Mattis is a mixed bag. He criticizes both Obama and Trump because he’s programmed himself to think military assets stationed overseas in perpetuity is an order from on high.
He has criticized Trump for not factoring in the ‘continued good will’ that binds America to its allies.
What the hell does ‘continued good will’ mean?
Why was Mattis fired by Trump?
How was Trump able to show Mattis was an out-of-step hack?
I’ll answer all but first a few sentences about Trump’s history.
Trump is more than a managing builder. He’s a working stiff that can hang sheet rock with the best of them, seriously. His father Fred made his son work his frickin *ss off, Saturdays included. Young Donald was told he had to work for the electric foreman, the plumbing foreman, the framers and the whole gamut and that he wouldn’t advance until the trade pros certified him. In other words Donald is an experienced journeyman.
This was also Rickover’s style to which I and others were thrown in to see if we would survive. So I can understand where POTUS is coming from.
Secondly, Donald attended the NY Military Academy where he was subjected to a hardass drill sergeant that impacted him greatly in his life.
The long and short is Donald was not some princely fairy strutting around looking down on workers. He was one of them. And his military background sent him off to a lifetime pursuit of studying military history and strategy.
Donald’s IQ is also at the genius level. A blue collar billionaire genius is what he is who understands military tactics and strategies with the best of them.
Where does Donald get all his positivity from? How is it that a man can put up with the never-ending stream of bullsh*t in DC and still have good will in his heart?
His only downtime under the grueling work ethic of his father was on Sunday mornings at the Presbyterian Church in Queens. And who was the pastor?
Norman Vincent Peale.
Look him up. He wrote many famous books one of which was titled ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’.
So now we know.
But one more thing. When father Fred began to bring Journeyman Donald into the managerial and finance ranks, what did he train his son to do?
He trained his son to never take a manager’s word at face value, always slip off to the workers in the field and get their take too. That way Donald would not be insulated and prone to making bad decisions because getting the information from all levels would gain him the full view.
So President Trump lets it be known he wants these perpetual wars to end. He promised the American people he would destroy ISIS and bring the troops home.
Only Mattis looked at POTUS as a neophyte who didn’t know the reality. Mattis was wrong.
Trump asked Mattis how long would it take to defeat ISIS so that America’s troops could be brought home.
Mattis said at least two years and then gave the President an enormous budget figure to get it done.
As President Donald Trump sat alone over Christmas in the White House last year waiting for Democrats to get their *sses to work but who were instead off partying in the Virgin Islands, Florida, Belize, Costa Rica and so on, he secretly slipped out on AF-1 to fly into Iraq where it was so dangerous the runway lights had to be off. When the plane landed, the President immediately met commanders on the ground and he asked the same question:
How long will it take us to defeat ISIS?
The answer from the field commanders was that if given full authority to wage war on their terms, it would take 2 weeks.
Trump returned to the lonely White House and fired Mattis.
Now I come from a military family and I get Mattis. I get the mindset and I don’t wish him any disrespect. In contrast, my mother’s first cousin was a 4-star USMC General who was a WWII decorated hero for heroic actions in Guadalcanal. He was also famous for his simple words one of which he said “The reason I’m so mean is because I like to see things done right.”
But Mattis is a product of the Vietnam ‘police action’ and not the WWII ‘kill every last one of them and kill ‘em again to be sure’.
I imagine Mattis was effective in his way of doing things. His way of doing things was not so much kill, kill, and kill again as it was to set up a military business model that had business operations, administrators, executives, PR professionals, and lots and lots and lots of money sloshed around to locals and regional top dogs who came to think they could get rich from America’s military presence, the American military was awesome, etc. etc. etc.
That was Mattis.
So Eddie01 is Ok to fire away at Mattis but he’s got to know why it’s Ok.
Me, I would hold my fire. There’s not much political capital to gain by taking down Mattis and like the writer hints at, the democrats would love to have Mattis squawking against TRUMP for the 2020 upcoming drama.
Interesting info there!
Why did we never hear these details before?
What I find interesting here is that we wait over 5 years to hear anything derogatory against the kenyan. Compare that to a wait of about 5 minutes for a leak designed to stymie the policy of a current POTUS. If the Deep State didn’t have double standards they’d have no standards at all.
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“Why was Mattis fired by Trump?”
Trump didn’t fire Mattis. Obama once fired Mattis, Trump never did.
“Trump returned to the lonely White House and fired Mattis.”
Except that he didn’t. Mattis resigned saying that Trump had the right to a Sec Def more aligned with his views.
“(Mattis) way of doing things was not so much kill, kill, and kill again as it was to set up a military business model that had business operations, administrators, executives, PR professionals, and lots and lots and lots of money sloshed around to locals and regional top dogs who came to think they could get rich from America’s military presence, the American military was awesome, etc. etc. etc.”
It would be hard to compose something as contrary to the facts as that. Mattis actual views aren’t hard to find:
https://www.heritage.org/middle-east/commentary/did-trump-really-beat-isis
“Secretary of Defense James Mattis outlined that President Trump “delegated authority to the right level to aggressively and in a timely manner move against enemy vulnerabilities.” This meant that when those on the ground requested airstrikes, fewer layers of sign-off were required; the approval process was decentralized and, subsequently, faster.
“Administration officials cite a March 2017 example of when U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, a Kurdish and Arab fighting force battling ISIS) asked for U.S. air transport for a surprise operation in Taqba, a Syrian town on the Euphrates and where ISIS controlled a dam. Those on the ground gave approval immediately, and the U.S. quickly air-lifted the SDF fighters. Located just twenty-five miles from Raqqa, the taking of Taqba was a major stepping-stone in the overall push into Raqqa.
“Mattis has also said that another change was a “shift from shoving ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding the enemy in their strongholds so we can annihilate ISIS.”
And here:
“By taking the time up front to surround these locations, instead of simply shoving them (ISIS) from one to another and actually reinforcing them as they fall back, based on the recommendation that we made and the direction that President Trump took we now take the time to surround them. And why do we do it?
“Because the foreign fighters are the strategic threat should they return home to Tunis, to Kuala Lumpur, to Paris, to Detroit, wherever. Those foreign fighters are a threat. So by taking the time to deconflict, to surround and then attack, we carry out the annihilation campaign so we don’t simply transplant this problem from one location to another.
“And that’s the approach we take that — that basically threads the needle on a very complex battlefield.
I Goolaged it, but the results are scanty.
Great post, and it explains a great many things.
Great post!! Thanks.
great post! Thanks! I always wondered why Trump fired Mattis...your explanation sounds right! having worked at command posts in hot zones I get the disconnect between the Pentagon and reality on the ground. I always figured Mattis did not do what Trump wanted and that can cut both ways. The opposite can always be true that the guys in the rear with the gear can have a better overall common operating picture (I believe it is called), but ISIS was pretty one dimensional. Just kill ‘em...which is what we did!