For weeks, Mattis had been resisting requests from the White House to provide military options for Iran. Now Trump made clear that he wanted the Pentagon to deliver a range of plans that included striking Iranian ballistic missile factories or hitting Iranian speedboats that routinely harassed U.S. Navy vessels.
“Why can’t we sink them?” Trump would sometimes ask about the boats.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster and his staff laid out the president’s request for Mattis in a conference call, but the defense secretary refused, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. At that point, McMaster took Mattis off speakerphone, cleared his staff from the room and continued the conversation.
“It was clear that the call was not going well,” one official said. In the weeks that followed, the options never arrived.
In his first year in the Pentagon, Mattis has been one of the least visible and most consequential members of Trump’s foreign policy team. In Situation Room meetings, he has established himself as a commanding voice, reining in discussions before they devolve into chaos. State Department ambassadors say they have spent more face-to-face time with him than they have their own boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
A foreign policy establishment that views Trump as erratic and unreliable uniformly praises Mattis.
The current opinion from White House sources is that Mattis in the one Trump cabinet member who is NOT afraid of him.
The problem of course is that Trump sees himself as the master of all he surveys.
How long he is willing to accept the word "no" from Mattis remains to be seen.
He may eventually start to undermine and attack Mattis just like he has undermined and attacked Jeff Sessions, the FBI, and even his own staff members.
When that happens who draws the line in the sand that keeps him from attacking any country that he believes does not pay him the respect he feels he deserves?
I have no doubt whatsoever that the shitbag WILL start a war to inflate his sad tiny dick if not merely to distract from the investigations and also in the hopes that being "a sitting president in a time of war" will confer some protections against criticism and indictment.
ReplyDeleteAnd the blood of every innocent person that dies will be squarely on the hands of the imbeciles who voted for him.
I watched a movie last night, and there were the WTC towers in the opening credits. The anger and sadness bubbled again.
DeleteDubya butt boy of Cheney. I thought I had seen the worst, and here we are again. "I'll show YOU," and what does it matter to them, especially now toddler-in-chief? Innocent lives are collateral damage.
Why ANYONE signs up for the military anymore is beyond me. It is no longer noble; you couldn't find employment anywhere else?
Have at me. I don't care; beyond disgusted, and my Dad served WWII and Korea.
Seconded. Received some B's email from a recruiter. Told him if he talked to my son, I would sue. I consider it an act of treason to serve under the orange shitgibbon illegitimately occupying the Oval Office and answering to Putin while destroying democracy.
DeleteThe people I know (5) who enlisted did so because of the opportunity for free education and career advancement. Maybe not the most "noble", but far from seeking an opportunity to somehow slack off.
DeleteI agree with most of your post, though.
8:59 AM That is sad, very sad. We could have a military where it would be positive to sign up. Education and career advancement are good things and should be available to all.
DeleteWhat Bush/Cheney did to the service is only worse with Trump and it is not improving. There must be better ways for those that would join the military for advancement.
Life and limb for a country is not why we were born into it, 8:59 AM. Some people think so. I do not.
DeleteIt is funny how so many of you believe you have such superior intellects.... and yet have absolutely NO understanding of the real world sooo many people live in.
DeleteBush does not want to go down in history as the president who lost in Iraq. His strategy to the extent he has one is to hang tough and let whoever succeeds him take the fall.
DeleteEleanor Clift
I'm with 9:26 AM. The pentagon invests a fortune into propaganda and recruiting. Popular culture will expand and create super humans to be heroes. The future is full of generations that believe the constant and up dated publicity hype. Chris Kyle and Pat Tillman are dead but they continue to be used. Kyle's own widow uses him to make money.
Delete10:07 AM - no one is calling superior intellect here. All I am saying is if you join the military under this regime, who IS the fool? Do so to your death.
DeleteRAH RAH FLAG STAND UP RAH RAH
DON'T!
Deletehttp://www.stonekettle.com/2018/02/monsters.html
"I’m proud of my service. I’m glad I served. Even when the war was unjust and ill-conceived and based on lies, my service, and that of those who served beside me and under my command, was honorable. I’m proud of my service and those I served with. I am neither bitter nor angry nor ashamed of it. Just the opposite and I’ve written enough about my career here that such should be obvious.
