Iran Smuggling Weapons to Allies

foxnews

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is accussing Iran's paramilitary force of an intensified campaign to destabilize the Middle East by smuggling antiaircraft weapons to its militant allies.
Iran's export of so-called manpads -- antiaircraft missiles that can be carried by a single person -- represent what Panetta called a dangerous escalation.
"There is no question when you start passing manpads around, that becomes a threat—not just to military aircraft but to civilian aircraft," Panetta told The Wall Street Journal in an interview describing shifting threats to the U.S. as he prepares to leave his post. "That is an escalation."
Western officials have long worried about the spread of such weapons and the risk they pose to airline passengers as well as to military helicopters and jets.
Recent U.S. intelligence pointed to new efforts by Iran to smuggle manpads, but few shipments had been intercepted before Jan. 23, when Yemen, aided by the U.S., intercepted a boat carrying the weapons.
"It is one of the first times we have seen it," Panetta said.
U.S. investigators said evidence indicated the missiles were supplied by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran's paramilitary force.
Iranian officials didn't respond to requests for comment about distributing weapons to regional allies.
Mr. Panetta said the U.S. is stepping up efforts to counter the Iranian threat, and is leading a multination exercise in the United Arab Emirates though Feb. 7 to improve the interdiction of Iranian arms and other weapons. The defense secretary called the exercise critical to building up Arab capabilities to help halt Iranian arms transfers, including the smuggling of manpads.
The disclosures by Mr. Panetta came as he prepares to step down after 19 months as defense secretary, a period marked by an intensified focus on Iran as concerns mount about its nuclear ambitions, an expanded campaign of drone strikes against militants in several countries, and the emergence of a new Al Qaeda haven in Africa.
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Senator calls for 'top-to-bottom review' of State Department ahead of Clinton testimony

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Panetta to Troops: Democracy Won't Survive Without You

ThePentagonChannel

Hagel's Cuba problem

washingtonpost 

By Jennifer Rubin
Much of the focus on Chuck Hagel’s record has been on his views on Israel, Iran and sequestration. Equally troubling to those who have taken a forceful stand against Castro’s dictatorship in Cuba, however, has been his dismissive attitude toward the Castros  and his enthusiasm to end the U.S. embargo with no quid pro quo.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has already expressed serious concerns about Hagel’s views on Cuba. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), former chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and  now chairman of the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee, put out a statement objecting to Hagel and citing his views on Iran, Israel and Cuba:

During his time in Congress, Senator Hagel supported legislation that would have provided a lifeline to the decrepit Castro regime that for the last half a century has exploited the Cuban people and posed a severe security threat to the U.S. . . . In a time of regional turmoil and rogue regimes, our Secretary of Defense must remain strong on sanctions against Iran, never abandon our allies, like Israel, and stand up to dictators like the Castro brothers who seek to oppress the voices of democracy and freedom

At times Hagel has seemed entirely clueless about Fidel Castro’s role in the region. Frank Calzon, who head the Center for a Free Cuba, told me in a telephone interview on Friday afternoon, “I respect him like any other senator. But apparently he is not very well informed. To the extent he has been aware, he has underestimated the Cuba situation.”

In 2002 the Omaha World Herald reported: “Otto Reich, the State Department’s assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, last week laid out a case against overtures to Cuba and its longtime president, Fidel Castro. ‘Castro has supported terrorist groups in every country in this hemisphere except Mexico,’ Reich told reporters Thursday. ‘So he is a terrorist.’ Sen. Chuck Hagel, a main sponsor of Senate legislation to lift economic sanctions on Cuba, countered Reich on Friday, saying that to term Castro a threat is ‘just goofy.’ ‘This is a toothless old dinosaur,’ the Nebraska Republican added.”

Hagel has worked assiduously in favor of lifting the trade embargo, calling the policy “outdated, unrealistic, irrelevant policy.” And he was instrumental in blocking legislation to grant Elian Gonzales citizenship.

The Castro regime, of course, has grown increasingly close to the Iranian regime and has allied itself with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In seizing and imprisoning an American, Alan Gross, it has advocated a swap with the so-called Cuban five spies (a position strenuously opposed by the U.S. Senate).

Calzon pointed out, “Jimmy Carter like Hagel felt it was for lack of trying that relations were so dismal.” But of course, this ignores outreach efforts under the Ford, Carter, Clinton and Bush administrations. Each solicitation has been met with aggressive action. Although President Carter set up a large interests section in Cuba, Castro responded by unleashing the Mariel boatlift. Cuban troops were also dispatched to Angola in one of the Cold War’s most prominent standoffs. President Obama relaxed travel and remittance restrictions, only to see Alan Gross be tried and imprisoned.

