CHUCK HAGEL RESIGNS: DEAR GOD WHAT ABOUT THE U.S. TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN?? (FERGUSON VERDICT)

CHUCK HAGEL RESIGNS: DEAR GOD WHAT ABOUT THE U.S. TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN??

IS HAGEL'S RESIGNATION BEING USED TO DEFLECT FROM FERGUSON VERDICT??

#justiceforMikeBrown


Effective today the U.S. Secretary of Defense CHUCK HAGEL has Resigned.

This news comes immediately after Pres OBAMA signed a New Agreement with AFGHANISTAN to keep U.S. Troops in that region longer than expected.

This news also comes on the heels of a very Shaky Nuclear Bomb Deal with IRAN.

And last but certainly not least, this news comes as ISIS continues to wreak Havoc in IRAQ, while Beheading U.S. Citizens and CHRISTIANS.

According to earlier LEAKS from the WASHINGTON POST, reports of HAGEL submitting his Official Resignation actually occurred back in September 2014.

Has anyone other than myself notice how Pres OBAMA stands in very close proximity of each member of his Administration and GLARES at them as they deliver their Public Resignations??

This includes JAY CARNEY, KATHLEEN SEBELLIUS AND ERIC HOLDER.

Has anyone other than myself also noticed how Media reports of HAGEL'S Resignation is now drowning out what's going on in FERGUSON, Missouri as it relates to the Murder of MICHAEL BROWN and Officer DARREN WILSON'S Indictment or Dismissal of Charges?

HAGEL'S Resignation could be a Media and Federal Gov't Ploy used to Deflect a Grand Jury Verdict of Dismissing all Charges against DARREN WILSON, and using U.S. Military Troops to Murder more Hurting, Oppressive BLACK People in FERGUSON.

Is this a Coincidence??

I think NOT!

Considering what happened to Ambassador CHRISTOPHER STEVENS at BENGHAZI in 2012, news of HAGEL'S Resignation is Bad News!

Is it possible CHRISTOPHER STEVENS was preparing to Resign too when he was MURDERED by AL QAEDA on September 11, 2012??

Will HAGEL be replaced by another U.S. Military Veteran who understands what it means to Serve their country as a Member of the U.S.Armed Forces, or by a Civilian who has NO Knowledge of what it really means to ever Serve in COMBAT while protecting the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA??

I don't know but GOD knows.

In fact GOD knows the Whole TRUTH about EVERYTHING and Nothing but the TRUTH!

I will continue to Trust in GOD and PRAY Psalms 91 & Isaiah 54:17 constantly over U.S. Troops currently serving all over the Globe.

I will continue to PRAY for the people of FERGUSON and for MICHAEL BROWN'S grieving Family.

"For He shall give His Angels charge over you,
To keep you in all your ways."

"No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,
Says the Lord."


Article Sources: ABC News; Bloomberg News; CNN; NY Times; Washington Post; Youtube

ARTICLE: "Hagel Submits Resignation as Defense Chief Under Pressure"

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel handed in his resignation on Monday, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team to respond to an onslaught of global crises.

In announcing Mr. Hagel’s resignation from the State Dining Room on Monday, the president, flanked by Mr. Hagel and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., called Mr. Hagel critical to ushering the military “through a significant period of transition” and lauded “a young Army sergeant from Vietnam who rose to serve as America’s 24th secretary of defense.”

Mr. Obama called Mr. Hagel “no ordinary secretary of defense,” adding that he had “been in the dirt” of combat like no other defense chief. He said that Mr. Hagel would remain in the job until his successor is confirmed by the Senate.

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama made the decision to remove Mr. Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, last Friday after a series of meetings between the two men over the past two weeks.

The officials characterized the decision as a recognition that the threat from the militant group Islamic State will require different skills from those that Mr. Hagel, who often struggled to articulate a clear viewpoint and was widely viewed as a passive defense secretary, was brought in to employ.

Mr. Hagel, a combat veteran who was skeptical about the Iraq war, came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestrations.

Now, however, the American military is back on a war footing, although it is a modified one. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a coherent strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria.

“The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” one administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that the defense secretary initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave.

But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State.

Even before the announcement of Mr. Hagel’s removal, Obama officials were speculating on his possible replacement. At the top of the list were Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense, and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense.

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne, was also considered to be a contender, but a spokesman said that the senator was not in the running. “Senator Reed loves his job and does not wish to be considered for secretary of defense or any other cabinet post,” the spokesman said.

Mr. Hagel, a respected former senator who struck a friendship with Mr. Obama when they were both critics of the Iraq war from positions on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has nonetheless had trouble penetrating the tight team of former campaign aides and advisers who form Mr. Obama’s closely knit set of loyalists. Senior administration officials have characterized him as quiet during cabinet meetings; Mr. Hagel’s defenders said that he waited until he was alone with the president before sharing his views, the better to avoid leaks.

Whatever the case, Mr. Hagel struggled to fit in with Mr. Obama’s close circle and was viewed as never gaining traction in the administration after a bruising confirmation fight among his old Senate colleagues, during which he was criticized for seeming tentative in his responses to sharp questions.

He never really shed that pall after arriving at the Pentagon, and in the past few months he has largely ceded the stage to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who officials said initially won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State.

In Mr. Hagel’s less than two years on the job, his detractors said he struggled to inspire confidence at the Pentagon in the manner of his predecessors, especially Robert M. Gates. But several of Mr. Obama’s top advisers over the past few months have also acknowledged privately that the president did not want another high-profile defense secretary in the mold of Mr. Gates, who went on to write a memoir of his years with Mr. Obama in which he sharply criticized the president. Mr. Hagel, they said, in many ways was exactly the kind of defense secretary whom the president, after battling the military during his first term, wanted.

