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Trump Chooses Gen. Mattis as Secretary of Defense?
Well done, Mr. President-elect. From the Washington Post:
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.
What do you think? Is this a good pick by Trump or a great pick by Trump?
UPDATE: Or is it even a pick yet? A tweet from the Trump transition team:
Published in GeneralNo decision has been made yet with regard to Secretary of Defense. #TrumpTransition
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) December 1, 2016
It makes Peter Happy, so I am going to run with that!
Semper fi!
Now that is one hell of an appointment. The warrior monk!
NEW YORK — Agents with the Secret Service are reportedly stressed and uneasy about a meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, since the legendary four-star commander has a plan to kill everyone he meets at Trump Tower…
As part of his pre-trip planning, sources say that Mattis wrote a five-paragraph order with detailed plans to kill everyone on his way to the building, to include TSA workers in the security screening area at his home airport, the pilots flying him to New York, all the passengers on the aircraft, the taxi driver who picked him up, multiple people who were rude to him on the subway, and staff in the lobby of Trump Tower.
When reached by reporters, Mattis declined to comment on whether he had a plan to kill anyone else.
Still, a source familiar with the meeting said that Mattis was hopeful for the future president. At the end of the hour-long meeting, Mattis believed he was high on the list for Defense Secretary, though he issued a tearful warning to Trump and his staff before he left, saying, “if you (redacted) with me, I’ll kill you all.”
In an apparent act of goodwill, Mattis only killed three people who looked at him the wrong way in the elevator, a new career low for a retired military officer who averages at least 12 kills per day.
http://www.duffelblog.com/2016/11/mattis-trump-secretary-of-defense/#ixzz4RcqLmQHd
From son # 2 in Japan:
“please sweet baby Jesus let it be true”
We had a prior thread on the Member Feed regarding this. I am supportive in general of the 7 year wait between active service and heading DoD but in these circumstance would support a waiver. My reasoning is that from what I’ve seen, Mattis is an independent thinker and may serve as a check on some of Trump’s more unruly impulses, more than a civilian appointee would. He has already reportedly gotten Trump to rethink his views on waterboarding.
Trump has made it known that he would like The Corps increased to 36 infantry battalions (up from the current 24). No one is better equipped to make that happen than Mattis.
All of this kvetching about civilian control of the military is overblown. First, 12 Presidents have worn one or more stars prior to entering the Oval Office, and the last of these was a 5-Star, retired less than 5 years.
Secondly, as a father of a Marine I don’t want someone in there for whom war on a shoestring is an interesting academic theory. Above anything else, Mattis will prioritize letting all of our men and women in every uniform do their jobs to the best of their abilities and giving them the absolute best chance of coming back alive and whole. As a father I can ask for no more. As a nation we should demand that always.
General Krulak, former Commandant of the Marine Corps said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.” Krulak said, when he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, every year he and his wife would bake hundreds of Christmas cookies.
On Christmas, Keulak would load his vehicle and drive to every Marine guard post in the Washington area and deliver a package of Christmas cookies to Marines who were pulling guard duty. One year, he went to Quantico to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty. He went to the command center and gave a package to the corporal on duty.
He asked, “Who’s the officer of the day?” The corporal said, “Sir, it’s General Mattis.” Krulak said, “No, no. I know who General Mattis is, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas?” The corporal, feeling anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis.”
General Krulak said that he spotted in the back room a cot. “No, Lance Corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?” The corporal said, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.”
At that point Mattis appeared in a duty uniform, and Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here Christmas day?” Mattis said that the officer scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and Mattis decided it was better for the officer to spend Christmas Day with his family.
Krulak said he had never run into a general officer, before or after, who stood duty on Christmas Day.
I am going to wait for official confirmation on this one, can’t risk getting my hopes up that we could be this lucky.
Exactly. I am the mother of a soldier. I second your notion even though I also work in academia.
Hubba hubba… would be a great pick.
My son is determined to become a Marine when he graduates high school in May 2018, so this pick gives me some comfort as well.
Has your son talked to the local recruiter about the Delayed Entry Program? When he’s 17 he can spend two nights a week doing PE with the recruiting staff. These “poolie” sessions really help to prepare young recruits for the mental and physical demands that they will be subject to at Parris Island or San Diego.
Join our Semper Fi group here on Ricochet. It’s for Marines and the families that support them.
@Viator,
During my time in the Army, on Christmas and Thanksgiving, I replaced the Charge of Quarters (CQ) or CQ runner if they had a family. Often this was followed with, “How much do you want?” The going rate was $20. More on holidays. I just waved it away and said, “Go be with your family.”
Once I had CQ duty on Thanksgiving and missed the big meal (The Army goes all out). I got off duty about 6 am. Slept. When I woke I walked over to the mess hall. It was closed but I went around back and knocked on the door. A Mess Sergeant opened the door. I explained that I had CQ the previous day and just woke up. He said wait. 10 minutes later he came out with box. It had 2 giant turkey sandwiches, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, peas, half a pumpkin pie and a quart of eggnog.
It was one of the best Thanksgiving I ever had in the Army.
I go back to the Surge in Iraq, and one of the keys (that many have forgotten) is that the success came very much as a cooperation and coordination between David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker. The general and the diplomat have to work closely together.
As much as the defense secretary seems like a great pick, the other shoe hasn’t fallen yet. Defense and State have to work together effectively. I’m very interested to see who the State pick is, and how they would cooperate.
Ah, to be a fly on the wall if/when Gen. Mattis & Gen. Flynn get into their 1st dust-up. Take Mattis & give the points if it’s less than a 2 touchdown spread. Betting against someone nicknamed “Mad Dog” is a bad idea, especially when he’s the smartest guy in the room.
I’m just giddy!
Excellent pick, make that great (even if reported in the Washington Pose–a former newspaper).
EDs,
This is a great pick. Aside from General Mattis’s expertise, this sends the message that the military will be listened to. The purely political layer that has all but marginalized the military mind will not filter what the President hears. The Ben Rhodes White House layer has been totally discredited with all but the most relentless fantasists. We will go back to accepting the world as it is and hoping to change it for the better rather than imagining that it is perfect and ignoring the fact that it is not.
Regards,
Jim
Another great pick!
Thanks, EJ. (But keep it quiet until Monday, please.)
So is this a blank check for the Pentagon or has Mattis exhibited some skepticism about bloated defense contracts? I don’t know, but it seems worth asking.
“If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it’s a cost benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.” – Mattis testimony before Congress March 2013
He looks to be a damn good fit. I also love the fact that our adversaries hear the new head of the American military is called “Mad Dog”. I expect ISIS, part of the Chinese Govt, Iran, Putin and The Progressives in the US are now worried.
I also feel that if we have a war, we shall fight to win and never pay for the real estate twice.
More testosterone in that one pick than in the whole Obama cabinet.
Here (PDF) is his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Seems awfully sensible. And sensible advice to an incoming President, too.
For example, to address @hoyacon ‘s question:
“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our Secretary of Defense,” Trump said in Cincinnati, Ohio. “But we’re not announcing it till Monday so don’t tell anybody outside this room” Trump told a crowd of more than 17,000 people. “Mad dog. He’s great. He is great.”
Love this. It will be a joy to watch Trump twist the media into pretzels over the next eight years. Yes, I said eight years: as I expect him to keep this up, he will be re-elected in a landslide in 2020.
EJ,
Do you think that General Mattis might direct some artillery fire at Foggy Bottom? This might be the most efficient methodology of them all. I can dream, can’t I.
Regards,
Jim