Calzon told me, “I don’t have a crystal ball. But in general I expect [Hagel] would continue to subscribe to the views he has held for years.” He contends that Hagel “will not present different views” to President Obama, who has already been inclined to follow the Carter approach to Cuba. Calzon is quite certain, having studied Cuba for decades, how the Castro regime will respond. “The Cubans will celebrate having Hagel in the Pentagon, ” he told me. ” Not only will they see that as a sign of weakness but as an invitation to push the envelope. Instead of reducing the chance of conflict, the opposite is true.”

Hagel’s views on Cuba put Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), one of the most ardent opponents of lifting the trade embargo, in a tough spot. Last June at a hearing he grilled the administration’s assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, saying, “The Cuban people are no less deserving of America’s support than the millions who were imprisoned and forgotten in Soviet gulags. I am compelled to ask again today — as I have before — why is there such an obvious double standard when it comes to Cuba?” He has repeatedly vowed to block measures to lift the travel and trade bans. (In 2010, he declared: “Repression is repression and dictatorships are dictatorships, no matter where they are located or whether you want to use their resorts.”) Now he will be faced with a nominee who not only has worked strenuously for those positions, but seems to be willfully dismissive of the nature of the Castro regime.

Menendez, who also has been a robust supporter of sanctions on Iran, would have to sublimate his views on Israel, Iran and especially Cuba and cede his role as a Democratic Senate leader for a tough-minded national security policy if he rolls over for the president’s nominee. Aside from boosting a lame-duck president, why would he want to do that? We’ll find out soon.

Hagel: Jimmy Carter 'Exactly Right' on Fidel Castro, Cuba

www.breitbart.com

In 2002, then-Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel was the only member of the United States Congress to receive a special invitation from former President Jimmy Carter to join him on a trip to Cuba.  Mr. Hagel chose not to go, citing scheduling conflicts and concerns over the optics of such a trip. 

frontpagemag.com

But according to a 2002 article Breitbart News obtained through the Omaha World Herald’s archives, Mr. Hagel went on to say this:  "What Jimmy Carter's saying ... is exactly right: Our 40-year policy toward Cuba is senseless," Hagel said. "It's outdated, it's irrelevant and it just doesn't fit. We should be wise and be trying to enhance America's position with peoples of the world."

In addition to support for Mr. Carter’s Cuba policy, Mr. Hagel said that the way to undercut Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was to lend him access to the world’s largest market, the United States:  “If you start opening trade with Castro and opening a dialogue and a relationship, I think that cuts directly against his interests," said Mr. Hagel.  Asked whether such a move would merely strengthen the power of Castro’s regime, Mr. Hagel replied: "That's just not true," he said. "That's the same tired argument that everybody uses."

As Brandon Darby of Breitbart News reported on Sunday, President Barack Obama’s historic easing of sanctions against Cuba have coincided with a dramatic spike in political repressions and confirmed detentions of political dissidents by the Cuban regime:

Both Reuters and the Miami Herald report that Cuban Security agents broke their previous records of government political repression in 2012 with 6,602 confirmed detentions of political dissidents. In 2011 there were 4,123 confirmed political arrests which was even higher than the 2,704 arrests from 2010. Both Reuters and the Miami Herald based their data on a 2012 year-end report from the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

While Mr. Hagel chose not to accept Mr. Carter’s travel invitation, critics of the Hagel nomination for Defense Secretary say the two men share similar views on things other than Cuba policy.  “Chuck Hagel would not be the first, second, or third choice for the American Jewish community’s friends of Israel,” says Anti-Defamation League head Abe Foxman.  “The sentiments he’s expressed about the Jewish lobby border on anti-Semitism in the genre of professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and former president Jimmy Carter.”

Chuck Hagel Worked To Lift The Cuba Embargo

Andrew Kaczynski

breitbart.com

Add the Cuba embargo to the growing list of hot-button issues Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel may have to address during his impending confirmation hearings.

Hagel first wrote to President Clinton in 1999 after Clinton announced he was loosening restrictions on humanitarian aid and travel to Cuba, calling it a "good first step." But Hagel added "he should have done more."

When calling for a bipartisan commission to review the U.S. policy toward Cuba, Hagel called it "outdated and ineffective, and not relevant for the next century."

In 2001, Hagel and former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd introduced a bill to open the Cuban market for the export of American agricultural and medical products.

"The exports of American food and medicine is not just an economic issue, it is also a humanitarian undertaking. Blocking exports in these commodities harm the health and nutrition of the people of the sanctioned nation. It does nothing to harm governments and the government leaders with which we disagree," said Hagel.

"Passage of this provision, and the one last year, acknowledges what most Nebraska grain and livestock producers have always known – when the United States places unilateral sanctions on other nations, American producers are hurt, not the sanctioned nation," Hagel continued.

