"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all"-Mattis
— Drew McCoy (@_Drew_McCoy_) July 8, 2010
President-elect Trump is expected to announce retired 4-star general James Mattis as secretary of defense early next week, the Washington Post reports:
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis to be secretary of defense, according to people familiar with the decision, nominating a former senior military officer who led operations across the Middle East to run the Pentagon less than four years after he hung up his uniform.
To take the job, Mattis will need Congress to pass new legislation to bypass a federal law stating that defense secretaries must not have been on active duty in the previous seven years. Congress has granted a similar exception just once, when Gen. George C. Marshall was appointed to the job in 1950. –WP
Mattis, a four decade veteran of the Marine Corps, is known as an aggressive tactician with a penchant for rooting out and destroying terrorists instead of allowing them to fire on US troops. Furthermore, Mattis has serious reservations about Iran, and I suspect he’d have no problem turning the country into a glowing parking lot. Whether this rhetoric will be tempered by Trump’s stated desire to play nice with Russia has yet to be seen, as we know Iran and Russia have become close in recent months while the world tries to boost the price of oil to avoid catastrophe. This could pose quite the dilemma, so hopefully we can find a way to cooperate while regaining respect in the region.
“In terms of strengthening America’s global standing among European and Mideastern nations alike, the sense is that America has become somewhat irrelevant in the Middle East, and we certainly have the least influence in 40 years”
If the USA is going to continue to buy oil from the Middle East, we need to remain relevant, ideally without resorting to region-destabilizing regime change. Let’s not kid ourselves about why we’re there, or why it’s in everybody’s best interest to cut the bullshit and focus on wiping out ISIS without surreptitiously surrounding an old enemy who simply wants to control the flow of energy into Europe. Alternative energy programmes and the passage of time will eliminate that issue altogether, and Russia can go pound sand.
Putin also just rolled out a brand new long range nuke dubbed Satan II, so let’s not get biblical over liquefied combustible dinosaur food.
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As active duty military, it’s difficult for me to express how strongly I endorse this decision. Mattis is a fucking legend – believe the hype, because it’s all real.
“Genius!” “Smartest in the world!” “Doctors and Engineers that can fucking fly!” The talking points are getting odd on those work visas and refugees. Silicon Valley is about to panic. Maybe.
“as we know Iran and Russia have become close in recent months while the world tries to boost the price of oil to avoid catastrophe”
Going against Iran is going against Russia is going with Saudi Arabia which is why ISIS exists in the first place.
Contras in Nicaragua killed kids with CIA money. Even Trump said it himself… albeit in an overly simplified rant… Obama created ISIS.
More likely the CIA did as they usually do. WW3 is on schedule. Neither Trump nor Mattis nor Putin can change that. I’m not entirely convinced they want to.
Won’t be their kids bleeding out in the sand
Don’t like idea of recently retired general in civilian position. Should have picked him as national security advisor instead of the excitable Flynn.
Soros, what you said is true, and Turkey in Syria suggests *something* is on schedule – maybe not WWIII. Perhaps Russia will allow the Saudi pipeline if the USA no longer controls Turkey. Erdogan is Russia’s chess piece now.