But this world, this America today, is not the same nation it was when I signed up."
" joined the military in the first years of the Reagan Administration. Back then, agree with the president or not, the Cold War was very real and you could at least see the very explicit threat America faced every day. We didn’t have to go looking for it. We didn’t have to provoke it with bombast and juvenile posturing on Social Media – even if such had existed back then. And while I wasn't so foolish as to believe everything the government told me, I believed that the majority of those in our government wanted to make the world a better place. Reagan, whatever his faults, whatever his ideology, was trying to make nuclear war less likely, not start one to prove his manhood."
"I despise the path he set American politics on, the path that has led thirty years later to this very point."
"Joining the military is (so far) still a personal decision.
If you're considering it, then you should understand in detail what that decision implies. You're going to swear a binding oath to obey the orders of the President. This President. If you don’t understand what that means now, well, you could find yourself later in the same jail cell Chelsea Manning just vacated."
"nothing that Manning disclosed, not one of the things she couldn’t live with, none of them were unlawful. Immoral maybe. Unethical. Horrible. But not unlawful.
And here's the real rub: what is and is not lawful, well, that’s decided by Congress and the President.
This Congress.
This President."
"I believed the majority of Americans wanted to make the world a better place.
I no longer believe this to be true of America."
"I could not in good conscience follow the orders of this feckless fool of a President unrestrained by this small-minded hateful Congress. I do not believe they want to make the world a better place for anyone but themselves.
I do not trust these people not to waste lives, mine, yours, the lives of my troops, the lives of our children, or the lives of those caught in the middle.
In point of fact, many in this government have made it abundantly clear that they regard the lives of those they deem unAmerican to be unworthy of any further consideration. This is not acceptable to me. I would not pledge my life to those who see me as expendable to further their own selfish ends."
So, what was it, Brissy?
DeleteEven too crazy for the loon “kill them all?”
You do defenseless animals.
Does it make you feel powerful?
Hint: Genesis 1 they were here before you.
Why don't they just make the report more than one page with big people words,draft dodger don will move on to his next obsession.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/ivanka-jared-want-kelly-gone-diminishes-power-trump-gop-strategist-reveals/
ReplyDelete'“It is alarming and a national security issue, it is very frustrating to see Ivanka and Jared amass so much power when they don’t have the experience to do the job,” '
OT?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/north-korea-kim-invites-korean-leader-pyongyang-180210090851115.html
'Kim Eui-kyeom, South Korean president's spokesman, said at a news conference in Seoul on Saturday that the North Korean delegation delievered the invitation letter at a landmark high-level meeting at the presidential palace in Seoul.'
"On Friday he tweeted, “The U.S will not allow the propaganda charade by the North Korean regime to go unchallenged on the world stage. The world can NOT turn a blind eye to the oppression & threats of the Kim regime.”"<666pence
Deletehttp://www.politicususa.com/2018/02/10/declaring-nfl-kneeling-protests-disrespectful-pence-protests-korean-unity-refusing-stand-olympics-ceremony.html
Join the parade, join the brotherhood and get the goodies while looking like a hero.
ReplyDeleteNo caption needed. #america #guns #shootcenter #veterans #brotherhood
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdx8bUxBBlh/?taken-by=dakotameyer0317
You go, DUHkota dumbshit, play your war games. You couldn't even take on the junior crank from hell and now you're tied to her for life. Pobrecito tarado.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpmpzXPymos
ReplyDelete'Pink Floyd! Ukrainian housewife'
When men war it's about money.
ReplyDeleteOr who's got the biggest penis.
Delete$BM
DeleteDan Patrick Says He Will Block the Filming of “Let Her Speak” from the Texas Senate Chamber
ReplyDelete”They’ve already disgraced it once. I’m not going to let them do it a second time.”
https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/patrick-let-her-speak/
Sarah Palin Is Really Mad At Sandra Bullock For The Most Bizarre Reason
http://dailynewsbite.com/sarah-palin-is-really-mad-at-sandra-bullock-for-the-most-bizarre-reason/
Keep up with the latest. Bristol Palin writes for the Daily Mail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5373871/Bristol-Palin-celebrates-daughter-turning-nine-months-old.html