James Mattis has resigned

I doubt the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, Al Queda, etc. fear President Trump at all.
Either way, they certainly didn’t fear Obama for drawing “red lines” that didn’t mean squat.

And as far as consulting with our allies, that’s a privilege that we extend to them, not a right. The US military functions on the basis of what is right for American interests, not the world order. We’ve spent nearly 20 years in the Middle East and haven’t accomplished a thing. It has essentially become this generation’s Vietnam. If we were actually fighting a war over there using the full might of our military instead of letting the politicians play games, the matter would be different. However it’s quite apparent our political leaders’ (both Democrat and Republican) intentions do not include the destruction of organizations such as the Taliban, ISIS, etc. Rather, their goal is “nation building”.
 
Then again maybe Trump had asked them: “are you willing to execute my order to deploy the full might of the American military, using all necessary means, to secure the Mexican border against all intruders?”
 
Folks, please take care not to blur the lines between political talk and direct criticism of the President.

Recall that many future and current officers read comments on this forum and that disparagement of the President is forbidden under the UCMJ for military officers. Comments posted here stay forever and some of the terms used in this thread about the current and former President concern me.

Please take care with the words you use and keep your professionalism.
 
They say it is because he disagrees with President Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria.
And yet, if you read his resignation letter, he claims to agree that the US Military should not be the “world policeman”, which is essentially what we are doing in not only Syria but the entire Middle East. It seems to me Trump is trying to get us out of another quagmire.

I don't know how you define quagmire. If your yardsticks are Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq then NE Syria doesn't quite fit.

The Kurds asked for our help after the Assad regime pulled gov't troops from East of the Euphrates in order to shore up the defense in the West, leaving Northern and Eastern Syria wide open to ISIS military columns equipped with US equipment captured from the Iraqi Army. The Turks watched the slaughter from across the border, the same as the Assad Regime, the Iranians, and Russians. The Kurds didn't ask us to do the fighting for them. They put up their own sons and fathers and daughters and mothers in the fight. The casualty count confirms it.

Yes, the Obama administration pulled troops from Iraq. That was not only a campaign promise, but a request by the Iraqi government who would not provide a decent status of forces agreement. The Iraqis made it clear they wanted us out. Their inability to defend themselves against Sunni insurgents and AQ who morphed into ISIS was their fault. Not ours. They couldn’t even hold onto the equipment we left behind. ISIS used that equipment to advance all the way to the Syrian-Turkish border.

Seeing the vacuum left by their mistake, the Obama administration began sending larger numbers of SOF into Northern Iraq and then Syria in 2016. They build out an Army SF headquarters in the ME in early 2017. I know this because my DS wired it. By this time they were fully engaged throughout Northern Syria.

I have pictures of my blond hair blued eyed DS in a T-shirt, without a weapon or body armor strolling down the street in Kobane in the summer of 2017, escorted by a single armed teenaged YPG/SDF fighter assigned to protect them. There is a picture of the Turkish military outpost across the border which sat on its hands during the slaughter just a few months earlier. Turkish military units have be massing at that same border area, ready to cross now that ISIS is gone from the area.

Now that the Kurds, with our considerable assistance, have mostly cleared ISIS from East of the Euphrates, we are leaving them to the tender mercies of the Assad regime, Turks, Russians, Iranians and their Shiite proxies, that is, if ISIS doesn't re-energize itself first.

President Trump inherited an ongoing successful operation and deserves credit for seeing it to something like a conclusion despite his ridiculous campaign rhetoric. However, as Gen. Mattis’ resignation and that of Brett McGurk prove, President Trump owns the immediate fate of the Syrian Kurds, who may possibly be the best Middle Eastern Partners we have ever had.

As a side note, this stupid “Gov’t Shutdown” serves the purpose of deflecting attention away from the total repudiation of the President by his Sec Def and his personal representative to the anti-ISIS coalition.
 
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Folks, please take care not to blur the lines between political talk and direct criticism of the President.

Please take care with the words you use and keep your professionalism.

I would suggest using Gen. Mattis’ resignation letter as a template.
 
President Trump inherited an ongoing successful operation and deserves credit for seeing it to something like a conclusion despite his ridiculous campaign rhetoric. However, as Gen. Mattis’ resignation and that of Brett McGurk proves, President Trump owns the immediate fate of the Syrian Kurds, who may possibly be the best Middle Eastern Partners we have ever had.