Mr. Hagel, for his part, spent his time on the job largely carrying out Mr. Obama’s stated wishes on matters like bringing back American troops from Afghanistan and trimming the Pentagon budget, with little pushback. He did manage to inspire loyalty among enlisted soldiers and often seemed at his most confident when talking to troops or sharing wartime experiences as a Vietnam veteran.

But Mr. Hagel has often had problems articulating his thoughts — or administration policy — in an effective manner, and has sometimes left reporters struggling to describe what he has said in news conferences. In his side-by-side appearances with both General Dempsey and Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran and the first former enlisted combat soldier to be defense secretary, has often been upstaged.

He raised the ire of the White House in August as the administration was ramping up its strategy to fight the Islamic State, directly contradicting the president, who months before had likened the Sunni militant group to a junior varsity basketball squad. Mr. Hagel, facing reporters in his now-familiar role next to General Dempsey, called the Islamic State an “imminent threat to every interest we have,” adding, “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.”

White House officials later said they viewed those comments as unhelpful, although the administration still appears to be struggling to define just how large is the threat posed by the Islamic State.



ARTICLE: "Defense Secretary Hagel, Under Pressure, Submits Resignation"

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel submitted his resignation Monday, bowing to pressure from the White House to step down after less than two years in the job in what could portend a broader shake-up among President Obama’s national security team.

Hagel resigned after holding a series of discussions with Obama and other White House officials in recent weeks. A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama and Hagel “both determined that it was time for new leadership at the Pentagon.”

Hagel will remain as defense secretary until Obama can pick a replacement, who must also be confirmed by the Senate. Possible contenders include Michele Flournoy and Ashton Carter, former high-ranking defense officials during Obama’s first term who were passed over for the top job in favor of Hagel two years ago.

Obama formally announced the resignation in a late-morning appearance at the White House. Flanked by Vice President Biden, he praised Hagel’s service, listed a series of accomplishments and said he appreciated Hagel’s role as an adviser who has “always given it to me straight.”

Hagel, in brief remarks, said that serving as defense secretary “has been the greatest privilege of my life.” But neither he nor Obama gave a reason for the resignation.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is slated to take over as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in January, said that Hagel “was frustrated with aspects of the administration’s national security policy and decision-making process,” citing “excessive micro-management” on the part of the White House.

McCain noted that Hagel’s predecessors as defense secretary — Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta — had both likewise complained in their memoirs about excessive political interference from White House aides. “Ultimately, the President needs to realize that the real source of his current failures on national security more often lie with his Administration’s misguided policies and the role played by his White House in devising and implementing them,” he said.

When Obama nominated Hagel in January 2013, the president was intent on limiting defense spending, winding down the war in Afghanistan and keeping the military out of conflicts in the Middle East. He made clear that he was picking the decorated Vietnam War combat veteran in large part because Hagel understood “that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that’s something we only do when it’s absolutely necessary.”

Since then, however, Obama has reluctantly been dragged back into the Middle East, signing deployment orders to send as many as 2,900 troops to Iraq to serve as advisers in the fight against the Islamic State.

Hagel has been a quiet figure in that debate as the administration has struggled to articulate a strategy for defeating Islamic State and stabilizing Iraq and Syria, largely ceding the stage to other figures such as Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumors had intensified this month that Hagel’s time was short, though the former Republican senator from Nebraska has insisted in recent interviews that he was planning to stay at the Pentagon. The resignation was first reported by The New York Times.

A senior administration official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama initiated discussions with Hagel about leaving in October — shortly before the mid-term congressional elections that saw the president’s party take a beating.

Hagel never quite recovered from a stumbling performance during his confirmation process that led the Senate to approve his nomination by a narrow 58-41 vote in February 2013. The margin was exceptionally narrow, especially given the fact that he had served two terms in the Senate. Only four GOP senators voted for their fellow Republican.

Hagel served in the Senate with Obama and the two bonded during overseas trips, where both were leading critics of the Iraq war during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

Unlike Panetta and Gates, Hagel in public was generally accepting of the White House’s push to keep a lid on defense spending, which had soared after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He was most visible in supporting Obama’s strategic “pivot” to Asia, taking numerous trips to visit allies in that part of the world. But his time spent in Asia came at the expense of making his presence felt in the Middle East and Afghanistan, which continued to dominate the national security agenda despite the White House’s desire to wind down U.S. military involvement in the region.

This month, for instance, Hagel was scheduled to travel to Burma and Vietnam, where Pentagon officials were eager to make a show of his return to the country where he fought the Viet Cong as a young infantryman and was badly wounded in battle, twice.

He was forced to postpone the visit three weeks ago, a decision that the Pentagon attributed to “new and significant demands being placed” on his schedule, including a congressional hearing on the war against the Islamic State. At the time, Hagel’s aides denied the decision was a sign that he had fallen out of favor with the White House, insisting that he looked forward to rescheduling the visit.

Hagel was known to have had a tense relationship with Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, but defense officials said he tried to develop close ties with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. Hagel and McDonough met once a week, in addition to Hagel’s weekly one-on-one meetings with Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Defense officials described Hagel as much more focused more on policy - his reform initiatives and the Pentagon budget - than on military operations in places like Iraq and Syria. His hands-off approach to battlefield operations is a sharp contrast to some earlier secretaries, such as Donald Rumsfeld.

That may have contributed to a view among some senior uniformed leaders of Hagel as a lackluster leader. One defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said many in the military saw the Nebraskan as “a perfectly acceptable but certainly not exciting” manager.