Hagel’s Past May Be Influencing His Nuclear Policy
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered what is being described in media reports as top-to-bottom changes in how the nation’s nuclear arsenal is managed.
Largely unreported in the coverage of the possible nuclear shakeup is that until his appointment as defense secretary Hagel served on the board of Ploughshares, a George Soros-funded group that advocates a nuclear-free world.
Ploughshares opposes America’s development of a missile-defense system and contributes funds to scores of anti-war groups highly critical of U.S. foreign policy and military expansion.
The fund identifies itself as a “publicly supported foundation that funds, organizes and innovates projects to realize a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons.”
On Friday, the Associated Press reported that Hagel was slated to announce actions to improve nuclear force management, vowing to invest billions of dollars to fix what that the agency described as a force suffering from leadership lapses, security flaws, and sagging morale.
Senior defense officials speaking to the AP said Hagel will propose between $1 billion and $10 billion in additional investments to the nuclear forces, including the replacement of a dated helicopter fleet.
While the exact nature of the investment is unclear and Hagel’s proposed top-to-bottom changes have not yet been specified, the defense secretary’s long-time association with the Ploughshares Fund may be cause for concern.
The fund calls itself “the largest grant-making foundation in the U.S. focusing exclusively on peace and security issues.”
Ploughshares has a long history of anti-war advocacy and is a partner of the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies, which has urged the defunding of the Pentagon and massive decreases in U.S. defense capabilities, including slashing the American nuclear arsenal to 292 deployed weapons.
Poughshares has also partnered with a Who’s Who of the radical left, including Code Pink, the pro-Palestinian J Street, United for Peace & Justice, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the Demos progressive group, where Obama’s former green jobs czar, Van Jones, serves on the board.
Since its founding in 1981 by San Francisco philanthropist and activist Sally Lilienthal, Ploughshares says it has awarded hundreds of grants “whose aggregate value exceeded $60 million.”
The fund is in turn financed by a small number of foundations, including Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Buffett Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Jerusalem Rioters Receive Help From Fatah
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organization has dedicated a fund that is being used to aid and fuel anti-Jewish riots in eastern sections of Jerusalem, Israeli security sources told this column.
The PA is the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars annually in U.S. financial support.
The security sources said part of the Fatah fund finances a committee to collect information on “Arab collaborators,” meaning Arabs who sell property to Jews in East Jerusalem.
The PA has warned numerous times that the sale of land to Jews amounts to “high treason,” a charge that carries the death penalty. It has reportedly carried out extra-judicial killings of Arabs it suspects of such property sales.
In addition, the Israeli security sources said Fatah has been using a dedicated budget to provide legal and financial support to Arab youth arrested protesting Israel in East Jerusalem, including those engaged in violent clashes.
Fatah has further set aside funds to assist Arab rioters who are hiding from Israeli authorities for committing crimes.
Since 2008, the U.S. has provided about $400 million per year on average in economic assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.