In March 2003, Hagel and Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill known as the United States-Cuba Trade Act of 2003 that sought to lift the embargo.

The bill, which died before gaining much traction, said, "the continuation of the embargo on trade between the United States and Cuba that was declared in February of 1962 is counterproductive, adding to the hardships of the Cuban people while making the United States the scapegoat for the failures of the communist system."

In a letter to colleagues on the bill, Hagel wrote "trading with and traveling to Cuba does not represent an endorsement of the Castro regime. To the contrary, it helps ensure that children in Cuba will be afforded more opportunity than their parents to have lives that are more full, free and just by opening Cuban society to democratic ideals."

In October 2003, Hagel succeeded in co-sponsoring an amendment that passed which ensured Americans were not punished for traveling to Cuba to do business or study.

"It does not serve U.S. interest to isolate ourselves from the people of Cuba. The current U.S. policy places our farmers, workers, and companies at an international competitive disadvantage. Nebraska’s agriculture producers should have open access to the Cuban market," Hagel said.

Hagel's work to lift the embargo could rankle some Senate Republicans, who maintain the U.S. should not trade with a country that is under the rule of a Communist regime.

One leading Republican on these issues, however, held his fire when asked by BuzzFeed about Hagel's position.

A spokesman for Florida Senator Marco Rubio commented said, "We have a process for nominations, and Senator Rubio won’t prejudge these nominees. Senator Rubio hopes he will be able to meet with Senator Hagel prior to his confirmation vote. We’ll have questions about some of Senator Hagel’s past positions, including sanctions on Iran and promoting democracy in Latin America, since that’s long been a priority for Senator Rubio."

What Obama's nominees might mean for Latin America

Just the Facts

By Adam Isacson/

Once Congress gives the green light, the national security team for Barack Obama’s second term will have three new names at the top: John Kerry at State, Chuck Hagel at Defense, and John Brennan at CIA.

Kerry and Hagel are both Vietnam veterans turned Senators, both supportive of a strong, modern military but skeptical of large, open-ended military missions, sort of in the Colin Powell mode. Brennan is a career spy whose focus since the 1990s has been counterterrorism.

Only Kerry has much of a record on Latin America. In the 1980s, he was a leading opponent of the Reagan administration’s aid to abusive militaries, and to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, in Central America. He has also been a frequent critic of U.S. policy toward Cuba. In 2000, Senator Kerry shifted gears and supported a military aid package, President Clinton’s initial appropriation for Plan Colombia, though he later signed at least one letter criticizing Colombia’s human rights performance.

As David Sanger notes in today’s New York Times, all three nominees share a preference for a “light footprint” in the U.S. military’s activities abroad. Brennan, Sanger notes,

devised the “light footprint” strategy of limiting American interventions, whenever possible, to drones, cyberattacks and Special Operations forces. All are advocates of those low-cost, low-American-casualty tools, and all have sounded dismissive of attempts to send thousands of troops to rewire foreign nations as wasteful and ill-conceived.

With the notable exception of the 2009 Afghan “surge,” frequent but low-profile military and intelligence operations have been a hallmark of the Obama administration so far. With the ongoing drawdown from Afghanistan ahead of a planned 2014 pullout, the “light footprint” approach is going to accelerate.

How will this affect Latin America? Probably four ways, in declining order of importance:

• More Special Forces deployments to the region. President Obama and his new appointees share a fondness for Special Operations Forces: elite, highly trained, mobile military units used for non-traditional, often clandestine missions ranging from hostage rescues to hunting down wanted individuals to intelligence-gathering and “defense diplomacy.” Special Forces are likely to see their numbers increase despite upcoming defense budget cuts, and as the Afghanistan drawdown proceeds, there will be even more of them available to carry out missions in Latin America. Last year, the New York Times noted, Adm. William McRaven of the Special Operations Command was “pushing hard” to “expand their presence in regions where they have not operated in large numbers for the past decade, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, and other JSOC units will be carrying out clandestine mayhem in places like Venezuela and Cuba. (And if it does, we’re unlikely to find out about it.) But a recent conversation with a Defense Department official confirms that, in the next few years, we are likely to witness an increase in Special Forces training missions in the region. More teams will be in countries throughout the Americas teaching courses as part of Mobile Training Teams (MTTs), and organizing exercises, some of them through the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program.

Such deployments fulfill more than just training missions, though. They allow Special Forces units to familiarize themselves with the terrain, culture, and key officers in countries where they might someday have to operate. And they allow U.S. personnel to gather intelligence on their host countries, whether through active snooping or passive observation.

• A greater intelligence community presence is another likely consequence of a “light footprint” in Latin America. We can only speculate, but it is reasonable to expect fewer CIA assets in Afghanistan to mean more personnel focused elsewhere, including Latin America. Even more significant may be an increase in the presence of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Defense Department’s spy agency. As the Washington Post reported in December, the DIA expects to roughly double the number of clandestine operatives it deploys worldwide over the next few years.
  
