Mattis Is Wrong—This Scholar-General Was Right

[Right_in_Virginia]

Mattis Is Wrong—This Scholar-General Was Right
American Greatness, Dec 21, 2018, Joseph Duggan

[...]

Sixteen months ago, Mattis was riding high within a Trump Administration with a different makeup. In August 2017, he joined other top officials in getting the president to postpone carrying out his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

“The game plan agreed upon at Camp David,” said a report in RealClearDefense, “was a triumph for Mattis and [then-national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R.] McMaster, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, a military analyst. The two worked hand-in-hand with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence.”

McMaster had arranged for Pence to cut short an official visit to Latin America, becoming a diplomatic no-show in key capitals in order to join Tillerson and Mattis in strong-arming Trump into postponing the Afghan withdrawal. Four-star General John Kelly, who recently had become White House chief of staff, also was one of the advisers urging Trump to keep American soldiers in Afghanistan.

By caving to a national security adviser he said “looks like a beer salesman” and a chief diplomat he now recalls as “dumb as a rock,” Trump won “Strange New Respect” in The Swamp. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) praised Trump’s decision. Across the aisle, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said it was a positive step inasmuch as it went in the direction McCain wanted to go.

Today Trump is behaving with the shrewdness and self-awareness of a civilian commander-in-chief who knows, with Clemenceau, that war is too important to be left to the generals. Trump recognizes too, with another French leader, Charles de Gaulle, that the cemeteries are full of indispensable men.

Mattis, it must not be denied, is a patriot and a man of learning and intellectual discipline. But he’s not infallible. Military and civilian leaders with comparable qualities have disagreed and will disagree with him.

As the Trump Administration implements the president’s promises to get troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, the wisdom of one of the great Cold War scholar-generals should be a major policy guide.


Read more:  https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/21/mattis-is-wrong-this-scholar-general-was-right/

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA

“If I were a journalist,” Odom began, “I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.”

Odom went on to list the arguments—many of the same arguments Trump heard applied to Afghanistan from Mattis and McCain and McMaster and Kelly and Tillerson and Pence 16 months ago; and the same as we are hearing from almost everywhere today.

Here are a few notes from the familiar refrain, with the essence of Odom’s responses:

[Right_in_Virginia]

many of the same arguments Trump heard applied to Afghanistan from Mattis and McCain and McMaster and Kelly and Tillerson and Pence 16 months ago

This is an interesting peek behind the curtain exposing why four members of the administration are gone or going.  It turns out it's not "chaos" but a clearing of the obstruction to the President's agenda..... the one each of them knew when they accepted their job.

[RoosGirl]

LOL  I am positive you have scoured the internet and found and posted *every* 'Mattis was wrong' article that has been written.

[TomSea]

I'll go with mainstream conservatives, Mark Levine and so on.

Not the 3rd rate analysts who just have a website, whether it be amgreatness, frontpagemag, theamericanconservative.

[DCPatriot]

LOL  I am positive you have scoured the internet and found and posted *every* 'Mattis was wrong' article that has been written.

So what?

How else are we to find balance on the forum?   

[Right_in_Virginia]

LOL  I am positive you have scoured the internet and found and posted *every* 'Mattis was wrong' article that has been written.

Actually, no scouring is necessary.  If you venture a look you'd see you're virtually tripping over them.

[Oceander]

Ahh, the foetid reek of Trumpie Bear desperation.

[Right_in_Virginia]

I'll go with mainstream conservatives, Mark Levine and so on.   Not the 3rd rate analysts who just have a website, whether it be amgreatness, frontpagemag, theamericanconservative. 

Good for you @TomSea 

But you're missing an article on General Odom's opinion.  Granted, he's no Mark Levin or Wolf Blitzer, but wouldn't you agree  he, too, deserves to be "heard"?

Army Lt. General William E. Odom (1932-2008) was one of the bravest and most brilliant military intelligence officers of his generation. An expert on the Soviet Union with a doctorate in political science from Columbia, he was President Ronald Reagan’s director of the National Security Agency, the electronic spying outfit. A thinking man as well as a fighting man, he was one of the architects of what Margaret Thatcher remembered as Reagan’s winning the Cold War “without firing a shot.”

[RoosGirl]

So what?

How else are we to find balance on the forum?   

1.  I never said it was a good or bad thing, just a thing.

2.  I'm positive you are not qualified to speak of balance.

[RoosGirl]

Actually, no scouring is necessary.  If you venture a look you'd see you're virtually tripping over them.

There are a bunch of them, for sure.

[Right_in_Virginia]

FTA @TomSea

  (Common concern) It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.

“The U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.”

The scholar, soldier and strategist whose words our government needs to consider most of all today is the late William Odom, who said presciently:

“Those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.”

[Right_in_Virginia]

Ahh, the foetid reek of Trumpie Bear desperation.

So, you're up for spending another 18 years in Afghanistan @Oceander

Or is your rabid hatred crushing all reason?

[Oceander]

So, you're up for spending another 18 years in Afghanistan @Oceander

Or is your rabid hatred crushing all reason?

I don’t have a rabid hatred for anyone, least of all dear leader Trumpie Bear. 

I’m also not in favor of unilaterally and unexpectedly dumping on allies, either. In other words, while I’m not in favor of staying in Afghanistan another 18 years, I’m also not in favor of doing stupid shit to allies the way Trumpie Bear is doing stupid shit. 

[Absalom]

The usual suspects w/another brain dead tantrum:
* Great nations have neither allies nor friends; they have interests;
and ours are non-existent in the sand dunes of Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
* Mattis, commissioned in 1972, did a few assignments in the M/E. So what?
He never reminded anyone of Alexander.
* The Pentagon, a massive bureaucracy, would never advance policies that
advance the careers of its generals, would it??? Er, ahem..........certainly not!
Some truly need to grow up!!!

