"US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis will be retiring "with distinction" at the end of February, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday." Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46640114 Between this and John Kelly's resignation, we've lost adult supervision in the White House. I fear the wheels are really going to come off the crazy train now. Interesting times, indeed.
Mattis was the one decent man in the Administration that was probably keeping the crazy back. Trump has sold us down the river to Putin and now there's nobody in the White House to stop Trump from doing stupid shit.
Wow, so much winning. I actually agree that we should pull all troops out of Syria (in a controlled way, not just pull everyone out and fuck the Kurds) but it’s never a good sign when your own cabinet members are bailing out at light speed. If the last two years were a dumpster fire, one can only imagine what is to come.
Shouldn't be hardest DC job to fill. Not like it's for Trump's personal atty, chief of staff, or press secretary. Or Hillary's booking agent for her tour, or test listening to Schumer's speeches. Might be tough to get them but good choices on Trump's past list include Generals Keane or Petraeus, Tom Cotton; maybe Jim Talent as long shot.
Why would they want to do it? It's pretty obvious by now that Trump finds little value in actual expertise over his opinion. Working for Trump, and not being a Yes Man, is more likely to be a frustrating career nadir than anything else.
I imagine there'd be people who'd want the status and see it as an opportunity to be in that position and all the supposed prestige that goes with it. After all, we have a pm who was so desperate for the office she willingly put herself through the brexit negotiations.....
Not the people you want in position though. Either weak people, who'll just accede to Trump, arrogant people, thinking they can succeed in saddling the Orange One, or fools who can't recognise the pattern. Assuming we actually get out that glorified golf club, I'm hoping the next set of politicians - bereft of having Brussels to blame for everything - will be of a better quality then what we've got. Between Bad Al Campbell's antics and Brussels' Fall Guy, we've ended up with a collection of used car salesmen and Tupperware hosts running the nation.
So did Obama not value actual expertise over his own opinion when he fired General Mattis as head of Central Command when Mattis disagreed with Obama over Iran? Trump, like every POTUS, gets advice. It's exactly that. It's not orders that Trump has to follow. Than Trump has to make a decision. He made it. Mattis doesn't like it so he resigned. You may not like the decision that Trump made but it's Trump's call. Trump has done a pretty good job taking advice regarding the military these last two years. On this issue though he decided to pull out of Syria and part of Afghanistan. So now he's wrong for not doing what the Generals want?
^Clearly you have not be waking every morning the past 700 days in a cold sweat about Trump, his tweets, or acorns hitting your head misread as falling sky.
I think Syria is a mistake. Afghanistan? Why are we wasting our time there? It's been 18 years. The war there is older than both my kids. With that said though I can understand that Trump doesn't want American troops involved in non-stop wars or in civil wars of other countries. Trump has never been a "warmonger" contrary to what the idiots on the left say about him.
Me too. Though my opinion on it is based on extremely limited information presented by people or sources proven repeatedly to be wrong or inaccurate. Fuck, out of the 2000 or so troops, I can't even do more than guess whether the fighting guys account for more than 500 or so of the men and women in Syria, the rest in support or logistical roles of some kind. Anyone know, or is the entirety of the information available to public derived from often sloppy and half-accurate reports comprised of mainly second hand accounts and unnamed sources?
I think the Syrian troops are "advisors" and training and whatnot for the Syrian army (or whoever we are helping over there). But yes of course no matter what the core mission is you have logistics and security and etc. etc. that takes a lot of manpower.
I couldn't read it - I clicked to make it bigger but it was never big enough to see clearly. Man it would have been so kick-ass if he would have written it in his own blood!
