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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHagel hearing: 136 mentions of Israel, 135 of Iran and only 27 of Afghanistan
By Steve Benen
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The Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran raised this observation last night, doing a word count on the hearing transcript...one might be tempted to believe there are only three countries on the planet -- the United States, Israel, and Iran -- and that Iran poses some kind of existential threat to America's future.
Al Qaeda wasn't deemed important, nor was North Korea. China was brought up only a handful of times, and the use of drones wasn't mentioned at all.
In Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the next Pentagon chief, Afghanistan -- the country where American troops are fighting an active, hot war right now -- was largely treated as an afterthought.
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After yesterday, it's hard to draw any other conclusion. Yesterday wasn't about an exploration of the future of U.S. military policy, Hagel's record, the Obama administration's agenda for the next four years, the ongoing war, or the limits and scope of military force. It was about proxy fights, talking points, and scoring points...GOP members of the committee pursued Hagel with the same questions about Iran and Israel, over and over again, in the clumsiest and most ham-fisted way possible. As Rachel noted on the show last night, we saw Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) "not seeming to know very much about what she was talking about" and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) "try a sort of like cable news-style stunt against Chuck Hagel that really fell flat."
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http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/01/16805831-a-big-world-a-narrow-focus
Jennicut
(25,415 posts)You know, what a Sec of Defense actually oversees? How they are dealing with military suicides, etc. The hearing was totally pathetic One long hearing of kissing ass to the right wing of Israel.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)"Bilateral nuclear arms reduction, not unilateral", "I support Iran sanctions", "Iran is a state sponsor of terror", "I support Israel and we have a special relationship". It was unbelievable.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts).... to the next war.
Never mind the clusterfucks in the past. And Afghanistan is sooooo past.
We now have a chance at a shiny, new war.
We'll win this next one.
USA!...USA!... We're #1....
riverwalker
(8,694 posts)waving around some old letter denouncing the Intifada and Yassir Arafat, that Hagel didn't sign at the time, throws it down and asks Hagel to sign it now.
Lindsey, your old Boogy-man Arafat has been dead for years.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Maybe those were mentioned in some minor context.
But of shifting our surplus product from the waste of military spending into something that doesn't destabilize the world or kill people everywhere, but actually helps the people here, I'm sure there were zero.