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A BRITISHER’S VIEW: Be Penta-gone, Chuck Hagel

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By Shavana Abruzzo

Brooklyn Daily

Our sworn enemies would like nothing better than to destroy America, leaving liberty lovers at the mercy of barbaric bandits whose beliefs are at odds with every ideal that ever coursed through a noble human vein.

One person who can help prevent that calamity also happens to be the most important cabinet member on earth — the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

That appointee is boss of our Armed Forces, making it critical that he or she is someone feared by rogue regimes — like the Islamic Republic of Iran, which remains on the State Department list of terror sponsors, has increased its terror-related activities in recent years according to the agency, and has built a nuclear bomb with enough weapons-grade uranium and plutonium for more, claims a spy in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit.

Small wonder then that red flags shoot up when Tehran’s foreign minister endorses President Obama’s nomination of former Nebraskan Sen. Chuck Hagel to the pivotal post.

Hagel is a brave and decorated Vietnam veteran who deserves high praise for his national service, but his legislative judgements are another matter.

He urged President Obama to begin direct talks with Hamas a terror group that doesn’t deserve the importance — and refused to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization, although the group has a history of terrorist attacks against the U.S.

He wasn’t on board with former President George W. Bush spotlighting Iran’s nuclear program at a world summit, and he shrank away from pressuring the Palestinian Authority into forbidding terror groups from participating in elections.

Moreover, Hagel refused to acknowledge violence against Israel, or support that nation — our only real ally in the Middle East, stating “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” on Capitol Hill.

Hagel’s views are lethal at a time when the U.S. is at war with Islam’s omnipresent fanatics. They have boosted virulent pro-Muslim groups like the Council for American Islamic Relations, which has said, “Potential presidential candidates for 2008, like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Joe Biden, and Newt Gingrich, were falling all over themselves to express their support for Israel. The only exception to that rule was Sen. Chuck Hagel.”

Last November the council slapped America — the land that houses and feeds its venom — by conferring an empowerment award to the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, an Islamist group known for its anti-U.S. rhetoric, and desire to topple Israel.

The Secretary of Defense is a critical gun in our arsenal of leaders whose split-second decisions can make or break us, and the forthcoming one should be prepared to take on jihadists seeking to delegimitize the U.S. and its allies. Or else how long before Malaysia’s recent ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah” comes to these shores?

Chuck Hagel’s pandering views demonstrate that he is not likely to be an improvement on departing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who idled while terrorists torched the U.S. embassy in Libya on 9-11, prompting a Senate report to conclude that the Pentagon chief acted “long after the terrorist attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi had ended and four Americans had been killed.”

https://twitter.com/#!/BritShavana

Reach Shavana Abruzzo's column every Friday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail her at sabruzzo@cnglocal.com. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/BritShavana

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