• Greater use of drones and robotics. The Obama administration has expanded the CIA and Defense Department use of armed unmanned aircraft to hunt down suspected terrorist targets. Brennan, the new CIA director, is known for being intimately involved this practice, which is extremely controversial because of reports that the drone program may have killed hundreds of innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
  

In Latin America, a few U.S. defense officials have confirmed to us recently, the U.S. military is not using weaponized drones, though it is employing some surveillance drones to detect suspect trafficking activity, particularly (but not only) above international waters. All officials have insisted that U.S. drones are not used extensively in the region, as they are costly to operate. However, as assets are drawn down from Afghanistan and as costs continue to drop rapidly, it is reasonable to expect the Obama administration to use them more frequently in the Americas.

The U.S. effort, however, may pale in comparison to Latin American countries’ own drone programs. Several countries — Colombia, Venezuela, and especially Brazil — are developing their own programs, and several more are buying drones, especially from Israel. While none of these drones are reportedly weaponized and there have been no reports of unauthorized cross-border drone flights, the increased affordability of drones, and the lack of norms governing their use, promises to pose a big challenge for Latin America within the next 5-10 years. (We will have a post on this topic shortly.)

• More emphasis on cyber-security. As today’s New York Times piece noted, cyber-warfare is an interest of all three of the Obama administration’s nominees. While it is unclear how this will play out in U.S. national security policy toward the Americas, it is reasonable to expect more resources devoted to cracking open, and even sabotaging, the computer networks of countries or organizations that the U.S. government views as a threat. (For more on cyber-security in the hemisphere, see the work of James Bosworth at Bloggings by Boz.)

Nominations of Brennan and Hagel signal changes at CIA and Pentagon

washingtonpost

guardian.co.uk

By Greg Miller and Scott Wilson

President Obama is assembling a national security team designed for an era of downsized but enduring conflict, a team that will be asked to preside over the return of exhausted American troops and wield power through the targeted use of sanctions, Special Operations forces and drone strikes.
Obama’s nominations of former senator Chuck Hagel as defense secretary and White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan as CIA director signal second-term course adjustments at institutions that have been dominated by their lethal assignments during more than a decade of war.

Those adjustments could include returning the CIA’s focus to its core mission of gathering intelligence, even though it is expected to maintain its fleet of armed drones for years. The Pentagon faces an even more aggressive restructuring to balance budget cuts against threats, including China’s ascendent military and emerging al-Qaeda affiliates in North Africa and the Middle East.
The nominations also set the stage for confirmation fights driven not only by criticism of Hagel and Brennan but also by the foreign policy approach they represent.
Hagel, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, shares Obama’s aversion to military intervention. White House officials described him as ideally suited to managing the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the shrinking Pentagon budget. But he has attracted fierce criticism from groups that question the strength of his support for Israel.
Brennan is a 25-year CIA veteran who has voiced concern over the agency’s paramilitary mission and has imposed tighter controls on targeted killing, even while his White House tenure has been marked by a massive increase in the agency’s drone campaign.
Four years ago, Brennan withdrew from consideration to lead the CIA amid questions about his role as a high-ranking CIA official at a time when the agency employed brutal interrogation techniques — a link certain to resurface when he faces a Senate vote.
Both men are known for their strong personalities and strongly held views. Still, associates described them as comfortable fits for an administration that favors covert action — including Predator drone strikes on al-Qaeda targets and cyber-sabotage of Iran’s nuclear plants — over conventional force.
In announcing the nominees, Obama said that their agenda would include “ending the war in Afghanistan and caring for those who have borne the battle, [and] preparing for the full range of threats.” He also emphasized their experiences in the lower ranks of the institutions they would run, saying both served overseas and understand firsthand “the consequences of decisions that we make in this town.”
Obama avoided one confirmation fight when U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice withdrew from consideration to be secretary of state amid criticism of her role in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. Instead, Obama turned to a compromise pick, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). The former presidential candidate has established relationships with foreign leaders that could help the administration push for tougher sanctions on Iran, expand its pursuit of al-Qaeda beyond Yemen and Pakistan, and deal with the Syrian civil war.

Keep reading  >>

GOP senators signal tough fight over Hagel

 

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Chuck Hagel Against Sanctions But For Talking With Hamas

Obama Seizing Control of the US Military – Potential Cataclysm Ahead

TrevorLoudon

Barack Obama has worked with pro-Moscow Marxists including Frank Marshall Davis and Alice Palmer, and pro-Cuban radicals like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, his entire life.

Their number one priority has always been the destruction of the US military, the only significant block remaining, to global revolution.

