When Hagel said ‘war is bigger than politics,’ he wasn’t kidding

August 19, 2005

Just a month ago, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) chatted with the New York Times Sunday Magazine, shortly after telling U.S. News that the White House’s policies in Iraq are “completely disconnected from reality.” He added, “The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.”

The NYT gave Hagel a chance to reverse course, but he stood his ground. “If someone says I am a disloyal Republican because I am not supporting my party, let them say it,” Hagel said. “War is bigger than politics.”

Yesterday, Hagel solidified his role as the only Republican I can think of who’s making sense when it comes to Iraq.

Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, acknowledged the U.S. military presence was becoming harder and harder to justify. He believes Iraq faces a serious danger of civil war that would threaten Middle East stability, and said there is little Washington can do to avert this.

“We are seen as occupiers, we are targets. We have got to get out. I don’t think we can sustain our current policy, nor do I think we should,” he said at one stop.

That was at a local Nebraska event in which Hagel was speaking to a constituent. Would he say the same thing to a national television audience? Yes.

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska on Thursday said the United States is “getting more and more bogged down” in Iraq and stood by his comments that the White House is disconnected from reality and losing the war.

The longer U.S. forces remain in Iraq, he said, the more it begins to resemble the Vietnam war.

Hagel mocked Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion in June that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes,” saying the U.S. death toll has risen amid insurgent attacks.

“Maybe the vice president can explain the increase in casualties we’re taking,” the Nebraskan told CNN. “If that’s winning, then he’s got a different definition of winning than I do.”

Sounds to me like Hagel’s position — our current policy is untenable, we have to get out, Cheney’s insane — should be the Dems’ position.

Hagel also said Bush should meet with Cindy Sheehan.

Sheehan “deserves some consideration, and I think that should have been done right from the beginning,” Hagel said, noting that Bush did meet with her shortly after her son’s death last year.
“I think the wise course of action, the compassionate course of action, the better course of action would have been to immediately invite her in to the ranch. It should have been done when this whole thing started. Listen to her.”

  • And that’s why we should have elected a soldier and war hero instead of a drunk draft dodger who has no idea what war is about. It’s one of the most unfortunate myths that the GOP is pro-military and the Democrats intend to gut it.

    Full disclosure: I’ve never been in the military, and I have no intention to lay my life on the line for the guy sitting in the White House now. Maybe for someone who respects soldiers.

  • Rian,

    Right on, that we have a drunk/addicted draft dodger. Forgive me, but this is going to be a rather long rant from a Vietnam era blue-collar progressive.

    Like you, I never served in the military, but my Vietnam draft lottery number was 36; I had only one deferment while in college (unlike Cheney, I worked full time to pay my way, as I was the 7th child out of 12 kids, and none of the others could afford to go); I avoided the draft only because Congress cancelled it when they cancelled funding for the war in 1972 (I graduated college in 1973); and I have a son that right now is a Lt. in the Marine Corps, getting training as a Naval Flight Officer to fly F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets.

    I came to adolescence and adulthood during Vietnam — graduated high school in 1969, the worst year for lost troops in that God-forsaken misadventure — and remember the bitter debates and protests. The draft was the reason that college campuses were the epicenter of the anti-war movement, and I especially remember the protests at Ann Arbor and East Lansing, each just an hour away from my hometown. Toss in the riots in Detroit in 1967 (an hour and a half away) along with Kent State in May 1970, ALL after the heartbreak and the death of hope when first JFK was gunned down in 1963 and then Bobby in 1968 just two months after Martin Luther King, Jr. — and there was a seething cauldron in America that cannot be communicated by TV documentaries, or school books, or pundits. I’m sorry to sound like an old goat, but unless it was something you experienced first-hand, it is just not possible to understand and fully appreciate the breadeth and depth of the fear, the outrage, the confusion, and the real lack of political leadership at all levels, that existed during those times — and the “shared vales” (as sociologists will tell you) that resulted (just as happened for “the greatest generation,” which was forged in the dual blast furnaces of the Great Depression and World War II).

    John Kerry tried, but he was drowned out by the Swift Boat Liars and a pathetic CCCP (Compliant Complicit Corporate Press), and the Rethugs who thought it was more important to win a political campaign than to stop the loss of lives and money down the rathole in Iraq. KERRY knew what Vietnam was, and had the courage of his convictions to BOTH honor his duty to his country by volunteering to go to Vietnam for dangerous duty AND then to honor his fellow troops by very publicly and effectively advocating for the end of the war. What did the Rethugs do? We all know, since it is more important for them to “win and be wrong” than to be “right and dead.”

    The MoveOn vigils on Wednesday were unbelievably potent in mobilizing the “silent majority” of Americans to act out against this immoral and illegal war. The Freepers and the RightWingNoiseMachine think they speak for America, just like at “Bush’s Bubble Bashes” — the sychophantic, pre-scripted infomercials at taxpayer expense — where the Chimp “talks to real Americans” AS LONG AS THEY AGREE WITH AND PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO HIM. Well, the polls aren’t wrong — fully 2/3 of Americans think the war was a mistake, that it has not made America more safe, and that Bush and his minions are fucking up the prosecution of the “peace” in Iraq.

    As a vigil diary at dkos noted (last I checked, there were 380 comments detailing various reports from around the country), the REAL protest of this war is finally starting. America finally started to open its collective eyes with poor Terry Schiavo, then with the Social Security BamboozlePalooza Road Tour, and now with his cold, indifferent rebuff to Cindy Sheehan while he is yet again — still? — on vacation. With gasoline near or past $3.00/gallon and oil spiking through the roof, and the disconnect between the Administration’s “raving” about the robust economy while so many are working two or three jobs and still going under (or not working at all), there is another toxic mix for an unpopular President, but of a different kind than in the late 1960’s into the 1970’s. And Bush is even more out of touch with REAL American’s than was Nixon.

    Finally, in one of the Cindy Vigil photos, I saw a sign that gave a name to Bush’s Crawford “ranch” that fits perfectly: “The Lazy W Ranch”!!

    P.S. I propose that we call each of Bush’s “public” “townhall” events by the following intentionally snarky but accurate moniker: BUSH BUBBLE BASH. It sure as hell beats the oxymoronic terms now used, because they sure are not “public” nor are they “townhall” as there are no unscripted questions from anyone who is not a Bush loyalist.

    Each event is just another BUSH BUBBLE BASH.

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