Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James Mattis for secretary of defense
Source: The Washington Post
By Dan Lamothe December 1 at 4:00 PM
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.
An announcement is likely by early next week, according to the people familiar with the choice.
Mattis, 66, retired as the chief of U.S. Central Command in spring 2013 after serving more than four decades in the Marine Corps. He is known as one of the most influential military leaders of his generation, serving as a strategic thinker while occasionally drawing rebukes for his aggressive talk. Since retiring, he has served as a consultant and as a visiting fellow with the Hoover Institution, a think tank at Stanford University.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-has-chosen-retired-marine-gen-james-mattis-for-secretary-of-defense/2016/12/01/6c6b3b74-aff9-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html?utm_term=.198e681d6838&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation
rzemanfl
(29,540 posts)Ya Mein Fuerher! WTF is with these people? Or does he think 13 + 7=17?
rickford66
(5,498 posts)There will be more laws changed or ignored for the "good of the country".
rzemanfl
(29,540 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,371 posts)Like a son-in-law or a daughter or son of his own?
exboyfil
(17,857 posts)To be overridden only once and that for George Marshall??? Especially will a political neophyte with no international experience (or even political experience). Also his NSA is a recently retired general as well. If Petraeus is SoS then we have the hat trick.
Wow.
What could possibly go wrong.
Folks should read about the Cuban Missile Crisis and think what would have happened if you did not have restraint from the civilian control of the military.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,539 posts)Trump doesn't care about either rules or laws. Or ethics, for that matter.
hedda_foil
(16,368 posts)Another sooper dooper appointment by our very own Hitler in waiting.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Speaking at a professional conference on military transformation, urging the Pentagon to invest in efforts that would "diminish the conditions that drive people to sign up for these kinds of insurgencies." Breaking the Warrior Code (February 2005)
He is not a stupid man. It does concern me that on some level, he is a person who enjoys killing people he has deemed worth killing. That's a scary, troubling thought.
On the other hand, he has history of not wanting to fight when it can be avoided, and he values intellect above brute force.
At the May 2010 JFCOM Conference Ares blog, Aviation Week (June 2010)
And possibly the most encouraging thing he is on record saying;
After the invasion of Iraq -and after sending his tanks and artillery home- Mattis sent this message to the Iraqi leaders in every area his men served in, as quoted in Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) by Thomas E. Ricks; as excerpted in Armed Forces Journal (August 2006)
He strikes me as something of a living weapon, dangerous, but only unleashed in dire need.
Remains to be seen how often he will tell Trump 'Mr. President, sir that is a bad idea.'
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)Mad Dog's +'s:
He's brilliant
He's spent his life studying war, and he's good at it
He's not afraid to speak his mind - if anybody in tRump's cabinet is going to tell him "No sir, you're wrong" it'll be Mattis.
HE HATES PUTIN He has publically claimed that Putin's ultimate goal is to split NATO up.
Mad Dog's -'s:
He's a hard ass on Iran.
Note: He's pretty much worshipped by the rank and file Marines, the currently serving and the veterans of the GWoT.
SQUEE
(1,315 posts)And is very outspoken on his officers needing to learn the ways, mores and beliefs of the people they are fighting against, and fighting for overseas.
He is also very likely to tell Trump to get bent if he ever goes against the Constitution.
He was a General in the mold of Patton and Sherman, and believes waging war should be brutal, but short and focused. This is truly a humane view if you look at it with an open mind.
Neither of those 2 great warriors could navigate the slimy waters of political power, I doubt he will be able to either.
RobinA
(9,878 posts)somebody with actual knowledge and experience slip in here?
Good catch.
Calista241
(5,584 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)MBS
(9,688 posts)Posted around 2 hours ago (~ 7 pm) at
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/?fref=ts
2. Obama fired Mattis, presumably because he was too eager for a military confrontation with Iran. Mattis believes Iran is a worse threat to stability in the Middle East than ISIS. "I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief. Iran is not an enemy of ISIS. They have a lot to gain from the turmoil in the region that ISIS creates."
3. Mattis has criticized President Obama for being naive about Irans intentions and Congress for being pretty much absent on last years nuclear deal, and has argued that the nuclear inspections may fail to prevent Iran from seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but that "If nothing else at least we will have better targeting data if it comes to a fight in the future."
4. Mattis seems to be extraordinarily popular with the troops.
A Secretary of Defense who shoots his mouth off and seems trigger happy would be less worrisome if his boss didn't share the same traits.