Now that the Davis/Palmer/Ayers/Dohrn protege has the reins of power, President Obama is working hard to destroy US military superiority, consciously or unconsciously, to the advantage of the Russia/China/Cuba/North Korea/Iranian/Islamic alliance.

From William Bigelow at Breitbart.com:

In an attempt to seize total control over national security and bypass congress, a frightening new step by the Obama Administration is coming into play. As noted in Friday’s Wall Street Journal in an op-ed by John Bolton and John Woo, a State Department advisory group that is run by former Secretary of Defense William Perry is advising that the U.S. and Russia both reduce nuclear weapons without a treaty, as a treaty would require ratification by Congress. This would allow Obama and his executive branch to unilaterally cut our nuclear weaponry and ignore the treaty clause of the Constitution.
As Bolton and Woo point out, the US has a greater global responsibility than Russia; Iran and North Korea, neither of which is far from Russian interests, can only be countered by U.S. military strength. In addition, they note that Russia is not a trustworthy partner in weapons reduction; it has violated many arms-control agreements, such as the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.
Some of the inherent problems in the seizure by this executive branch of decision-making power is Barack Obama’s desire to deeply cut our nuclear forces. A joint decision with Russia would place long-term limits on our cache of arms, thus placing constraints on us catching up if Russia decides to go ahead and build and the blurring of the lines deliberately drawn by the Constitution’s Framers separating the executive and legislative branches power.
Obama has made no secret of his desire to dismantle our nuclear capacity; the New Start Treaty he championed in 2011 forced the U.S. to observe a ceiling of 700 strategic delivery vehicles and 1,550 strategic warheads, and this past March he stated his desire to cut our arsenal further:
“ … a step we have never taken before – reducing not only our strategic nuclear warheads but also tactical weapons and warheads in reserve.”
It is naïve to assume that Obama is simply blind to the results of his actions and trusts the world around him to act with generosity. There has been too much evidence of Russia’s support of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and Russia has cunningly avoided supporting sanctions on North Korea for its rocket launches; in December, Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Research at the Institute of Economics, simply said:
“In Russia we believe that resolutions must be observed and UN decisions must be implemented. We think that North Korea has the right for space explorations but only after all the issues linked with the UN sanctions banning rocket launches with the use of ballistic technologies are settled. It is necessary to divide two aspects – we support the discussion of the rocket launch issue by the UN Security Council but we don’t think that this must automatically mean tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.”
Obama knows all this. His step-by-step evisceration of the United States is not confined to its economic system but its national defense as well.

I go a little further. I say that Obama is happy to wreck the US economy, because this will enable him to completely destroy US military defensive capability. This is the REAL agenda of the left. The people Obama has worked with his entire life.

Four more years of Obama may well bring America to the point of no return.

If Obama is allowed to realize the Davis/Palmer/Ayers/Dohrn vision of a militarily impotent America, Americans will be faced with two very harsh choices.

Lay down your arms and give up your sovereignty to a United Nations world superstate.

Or face the combined military might of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, possibly Pakistan, Indonesia and Brazil, and several other countries… with hardly a friend in the world to come to your aid.

This won’t be a one or two front conflict. This will be a multi-polar, all out attack on the US homeland.

Americans need to wake up. And fast.

Glenn Beck: Obama Destined for Prison?

visiontoamerica.com

As many news sites and pundits break down the biggest stories of 2012, one story too big to miss has been resurrected by the website TeaParty.org, a story at least one national pundit believes could send Barack Obama to prison.

The tea-party site posted a Glenn Beck video from October in which the TV and radio host insisted a case for treason could be built against President Obama for his role in the attack of Sept. 11, 2012, in which armed Libyans captured and killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others at an American diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

“This president is lying to you about Benghazi in such spectacular fashion that I believe people will go to prison,” Beck said on the Blaze TV broadcast of his radio show. “This is impeachable; the president might go to prison for this one.”

Beck cited evidence that Ambassador Stevens had been helping arm Arab Spring rebels in Libya and Syria, rebel forces that included al-Qaida operatives and a heavy Muslim Brotherhood influence.

Keep reading on www.wnd.com >>

Rubio Threatens to Hold Hagel

capitolhillcubans

From The Washington Free Beacon:

Rubio Threatens to Hold Hagel

Rubio comms director: 'I’m sure we would have questions about Cuba positions'

The office of Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) is threatening to place a hold on former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, should he be nominated for the post of Secretary of Defense.

In a statement to the Washington Free Beacon, Rubio communications director Alex Conant said, “Promoting democracy in Latin America is a priority for Sen. Rubio, and he’s put holds on other administration nominees over the issue. If President Obama were to nominate Sen. Hagel for a cabinet position, I’m sure we would have questions about Cuba positions.”

