part of the US state apparatus is combating the Islamic State, while another part is supporting its efforts to fight the Syrian Arab Republic.Chuck Hagel, who had sought clarification in writing from the President's National Security Advisor, not only did not get a response, but was fired without being given an explanation.Indeed, the man failed to win over the staff in his department, but his judgment or the support he enjoyed from his senior officers were never in doubt. He opposed George W. Bush's war in Iraq and was bent on repositioning US forces around national goals instead of private ones.His two main potential successors, Senator Jack Reed and Michele Flournoy, immediately threw in the towel, realizing that Chuck Hagel was not removed from office for misconduct, but precisely for having applied the policy handed down to him by President Obama. Hence, all eyes are now on second fiddles Bob Work and Ash Carter. Moreover, it is not enough to be nominated; the candidate will also have to be confirmed by the Republican majority controlling the Senate, which is sure to lead to complications.The specialized press draws a strange portrait of the outgoing secretary. It acknowledges his honesty - a very rare quality in Washington only to accuse him of being an underachiever. Now his role, as defined at the time of his appointment, was precisely not spark new wars, but to reform the Pentagon, which he was in the process of doing. In the first place, he dismantled many bridges between US forces and those of the Israel, the IDF. Then he proceeded to implement colossal budget cuts, except in the nuclear field. During his tenure, he was incessantly attacked by pro-Israelis, neo-cons and gay organizations (funded by all the above).The confusion surrounding the entire US policy in the Arab world dates from mid-2012. At the time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA director David Petraeus had seized on the US presidential election campaign to promote a second war against Syria, this time via France and Qatar. After his re-election and the ousting of his two "associates", Obama nominated new cabinet members with the task of building peace in Syria. But after a few months, it became clear that the policy of the Clinton-Petraeus duo was continuing without the knowledge of the White House and against the Pentagon.Clearly, President Obama is no more his own master than was George W. Bush, and there is every reason to believe that he has gradually rallied behind the secret policies of his own administration. Thus, the man who had proclaimed the end of nuclear deterrence, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and pledged to abandon the war on terror, is in actual fact taking the opposite course: he is poised to modernize and expand nuclear weapons, to send soldiers back to Afghanistan and Iraq, and to rekindle the threadbare concept of the war on terrorism.Chuck Hagel's dismissal should not be understood as a sanction against his performance, but as the reflection of the change undergone by President Barack Obama.There is still a need to identify the forces propping up Mrs. Clinton and General Petraeus, who are now on top. The "deep state" or economic agents? Clearly, the US press is completely out of its depth, incapable of explaining or analyzing the situation, and even less in a position to provide an answer to the question.Ultimately, the embassies around the world are waiting for new information before arriving at any conclusions. Meanwhile, on the ground, the Pentagon has been bombing the Islamic State while other American agents provide weapons and funding.In the United States and France, presidents follow one another without having any influence on the outcome of events. It makes no difference whether it's Republican President Bush or the Democratic Obama, the UMP's Sarkozy or the Social Democratic Holland, the machine inexorably continues its course without anyone knowing who is behind the wheel.