As a side note, this stupid “Gov’t Shutdown” serves the purpose of deflecting attention away from the total repudiation of the President by his Sec Def and his personal representative to the anti-ISIS coalition.

100% agree. Pulling out now is a complete abandonment of the Kurds who fought and died along side us against ISIS. It seem Trump just wants to step back and let the Turks go in and massacre our allies.
 
Folks, please take care not to blur the lines between political talk and direct criticism of the President.

Please take care with the words you use and keep your professionalism.

I would suggest using Gen. Mattis’ resignation letter as a template.

Secretary Mattis did not write that letter in the capacity of a military officer.
 
Secretary Mattis did not write that letter in the capacity of a military officer.

Which makes absolutely appropriate for the overwhelming majority of posters on this forum.

Besides. It is a distinction with out a difference. He is the Secretary of Defense.
 
Secretary Mattis did not write that letter in the capacity of a military officer.

Which makes absolutely appropriate for the overwhelming majority of posters on this forum.

Besides. It is a distinction with out a difference. He is the Secretary of Defense.

I sincerely apologize that I don't understand your point, so I'll leave it alone as I don't want to issue a misguided response :) and reiterate my initial request. I am only speaking to a handful of folks in this thread-- if this request fits what you've said, then there you go.

Per Article 88 of the UCMJ, "Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."

I don't know who on here is commissioned or who is not, but the reality is that many who desire to be commissioned officers read the comments on here. When they see military-affiliated folks here dunking on the previous president for his actions in Syria, or read a few of the comments in this thread that are both derogatory and contemptuous towards the current President, what do you expect them to think?

Debate policy here. Debate politics here. Debate ideas here, but please do not engage in or encourage activity that runs afoul of our core policies, like the UCMJ. There are hundreds of other sites where you can go and run down the previous president or the current president. Go there and do that. Don't do it here. Please.
 
Per Article 88 of the UCMJ, "Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
Just wanted to point out that the Article applies to those currently in office. You can’t be court-marshalled for deriding a non-incumbent.
 
I doubt the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, Al Queda, etc. fear President Trump at all.
Either way, they certainly didn’t fear Obama for drawing “red lines” that didn’t mean squat.

And as far as consulting with our allies, that’s a privilege that we extend to them, not a right. The US military functions on the basis of what is right for American interests, not the world order. We’ve spent nearly 20 years in the Middle East and haven’t accomplished a thing. It has essentially become this generation’s Vietnam. If we were actually fighting a war over there using the full might of our military instead of letting the politicians play games, the matter would be different. However it’s quite apparent our political leaders’ (both Democrat and Republican) intentions do not include the destruction of organizations such as the Taliban, ISIS, etc. Rather, their goal is “nation building”.

“bUt wHat ABoUt oBAmA?!”

Take a lap, my dude.
 
Per Article 88 of the UCMJ, "Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
Just wanted to point out that the Article applies to those currently in office. You can’t be court-marshalled for deriding a non-incumbent.

I know that. :) Does that really change anything? Does it model professional behavior to be bashing any president? Or our "political leaders" in Congress?

Again, please keep in mind the primary audience on this forum. If the hatred for the current President or the previous one (or Congress) is so overwhelming that it is impossible to resist the impulse to behave unprofessionally, then there is not much more that I can do. I've made my point as clearly as I can and won't beleaguer it further.
 
My point was no matter which side of the political fence you are he is still President Trump and he scares the hell out of all of us.
And no, being inconsistent and impulsive are most definitely not positive traits..

"He scares the hell out of all of us"
is rather broad, I think. He doesn't scare me. The President walked up to where all the Midshipmen were sitting at the Army Navy game just to talk to them. I believe that was unprecedented.
He's not a politician. He does things that "you aren't supposed to do" because he doesn't know (or care) how politics work. If he feels like doing something, he does it. It has been making everyone in DC pretty edgy ever since he took office, because they can't gauge how he is going to react to any given situation. For the bulk of those chess players, it scares the hell out of them. Do I cringe every time he opens his cake hole? Yeah, just about every time. There are only a few different "styles" of leadership. Some are better than others. His style appears to be chaos. At some point any one of us has worked for a boss who "led" by chaos. This is the guy who makes sure that no one has all the pieces of the big picture, except him. He waits for chaos to begin to take over and then swoops in to save the day, because he's the guy with all the answers and the final say (and authority to say it). It works to a certain extent, but keeps everyone on their heels wondering what's going to happen next. It is not a good way to lead. I would be remiss if I didn't add that bowing to just about every head of State on the planet is not a good way to lead, either.