The statement came in response to questions by the Free Beacon about Hagel’s past opposition to the trade embargo on Cuba.

In 2008, Hagel said “we have an outdated, unrealistic, irrelevant policy” in Cuba.

In 2002, Hagel said, “what Jimmy Carter’s saying… is exactly right: Our 40-year policy toward Cuba is senseless.” Hagel also called Fidel Castro “a toothless old dinosaur,” a comment sure to rankle those who have suffered under Castro’s regime.

President Barack Obama has done little to reorient U.S. policy toward Cuba, and has benefitted from his support for the embargo. In 2012, Obama received 47 percent of the Cuban-American vote, according to exit polls, a record for a Democratic candidate that gave Obama a major boost in his successful effort to secure Florida’s electoral votes.

Sen. Rubio Raises Questions in Senate Hearing on Benghazi Attacks

SenatorMarcoRubio

How many nukes until we’re safe?

Fotosearch/Getty Images - Image labeled '0.053 Sec' of the first Nuclear Test, codenamed 'Trinity', conducted by Los Alamos National Laboratory at Alamogordo, New Mexico circa 1945.

WP/ By Walter Pincus

We are rightly mourning the horrific killings in Newtown, Conn.’s Sandy Hook Elementary School and discussing the threats posed by semiautomatic rifles. On another front, the United States is moving ahead with plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons — an even more destructive force — with no serious public discussion.
Twenty years from now, how many nuclear warheads on strategic submarines will the United States need? That’s not an abstract question. The country is engaged in a costly, ambitious modernization of its nuclear weapons complex and development of a new generation of delivery systems — new strategic submarines, bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles that will be operating more than 50 years from now.

Start with the Navy’s plan for 12 new SSBN-X strategic submarines to replace the 14 Ohio-class subs now in service. A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the program, released Dec. 10, asks whether the Navy can stay within the cost targets for their procurement ($4.9 billion each) and whether each sub should carry 16 or 20 missiles.
But shouldn’t the questions be more basic, such as who is the enemy and how many subs would be needed to deter that enemy?
There will be at least four or five warheads on each of the 16 ICBMs carried on each of the new subs. Their destructive power will be eight to more than 20 times that of the atomic bomb that all but destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
That bomb killed 45,000 men, women and children instantly. Another 19,000 died during the next four months, according to a 1946 study by the Manhattan Engineer District, which built the bomb. The majority of those killed were civilians, though Hiroshima was picked because planners saw it as a military target with army barracks and defense factories. But the bomb — its 12.5 kiloton explosive power [equal to 12,500 tons of TNT], its heat effects and radiation — went well beyond those military targets. Today’s nuclear weapons are 100 kilotons and above.
It’s agreed that nuclear weapons don’t deter terrorist groups. And if history is any guide, the more the United States and other nuclear-armed countries modernize their weapons, the more tempting it is for other countries to want nuclear arsenals.
So how many warheads does the United States need over the next 40 years to deter others? Keeping reading >>

Will Petraeus Set the Record Straight?

PJMedia/  Richard Fernandez

Breitbart quotes a tweet by CNN correspondent Frances Townsend claiming information by Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr that David Petraeus will testify that he knew the attack on the Benghazi consulate was terrorism “almost immediately.” The “same source” claims he will say Susan Rice’s talking points ascribing the attack to a video came from the White House.

If Petraeus really does testify to this effect, he will inescapably be alleging under oath that the president was a liar. Even if the testimony is restricted strictly to Benghazi and not its aftermath, the crucial question remains: did the president abandon the men on the ground to their fates?

Of course the purpose of this new leak may be to muddy the waters. In Washington, home to hundreds of newspaper correspondents and reporters, nothing is as it seems. The age of Obama resembles nothing so much as an evil fun-house of mirrors.

There may be a behind-the-scenes effort to influence what Petraeus will say. Charles Krauthammer has already suggested that the administration has tried to use the Broadwell incident to silence the former CIA director. But if Petraeus testifies as advertised, it may mean that he has decided that the administration will destroy him even if tries to go along and that his only remaining option is to fight.

DP’s options are rapidly shrinking. CNN reports that the CIA has opened an internal investigation into Petraeus’ conduct. Does anybody still believe this is about an extra-marital affair? Probably the same people who who believed that Benghazi was about a YouTube video.

The announcement of the internal investigation comes on the eve of closed door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Petraeus is expected to offer his thoughts to the committee members on what the Agency knew and when it knew it in the days after the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on September 11.

For reasons that the public does not understand, the incident in Benghazi has started a full-blown power struggle that is raging beneath the surface of official Washington.  More >>

Holder defends keeping Petraeus inquiry from White House

WP/  Sari Horwitz, Carol D. Leonnig and Greg Miller

  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at a news conference in New Orleans Nov. 15, 2012/
Jonathan Bachman-Reuter

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Thursday defended the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation that ledDavid H. Petraeus to resign as CIA director, saying that the department was right to keep the inquiry secret from the White House until after last week’s presidential election.

