It's Official: Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis for secretary of defense

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: WASHINGTON POST

URL: 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=.d5ff52cf0284

By Dan Lamothe


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.

Like Trump, Mattis favors a tougher stance against U.S. adversaries abroad, especially Iran. The general, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in April, said that while security discussions often focus on terrorist groups such as the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, the Iranian regime is “the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.”

Mattis said the next president “is going to inherit a mess” and argued that the nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration last year may slow Iran’s ambitions to get a nuclear weapon but will not stop them

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[SirLinksALot]

THE MAN IS ALSO BATTLE TESTED:

Mattis, whose nicknames include “Mad Dog” and the “Warrior Monk,” has had a leading hand in some of the U.S. military’s most significant operations in the last 20 years.

As a one-star general, he led an amphibious task force of Marines that carried out a November 2001 raid in helicopters on Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, giving the Pentagon a new foothold against the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Using the call sign “Chaos,” he commanded a division of Marines during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and returned there the following year to lead Marines in bloody street fighting in the city of Fallujah.

[mystery-ak]

I like this pick....bring back some integrity to the Pentagon...get rid of all those Obama suck ups!

[geronl]

The guy who says it's fun killing muslims

he belongs in a padded cell

[Bigun]

I like this pick....bring back some integrity to the Pentagon...get rid of all those Obama suck ups!

I don't think there was a better choice out there!  I'm just surprised that Trump was able to talk the General into taking the job.

[SirLinksALot]

The guy who says it's fun killing muslims

he belongs in a padded cell

Did he say Muslims or Islamic terrorists? There's a difference you know...

[geronl]

Did he say Muslims or Islamic terrorists? There's a difference you know...

If you think it is "fun" killing anybody, you need to be locked away

[geronl]

Did he say Muslims or Islamic terrorists? There's a difference you know...

he said "guys who slap women around", so I guess DEATH PENALTY for domestic abuse is what he wants.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

he said "guys who slap women around", so I guess DEATH PENALTY for domestic abuse is what he wants.

Works for me.

[Right_in_Virginia]

The Trump transition team has issued a statement that no decision has been made on the Sec of Defense position. 

No additional announcements will be made this week.

[SirLinksALot]

The Trump transition team has issued a statement that no decision has been made on the Sec of Defense position. 

No additional announcements will be made this week.

Can you show us the link for the above?

Even CNN is reporting this appointment:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/politics/james-mattis-trump-secretary-of-defense/index.html

So did Steve Bannon's Breitbart:

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/12/01/report-donald-trump-selects-mad-dog-james-mattis-for-defense-secretary/

Even Trump Pal,  Sean Hannity has posted this in his website:

http://www.hannity.com/articles/election-493995/donald-trump-has-chosen-general-james-15351595/

[Maj. Bill Martin]

The guy who says it's fun killing muslims

he belongs in a padded cell

He talked specifically about guys that slap women around because they don't wear a veil.  And it was clearly a reference for hardcore Islamists who did a lot more than just that.  And on that point, he was right.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I don't think there was a better choice out there!  I'm just surprised that Trump was able to talk the General into taking the job.

My guess is that he appealed to the General's sense that the Pentagon needs a major change of attitude/focus, including ensuring that the right people are promoted to senior flag rank, etc..  Probably no better person to accomplish that than Mattis.

[Emjay]

The guy who says it's fun killing muslims

he belongs in a padded cell

I dunno ... I'm kind of liking him.  Probably just a matter of joking in serious situations ... if he actually said it.

[Emjay]

Whatever he said would not disqualify him in my opinion, but I would like to know the exact quote and the circumstances under which he said it.

[corbe]

I dunno ... I'm kind of liking him.  Probably just a matter of joking in serious situations ... if he actually said it.

@Emjay

    Who better to put in Charge of a Department that's, in all probability, gonna be killing allot of Muslims in the next few years, than someone who enjoys doing it.

    This is perfect.

    It's hard for me to believe that Donald got, at least this one, RIGHT!

 

[Emjay]

@Emjay

    Who better to put in Charge of a Department that's, in all probability, gonna be killing allot of Muslims in the next few years, than someone who enjoys doing it.

    This is perfect.

    It's hard for me to believe that Donald got, at least this one, RIGHT!

Yep !!

[Idaho_Cowboy]

I dunno ... I'm kind of liking him.  Probably just a matter of joking in serious situations ... if he actually said it.

Well it used to be the war department after all. 

[NavyCanDo]

The chance of seeing blindfolded Navy hostages held by Iranians over the next 4 years just lowered to 0%

[txradioguy]

@Emjay

    Who better to put in Charge of a Department that's, in all probability, gonna be killing allot of Muslims in the next few years, than someone who enjoys doing it.

    This is perfect.

    It's hard for me to believe that Donald got, at least this one, RIGHT!

IMHO...Donny picked Mattis based on an Internet meme.

To kill all those Muslims he's going to need what the DoD doesn't have enough of right now. And that is money troops and equipment.

There's no guarantee he's going to get what he needs from Congress to achieve the mission goals.

[txradioguy]

The chance of seeing blindfolded Navy hostages held by Iranians over the next 4 years just lowered to 0%

As good as Bush was at fighting terrorism and standing up for America on the world stage...we still suffered the indignity of seeing a Navy flight crew held in a Chinese prison and their surveillance aircraft dismantled before our very eyes.

The people that hate us will test us in 2017.

What's important is how Trump and company respond to it.

That will send the message to the rest of the world that we are either back to being a country that you don't cross or it's four more years of running over us.

I'm praying it's the first message they get and not the second.

[montanajoe]

Gotta give Trump two thumbs up on this one...

[Night Hides Not]

@Emjay

    Who better to put in Charge of a Department that's, in all probability, gonna be killing allot of Muslims in the next few years, than someone who enjoys doing it.

    This is perfect.

    It's hard for me to believe that Donald got, at least this one, RIGHT!

Much better than the staff pukes that ran the Pentagon under Obama.

[ArneFufkin]

The guy who says it's fun killing muslims

he belongs in a padded cell

Congratulations!

You're the most idiotic individual on this site!  Or dishonest.  I rarely read anything you ever write where I don't go: "This is either a troll or a spectacular jerk/jackass."

I remember the video of when he was speaking about this. It was in Washington DC and in front of a Marine oriented dinner conference where Conway and Amos and all the brass were attending.   

At the time, he was a two star and running the Marine Division in Iraq.  He was referring to the tactics of the AQ-I scumbags in Anbar cities like Fallujah, Ramadi etc.  How they used human shields, killed anyone who'd give away their locations etc.

He described the difficulty of fighting this enemy and that's where the quote came from.  When his Marines got that enemy in sight they killed them.  Happily.  And he didn't use "Muslim" because he was influential in the "Anbar Awakening".

So, eff off.

[driftdiver]

Well it used to be the war department after all. 

We're just not used to having a warrior in that position.