President Trump says he wanted to take out Syria's Assad but Mattis opposed it

The Hill ^ | September 15, 2020 | Brett Samuels

[White Lives Matter]

President Trump on Tuesday confirmed a plan was in the works to take out Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017 and that he was supportive of it, but that former Defense Secretary James Mattis was opposed.

The president's disclosure that an assassination operation was discussed came as part of a lengthy diatribe against Mattis, but it confirmed a piece of reporting from 2018 that Trump disputed at the time.

“I would've rather taken him out. I had him all set. Mattis didn’t want to do it. Mattis was a highly overrated general," Trump said on "Fox & Friends."

[White Lives Matter]

Wow! I wonder how Russia would have reacted if Assad was taken out?

[DPMD]

A separate article reports that over 200 military leaders wrote and signed a letter supporting President Trump. So mattis and mullen can smoke that in their crack pipes.

[dainbramaged]

Mad Dog is doing face mask commercials these days.

[VideoDoctor]

"Mad Dog" Mattis turns out to be a GAY POODLE!

[PGalt]

Mad Dog is like Old Yeller. He got the ‘rona.

[ocrp1982]

There are no Grant’s,Pershing’s, Patton’s, MacArthurs, Puller’s, etc... in our military. Such men would be shunned in today’s military as pariahs and neanderthals.

[Red Badger]

The Russians would have just gotten another puppet...................

[Buckeye McFrog]

So, confirmation that the Pentagon is full of insubordinates.

[Leaning Right]

> I wonder how Russia would have reacted if Assad was taken out? <

And who would have replaced Assad? Such things are risky. For example, Tzar Nicholas II was an autocrat. But his replacement (Lenin) was much, much worse.

[Chengdu54]

I think that would have been a huge mistake.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

I normally trust President Trump, but taking out Assad is pulling an Obama. And announcing it to the world … I don't know. 3D chess is above my pay grade.
 

[Little Ray]

I would have opposed it, too.
Assad was as close to a “good guy” as could be found in Syria.

[gandalftb]

General Mattis was right. Without Assad, Turkey would greatly expand their invasion and the Christians would have little cover.
........
Of course Assad is a brutal dictator, but he takes care of his friends and that is providing the only stability in Syria right now.
...........
Without Assad, the Kurds and ourselves would be in an all out war of extermination with Turkey.

[Zhang Fei]

[Wow! I wonder how Russia would have reacted if Assad was taken out? ]

---

The same way it reacted when hundreds of its men were killed in Syria. Outrage. Then nothing. Remember how we reacted when Russian client state North Korea took the USS Pueblo hostage? And Russian client state Cambodia took the SS Mayaguez hostage? No one’s going to general war over tiny stakes like these. A clash or two to even things up, sure. But anything beyond that is pure Hollywood scriptwriter heavy breathing.

[pepsi_junkie]

I'm not sure taking out Assad would have been the best thing. Hillary took out Gaddafi and opened up Libya to chaos that let radicals open their ports and directly created the mass migrations into Europe, not to mention setting the whole region on fire.

Killing Assad? And then what?

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Mattis' job was to give advice/recommendations, and Trump's job is to make the decisions. If Mattis gave advice, and Trump went along with it...that's on Trump.

In any case, if I'm Trump, I'd be happy with the destruction of ISIS, regardless of what happened with Assad.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: President Trump says he wanted to take out Syria’s Assad but Mattis opposed it

OK, you take out Assad, who replaces him?

Are we going to do another Iraq again?

[Flavious_Maximus]

Assad is the only one protecting the Arab Christians.

Don’t know why Trump is talking publicly about assassinating foreign heads of state. Unless he is trying to smoke someone out.

He should have a subordinate (Pence?) do that type of talking.

[CaptainK]

Trump is giving mixed messages in this interview, first he was thinking about taking Assade out but then he didn’t.

It’s a good thing to keep Dictators in the dark about you true intensions.

[nbenyo]

Bad idea. Mattis was right.

Another unfortunate distraction from the winning message of JOBS NOT MOBS.