Holder’s first public comments on the controversy came as the CIA opened an internal inquiry of Petraeus’s conduct during his 14-month tenure as director. The move means that there are three active investigations related to a scandal that has scrambled President Obama’s national security team.

The Washington Post’s Greg Miller explains how the discovery of classified documents in Paula Broadwell’s home complicates the FBI’s reasoning for initially keeping their investigation secret.

“What we did was conduct the investigation in the way we normally conduct a criminal investigation,” Holder said in a news conference in New Orleans.
He said the inquiry was handled “in an impartial way. We follow the facts. We do not share outside the Justice Department, outside the FBI, the facts of ongoing investigations.”
Holder’s remarks were aimed at quieting criticism that has grown sharper in recent days as the initial shock waves from Petraeus’s resignation have given way to questions about Justice Department decisions during its probe.
Some of those questions have focused on Fred Humphries, an FBI agent in Tampa whose concerns that the investigation had uncovered possible national security risks led to a chain of events that resulted in a House Republican leader raising the issue with the office of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III. A person close to Humphries said he had no intention of being a whistle-blower, but the agent’s informal comments may have triggered the disclosure of Petraeus’s affair.
Republicans have accused Holder of withholding the results of the investigation until after the election for political motives. At the same time, some Democrats have begun to draw comparisons between the exposure of an adulterous affair by Petraeus and the bureau’s history of digging up dirt on Washington officials during the tenure of founding FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
“We don’t want to return to those days,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House intelligence committee and a former federal prosecutor. “The FBI was trying to find the right line here,” he said, even as it unearthed “what may have been an affair that had nothing to do with national security.”
Lawmakers from both parties have faulted the FBI for not notifying Congress that a criminal probe had turned up compromising material on the CIA director as well as potentially inappropriate communications between a Tampa socialite at the center of the case and Gen. John R. Allen, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan.
Holder fired back Thursday, saying the Justice Department “made the determination as we were going through that there was not a threat to national security.” Because of that conclusion, he said, there was no reason to advise officials outside the department before the investigation was complete.
The FBI notified the executive branch with a call to Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on the evening of Election Day, Nov. 6. Holder said the call was made then because the bureau had “conducted a critical interview the Friday before. When we got to that point, we thought it appropriate to notify the president.” Read more on WP >>

Petraeus Breaks His Silence To HLN

The Blaze

Former CIA Director David Petraeus told an HLN journalist he never passed classified information to Paula Broadwell and insisted his resignation last week had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Petraeus has been speaking with HLN’s Kyra Phillips since last week. Phillips relayed some of their conversations on the air on Thursday.

“He has insisted to me that he has never passed classified information to Paula Broadwell,” the woman he was having an extramarital affair with, Phillips said. “As long as I have known him, he has never wavered on classified information, ever. And to the best of my knowledge, you know, that has always been sacrosanct. I have also never known him to tell me something that is not true.”

Phillips said Petraeus told her he wants to testify about Benghazi — something he will do behind closed doors on Friday.

“He has said this has nothing to do with Benghazi and he wants to testify. He will testify,” Phillips said. “He has maintained to me all along this was a personal failing, Robin, which, as I said, to me was quite stunning and to many other people. He’s not the type of person that I’ve ever known to fail at anything, knowing [him] as long as I have over the years. And so he has made it very clear that this was about an extramarital affair and not over classified information or Benghazi.”

Silencing General Petraeus

Andrew Napolitano 

takimag.com

The evidence that Gen. David Petraeus, formerly the commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the author of the current Army field manual, Princeton Ph.D. and, until last week, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was forced to resign from the CIA to silence him is far stronger than is the version of events that the Obama administration has given us.

The government would have us believe that because the FBI confronted Petraeus with his emails showing a pattern of inappropriate personal private behavior, he voluntarily departed his job as the country's chief spy to avoid embarrassment. The government would also have us believe that the existence of the general's relationship with Paula Broadwell, an unknown military scholar who wrote a book about him last year, was recently and inadvertently discovered by the FBI while it was conducting an investigation into an alleged threat made by Broadwell to another woman. And the government would as well have us believe that the president learned of all this at 5 p.m. on Election Day.

We now know that the existence of a personal relationship between Broadwell and Petraeus had been suspected and whispered about by his senior-level colleagues and by his personal staff in the military, who worried that it might become publicly known, since before the time that he came to run the CIA.

We also know that when he was nominated to run the CIA, that nomination was preceded by a two-month FBI-conducted background check that likely would have revealed the existence of his relationship with Broadwell. The FBI agents conducting that background check surely would have seen his visitor logs while he commanded our troops and would have interviewed his military colleagues and regular visitors and those colleagues who knew him well and worked with him every day, and thus learned about his personal life. That's their job.