James Mattis on the other hand, leads by example. He doles out authority to those who clearly have already demonstrated time and time again, that they are effective leaders who also lead by example. His call sign "CHAOS" means "Colonel Has An Outstanding Solution", and has nothing to do with actual pandemonium. Mattis stepped away from his post because he realized that he could no longer be effective. I am sure that it was a difficult decision for him, because he always thinks about his people in the field, first. Part of his decision probably weighs heavily upon him, because when he was SecDef, he was actively protecting those personnel in the field when his advice was being taken.

I don't think he'll take another high-profile job. He has plenty of money and he's not power-hungry. He knows he's awesome, and doesn't need people around him to tell him what he already knows.
I hope that he ends up doing whatever he feels like doing - in peace - for the rest of his days. He has earned it.
 
It is not a good way to lead. I would be remiss if I didn't add that bowing to just about every head of State on the planet is not a good way to lead, either.

When an American President ACTUALLY does that, please do be sure to point it out to us. :rolleyes2:
 
100% agree. Pulling out now is a complete abandonment of the Kurds who fought and died along side us against ISIS. It seem Trump just wants to step back and let the Turks go in and massacre our allies.

Bay of Pigs and the end of the first Gulf War comes to mind, probably add Vietnam also.

Did Kurds fight ISIS out of goodness of their hearts and we asked nicely?
 
Bay of Pigs and the end of the first Gulf War comes to mind, probably add Vietnam also.
This is exactly what my point was in the first place. We could just as easily say that pulling out of Vietnam was an abandonment of the South. We left because our political leaders finally realized (albeit under public pressure) we weren’t accomplishing anything. We weren’t going to remain there to defend the South Vietnamese indefinitely, and the Middle East is no different. The hard to swallow pill is that all we have to show for our efforts in the Middle East are a few thousand dead Americans and an unstable region of the world.
 
This is exactly what my point was in the first place. We could just as easily say that pulling out of Vietnam was an abandonment of the South. We left because our political leaders finally realized (albeit under public pressure) we weren’t accomplishing anything. We weren’t going to remain there to defend the South Vietnamese indefinitely, and the Middle East is no different. The hard to swallow pill is that all we have to show for our efforts in the Middle East are a few thousand dead Americans and an unstable region of the world.

I think this is a but of a false equivalence. Yes, we shouldn’t just throw larger and larger numbers of troops at the fight to “win.” In this way, Vietnam is at least a somewhat relevant comparison. However. The NVA and VC left to their own, weren’t going to grow to morph into a significant threat to us. Sure, they were allies with the USSR, but really they were supported by the USSR, not the other way around.

The ME (and Africa) and the relative lawlessness that these regions are characterized by have been shown to be incubation grounds for terrorist organizations. The argument is that if we just leave them alone because they’re “all the way over there” and not affecting us, one day, they’ll grow out of control and will affect us. Then, when we go to deal with them, they’ll be much more powerful and cost us even more resources (troops and $). I think at least part of Mattis’s point is that it is worth maintaining a certain number of troops in these regions to work with allies in the region to try to keep the bad guys at bay.

Now it’s certainly not that one-dimensional; you have Russias involvement in the conflict which complicates the situation, for example. I’m just pointing out, it definitely doesn’t seem so simple that all we need to do is pull everyone out abruptly and everything will be swell.

Sorry for the novel.
 
...bowing to just about every head of State on the planet is not a good way to lead, either...

When an American President ACTUALLY does that, please do be sure to point it out to us. :rolleyes2:

1. He bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the 2009 G-20 meeting. He bent over at the waist into a right angle, he bowed so far.
2. He bowed to the Japanese Emperor in 2009.
3. He bowed to Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon during a G-20 summit.
4. He even bowed to the Mayor of Tampa, Florida for Pete's sake, while shaking hands with her.
5. Heck, he even bowed to a robot.

I didn't like it and I never voted for him. I still supported him, though. I did this because he was the President of The United States.
 
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