[Oceander]

The usual suspects w/another brain dead tantrum:
* Great nations have neither allies nor friends; they have interests;
and ours are non-existent in the sand dunes of Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
* Mattis, commissioned in 1972, did a few assignments in the M/E. So what?
He never reminded anyone of Alexander.
* The Pentagon, a massive bureaucracy, would never advance policies that
advance the careers of its generals, would it??? Er, ahem..........certainly not!
Some truly need to grow up!!!

Pure bullshit.

[Absalom]

Pure bullshit.

----------------------------------------
The first point are the paraphrased words of Lord Palmerston
(Henry Temple) arguably Britain's greatest PM of the 19th century.
The second point is from the Mattis' bio.
The third point is an opinion supported by reality.
Yet it's all bullshit as you know better. Hmm............
What is strange is your compulsion for self-embarrassment.

[TomSea]

The usual suspects w/another brain dead tantrum:
* Great nations have neither allies nor friends; they have interests;
and ours are non-existent in the sand dunes of Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
* Mattis, commissioned in 1972, did a few assignments in the M/E. So what?
He never reminded anyone of Alexander.
* The Pentagon, a massive bureaucracy, would never advance policies that
advance the careers of its generals, would it??? Er, ahem..........certainly not!
Some truly need to grow up!!!

So, you are saying France was not our ally during the Revolution? Mark Levine was harping on this the other night, we may well not have survived the fight against England without the French Navy.

Likewise, we didn't win World War II by itself. You can say, those incidences represented "interests" but that is just an old saw someone made up, "we have interests not allies", I'm not sure how it can be empirically proven that is so.

[Frank Cannon]

Mattis is a military drone parroting the company line that never ending wars in the Middle East somehow make the country stronger. It's first class bullshit. Mattis can't even give a reasonable rational for being there except that is somehow tarnishes US pristige, but can't even elaborate on that.

We have no business over there. If something happens we can easily shift resources to cover the 2000 troops there now. No one can tell me what tangible vital interest destabilizing Middle East countries serves the US. China is actively taking a war footing with us and out allies in the South China Sea. That is where we should be focusing our resources. 

BTW I find it entertaining that a guy that is quoted saying that "it's fun to shoot some people" is being heralded at the "Adult" in the effing WH.

[DB]

To me it is pretty simple. If we gave our word that we would protect some country or group that word should be honored even when the going gets tough unless the other party doesn't want us to or otherwise doesn't honor their end of the deal. We should not give our commitment that we're going to do something willy-nilly.

We told the Iraqi Kurds back in the early 90's that they should rise up against Saddam and that we'd have their back. To our shame they did what we asked them to do and we didn't live up to our end of the deal. Hundreds of thousands of people, men, women and children were slaughtered when we turned tail and got out. That is a serious stain on us.

No ally will trust us in the future when we make a commitment to do something if we just cut and run on the next election cycle here.

In the ISIS era and Syria I have no idea what we committed to. Whatever it was we are obligated to follow through unless the other parties don't honor their end.

[Oceander]

----------------------------------------
The first point are the paraphrased words of Lord Palmerston
(Henry Temple) arguably Britain's greatest PM of the 19th century.
The second point is from the Mattis' bio.
The third point is an opinion supported by reality.
Yet it's all bullshit as you know better. Hmm............
What is strange is yo ur compulsion of self-embarrassment.

Appeal to authority doesn’t diminish the bullshit, just like putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it any the less a pig. 

A nation that doesn’t think it has allies, pretty soon doesn’t have interests, either.  A nation that doesn’t honor and respect its allies as they deserve, soon enough has neither allies nor interests. 

[Frank Cannon]

To me it is pretty simple. If we gave our word that we would protect some country or group that word should be honored even when the going gets tough unless the other party doesn't want us to or otherwise doesn't honor their end of the deal.

Who's we? John McCain? Obama? I sure as shit didn't give my word and I didn't vote or support anyone who did.

[DB]

Who's we? John McCain? Obama? I sure as shit didn't give my word and I didn't vote or support anyone who did.

For better or worse we elect a President that represent us in international affairs. Elections do have consequences. We have an obligation to honor our commitments when peoples lives are on the line. Otherwise our word expires at the next election cycle and is essentially worthless. You won't get much international cooperation on life and death issues if your word is worthless. You don't go to the battle field with fair weather allies.

[Absalom]

So, you are saying France was not our ally during the Revolution? Mark Levine was harping on this the other night, we may well not have survived the fight against England without the French Navy.

Likewise, we didn't win World War II by itself. You can say, those incidences represented "interests" but that is just an old saw someone made up, "we have interests not allies", I'm not sure how it can be empirically proven that is so.

-----------------------------
Reflections from history.
France supported the Colonies (us) because it was in their self-INTEREST to do so
as Britain had been their mortal enemy since its defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
We were successful against the British Empire because:
* We fought an 8 year guerrilla War for which they were unprepared.
* Britain was pre-occupied in Europe w/the Dutch, Spanish, Austrians and French.
* The best British Commanders, such as Wellington, never came to the New World.
Palmerston's words surpass Levin's opinions.

[sneakypete]

BTW I find it entertaining that a guy that is quoted saying that "it's fun to shoot some people" is being heralded at the "Adult" in the effing WH.

@Amb. Frank Cannon

I find it entertaining that a guy that has never shot anyone unless he was maybe executing prisoners would even say such a thing. Mattis was a Colonel before he was ever assigned to a line unit,and Colonels don't do any shooting except for trap,skeet,and golf.