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Secretary of Defense James Mattis was asked on Thursday to provide an update on the U.S. military’s fight against the Islamic State — and he responded with a quote that will surely be added to his list of classics: “We’re winning. They’re losing,” Mattis told a reporter. {..snip..}

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. President Donald Trump, unimpressed by the Afghanistan war options presented to him during a White House meeting with his full national security team Wednesday, suggested they may have to go back to the drawing board to craft a strategy that does not mirror the failed ones employed by his predecessors, said an administration official. The meeting came as the Pentagon briefed lawmakers about plans to increase the U.S. military footprint in the country. Contrary to mainstream media claims that the president has taken a completely hands-off approach to the 16-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, Trump presided...

The U.S. Army is telling women soldiers that they need to accept gender-confused, biological men in their showers, bathrooms, and barracks as part of a controversial policy to build “dignity and respect” for “transgender Soldiers.” The guidance is part of the Pentagon’s new “transgender inclusion” agenda launched by Obama and gaining ground in the Armed Services. Social conservatives are mounting a counteroffensive to ditch the “trans” program altogether. President Trump and the Pentagon have sent mixed signals on LGBT issues, with the DoD honoring gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender “pride” month in June even as Trump himself broke with Obama by not issue a...

© Greg Nash The House voted Thursday against banning the Pentagon from providing transition-related medical care to transgender troops. The body rejected the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on a 209-214 largely party line vote. The amendment outraged Democrats, who called it ignorant, mean-spirited and denigrating, while Republicans argued the Pentagon should not be spending its money on such medical care. Transgender troops currently in the military have been able to serve openly since last year. The policy also allows them to receive any treatment deemed medically necessary, including surgery and hormone therapy. Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s...

A new diplomatic and military policy for Libya that could significantly expand US involvement in the country could be finalized by the Trump administration in the next few weeks, according to two US officials. The policy, if approved, would aim to further the existing US goal of supporting reconciliation between rival factions in eastern and western areas of Libya. The policy could also lead to the eventual re-opening of the US embassy and the establishing of a new intelligence sharing effort led by US special forces, according to the officials.

After obtaining his contact information through its accidental exposure by the Washington Post, The MIHS Islander contacted Secretary of Defense James Mattis for an interview. Two companion pieces to this article, a description and reflection on the experience of getting and conducting the interview as well as a feature on the connection between education and radicalization according to Mattis, have been published online. Mattis is a retired four-star Marine Corps general who additionally spent time as the NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Transformation and commander of the United States Central Command responsible for operations in the Middle East, Northeast Africa,...

Female soldiers must give “dignity and respect” to transsexual men who join them in their shared shower rooms, according to training manuals leaked by soldiers in a mandatory class. But this “dignity and respect” is a one-way street, according to the training slides, which were developed by officials working for former President Barack Obama. “Transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers,” according to the slides, which were first leaked by TheFederalist.com:The insistence that women remain mute when a man enters their shower room...

The Pentagon said Wednesday that the ICBM fired by North Korea was a first-of-its-kind missile that the U.S. had not seen before and represented a dangerous escalation of the threat posed by the regime of Kim Jong Un. "This act demonstrates that North Korea poses a threat to the United States and our allies, and we remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies and to use the full range of our capabilities at our disposal against the growing threat from North Korea," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

WASHINGTON—A few days after President Donald Trump gave his Pentagon chief the unilateral authority last month to send thousands of American troops to Afghanistan at his own discretion, the White House sent classified guidance that effectively limits the number of forces. The memo, sent to a small group of administration officials from national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster —said that the president would let Defense Secretary Jim Mattis send no more than 3,900 troops to Afghanistan without coming back to confer with the White House, according to people familiar with the document. The conflicting messages reflect divisions that have...

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) condemned the Trump administration on Saturday for issuing a delay in allowing transgender soldiers to serve in the military. Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, called the Pentagon's move "outrageous" and argued it was done "without providing any evidence." “It is outrageous that the Trump Administration would issue a delay in allowing transgender Americans to serve openly in our military without providing any evidence to support such a decision," Hoyer said in a statement.

