Posted on 12/23/2018 9:03:36 AM PST by gwjack
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Defense Secretary James Mattis will depart the Pentagon by January 1, a date earlier than anticipated, and will appoint Patrick Shanahan as acting Secretary.
The president’s announcement, made via Twitter, comes days after Mattis stunned Washington by announcing his resignation, prompted by what the former marine said were policy differences with Trump. Shanahan is the Pentagon’s number 2 official.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I wonder why the accelerated departure, although I think it is always good to separate as soon as possible.
Gwjack
If people don’t want to help President Trump, then by all means, they should leave.
Good bye!
Don’t want to execute the Commander-in-Chief’s orders, then the President will find someone who will.
Well, bye.
Mattis thought he could dictate all the terms. Releasing the snarky resignation letter was not the action of a dedicated military officer operating within the chain of command but of a petulant guy with small mans disease. If he’d worked for me I’d have said GTFO right then. I always immediately escort separations out anyway.
Trump responds by withdrawing troops from Syria and Afghanistan and Mattis departs.
Trump has a trump card up his sleeve.
Euroweenies also take note
Yep, the snarky letter was just asking to be booted quick. He knew what he was doing. Now his successor gets to see what other landmines he left.
If President Trump had given them amy more time, we would've seen chemical attacks "by Assad" in Syria....same old game. They'd gotten even more assured with Bolton in the Administration, I suspect.
Is President Trump finally listening to his true supporters? God, I hope so. He should just do everything he can get done and let the HOR play their impeachment games. If President Trump keeps firm and doing the things he campaigned on, it'll go a long way toward draining the swamp. I'm wondering if a certain relative in the inner circle is advocating Deep State policies, either out of ignorance or being seriously compromised.
Prayers are with President Trump...to get the things done he intended to achieve.
“I read on an earlier thread that Mattis said he could secure Syria or the Border but not both”
Such a dumb rumor. Trump always intended to pull out of ME wars.
Cause and effect
Maybe Mathis was not following the CIC requests.
Net result ...out of ME wars...and a lot of troops freed up.
We don’t need a disgruntled lame duck SOD. Time for a civillian. The. Generals. Failed.
“Cause and effect”
More like correlation is not causation. But I guess people like to imagine things without evidence.
Alberta's Child, P.E.
Technocracy works. At least engineers believe in the real world and results. In that line of work, if you don’t, bridges fail, refineries explode, bad things happen.
I would not be surprised if the president actually fired mattis while giving him the opportunity to save face by writing a resignation letter. I mean after all he is a “respected general”. Regardless I am glad Tillerson and Mattis are gone from the Cabinet.
I think I may have misjudged Trumpa bit.
I always thought of him as a “work within the system” negotiator and a builder.
Maybe he can be the wrecking ball that we need for D.C.
To build, you first need to destroy what’s standing in that spot.
“More like correlation is not causation. But I guess people like to imagine things without evidence.”
What’s the evidence for correlation?
Mulvaney said today that news about the Syria withdrawal was leaked from the DoD, and Trump had to go public with it. I’m guessing the same happened with the Afghanistan draw down. The Swamp Creatures that got us into the Middle East quagmire under Clinton, GWB, and Obama are continuing to make it worse, and Trump’s not having any more of it.
All but one of our aircraft carriers are in their home ports, too.
“McGurk and Mattis are Deep State operatives”
I think it is more the case that they are just so heavily invested in what they have been doing for so long, that they can not bear to change radically from it. They are too fixed in their thinking, too confirmed in their beliefs, and too wedded to the people they have been dealing with. Perhaps just too risk averse - that is the common disease in bureaucracies - analysis paralysis.
It is harder for an expert to change their opinion, than a novice - that’s just human nature.
This is a sudden and shockingly bold (and risky) shift in strategy. All the players in the region are likely scrambling to adapt - not just our old war dogs.
We can only hope that President Trump has the big picture/long term in mind. It might be part of a wider strategy, to settle the Mid-East in a new status quo, with a new Iranian regime and a reformed Saudi regime cutting off material and ideological of the support to militants and extremists, and with normal relations with Israel. Turkey is another issue.
Wish I knew what HOR meant.
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