And that information would have been reported immediately to President Obama and to the Senate Intelligence Committee, prior to Petraeus' formal nomination and prior to his Senate confirmation hearing.

In the modern era, office-holders with forgiving spouses simply do not resign from powerful jobs because of a temporary, non-criminal, consensual adult sexual liaison, as the history of the FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and Clinton presidencies attest. So, why is Petraeus different? Someone wants to silence him.

Petraeus told the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on September 14, 2012, that the mob attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, three days earlier, was a spontaneous reaction of Libyans angered over a YouTube clip some believed insulted the prophet Muhammad. He even referred to that assault—which resulted in the murders of four Americans, now all thought to have been CIA agents—as a "flash mob." His scheduled secret testimony this week before the same congressional committees will produce a chastened, diminished Petraeus who will be confronted with a mountain of evidence contradicting his September testimony, perhaps exposing him to charges of perjury or lying to Congress and causing substantial embarrassment to the president.

It's obvious that someone was out to silence Petraeus. Who could believe the government version of all this? The same government that wants us to believe that FBI agents innocently and accidentally discovered the Petraeus/Broadwell affair a few months ago and confronted Petraeus with his emails a few weeks ago is a cauldron of petty jealousies. From the time of its creation in 1947, the CIA has been a bitter rival of the FBI. The two agencies are both equipped with lethal force, they both often operate outside the law, and they are each seriously potent entities. Their rivalry was tempered by federal laws that until 2001 kept the CIA from operating in the U.S. and the FBI from operating outside the U.S.

In one of his many overreactions to the events of 9/11, however, President George W. Bush changed all that with an ill-conceived executive order that unlawfully unleashed the CIA inside the U.S. and the FBI into foreign countries. Rather than facilitating a cooperative spirit in defense of individual freedom and national security, this reignited their rivalry. FBI agents, for example, publicly exposed CIA agents whom they caught torturing detainees at Gitmo, and Bush was forced to restrain the CIA.

Isn't it odd that FBI agents would be reading the emails of the CIA director to his mistress and that the director of the FBI, who briefs the president weekly, did not make the president aware of this? The FBI could only lawfully spy on Petraeus by the use of a search warrant, and it could only get a search warrant if its agents persuaded a federal judge that Petraeus himself—not his mistress—was involved in criminal behavior under federal law.

The agents also could have bypassed the federal courts and written their own search warrant under the Patriot Act, but only if they could satisfy themselves (a curious and unconstitutional standard) that the general was involved in terror-related activity. Both preconditions for a search warrant are irrelevant and would be absurd in this case.

All this—the FBI spying on the CIA—constitutes the government attacking itself. Anyone who did this when neither federal criminal law nor national security has been implicated and kept the president in the dark has violated about four federal statutes and should be fired and indicted. The general may be a cad and a bad husband, but he has the same constitutional rights as the rest of us.

No keen observer could believe the government's Pollyanna version of these events. When did the CIA become a paragon of honesty? When did the FBI become a paragon of transparency? When did the government become a paragon of telling the truth?

The tricky nature of investigating Gen. Allen's emails

Security Clearance/ By Barbara Starr

A U.S. official familiar with the content of the e-mails Gen. John Allen sent to Jill Kelley described them as "embarrassing" and warranting the investigation that has been launched.

"They are embarrassing. If they got out, John Allen would be very embarrassed by them," according to the official, who emphasized that there is no evidence of "physical contact between the two."

The official noted that the e-mails that are under investigation - which have been called "potentially inappropriate" - are from Allen. It is Allen's e-mails that are under investigation, and the official did not know the content of any of Kelley's e-mails to Allen.

"The e-mails are concerning enough to warrant an investigation," the official said.

A second U.S. official, who has had the e-mails described to him, characterized the content as "sexy," but emphasized he could not say whether they "crossed the line."

They "are not the type of e-mails you would want your wife to read," the second official explained.

But a senior official close to Allen told CNN's Nick Paton Walsh Tuesday that there was nothing pointing or referring to sex or an affair or anything of a romantic nature. Allen may have said, informally, "thanks sweetheart" in an e-mail, the official close to Allen insisted.

"Anyone who knows him knows his style - he has a habit of replying to every single e-mail (he is sent). Kelley would e-mail his business and personal accounts," that official said.

It will be up to the Defense Department’s inspector general to decide specifically if the content of the e-mails is so inappropriate that they would be considered conduct unbecoming an officer, according to a third source, a senior U.S. official. This official pointed out this may be a very difficult matter to decide because everyone has a personal definition of what is "affectionate, admiration, all the way to what some might define as sexting."