The Secretary of Defense has frozen a decision by former President Barack Obama to recruit transgender soldiers this year, and a new poll shows the planned recruitment freeze is very popular. Two of every three swing voters say the Pentagon should postpone plans to accept “transgender” people who are trying to live as members of the opposite sex, according to the new poll by Rasmussen Reports. Defense Secretary James Mattis explained his July 30 decision to delay Obama’s plan for six months, just before it was to begin operating: Since becoming the Secretary of Defense, I have emphasized that the...

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has decided to delay until next year a decision on whether to move forward with a policy that allows transgender people to enlist in the military.Transgender service members have been allowed to serve openly in the military since last year. But former Defense Secretary Ash Carter set a July 1 deadline for the four military services to write their own policies to allow them to accept new transgender troops. "Secretary Mattis today approved a recommendation by the services to defer accessing transgender applicants into the military until Jan. 1, 2018," said Dana W. White, a Pentagon...

A House Republican has withdrawn, for now, an amendment to repeal President Barack Obama’s lifting of a ban on transgender troops, but warned Defense Secretary James Mattis that he must act to restore the longtime exclusion or face a legislative revolt. The amendment did provide conservatives on the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday night a forum to condemn the former president’s decision on grounds it will drive up medical costs, reduce combat readiness and subject troops to embarrassing encounters. Mr. Mattis faces a Saturday deadline, inherited from former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to approve the recruitment of transgender people....

Pentagon officials are welcoming the greater autonomy and decision-making authority under President Trump, after what they say were years of Obama administration micromanaging. Within the hallways and offices of the Pentagon, top military brass and national security leaders have lauded the actions taken by the Trump administration, saying privately that the Defense Department now has an opportunity to take the fight to America’s enemies after being freed from the White House’s heavy yoke under President Obama. Mr. Trump’s decision to grant Defense Secretary James Mattis the authority to set U.S. troop levels for Afghanistan and the fight against Islamic State...

U.S. retired general and Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, has said the policy of the American military now in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq is moving from one of attrition to one of annihilation. The Leftist media doesn’t like this so much. The Washington Post in particular yesterday was upset that Mattis is annihilating the terrorists so effectively. “A military policy run solely by the Pentagon creates confusion,” writes the Post. One reason the Left is upset is that having a warrior in charge of fighting a war shows how incompetent and purposefully feckless the Obama administration...

"We have already shifted from attrition tactics where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria, to annihilation tactics where we surround them." "Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa – we are not going to allow them to do so," he added. "We are going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate." He explained "attrition is where you keep pushing them out of the areas that they are in." "What we intend to do...

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The U.S. Department of Defense has confirmed that a U.S. counter-terrorism airstrike conducted March 19 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, resulted in the death of Qari Yasin, a well-known al Qaida terrorist leader responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent victims, including two American service members. Yasin, a senior terrorist figure from Balochistan, Pakistan, had ties to Tehrik-e Taliban and had plotted multiple al Qaida terror attacks, including the Sept. 20, 2008, bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed dozens of innocent people, among them U.S. Air Force Maj. Rodolfo I. Rodriguez and Navy Cryptologic Technician Third Class...

As a point of law, Mattis has no authority himself under Trump’s order to grant visas. That falls to DHS and the State Department under section 3(g), although it would be … weird if any of the Pentagon’s recommendations for exemptions from the travel ban were to be turned down.Mattis reportedly wasn’t consulted while the order was being drafted, which may help explain his (alleged) annoyance at it. Two thumbs up for the crack Trump political team in cutting the single most respected member of their natsec team out of the policymaking process. I wonder how many more Bannon-style...

Newly minted Secretary of Defense James Mattis celebrated his first full day at the Pentagon by overseeing 31 strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Mattis entered the Pentagon Saturday with a smile for his first full day of work, and for good reason, considering the significant bombardment ISIS forces received. A variety of fighters, bombers and remotely piloted aircraft engaged in the bombing run, which saw 25 strikes in Syria and six in Iraq. In Syria, two strikes destroyed ISIS units and artillery near the town of Bab. ISIS forces in Raqqa, the terrorist group’s de facto capital,...