Mad Dog Mattis is also jumping off the sinking ship

[FORD]

Pentagon chief Mattis quits, citing policy differences with Trump
By Phil Stewart and Steve Holland
2 minutes

By Phil Stewart and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who was known as a stabilizing force in President Donald Trump's Cabinet, will leave his job at the end of February, Trump said in a tweet on Thursday.

His departure had been anticipated since Trump announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria despite opposition from U.S. allies and top U.S. military officials.

Mattis said in his resignation letter that he was stepping down so Trump could have a defence chief whose views align more closely with his own.

Trump said he would nominate a successor to Mattis shortly.

Mattis joins a long list of former Trump administration senior figures who have either quit or been removed, some unceremoniously like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who Trump fired via Twitter in March.

Trump's White House has had the highest turnover of senior-level staff of the past five presidents, according to the Brookings Institution think tank.

Speculation that Mattis might not last long in his post grew in October when Trump said in a CBS interview that the general was "sort of a Democrat" and might be leaving.

---------------------------------------------------------
What the above article fails to mention is that the "policy differences" , according to a letter from Mattis himself, were about Russian & Chinese authoritarianism

[jacksmar]

I seem to remember a conservative columnist back in 2017 stating this very fact:

https://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/09/dont_look_now_but_donald_trumpisis_is_losing_in_sy.html

Don't look now, but Donald Trump's strategy is beating ISIS in Syria | Mulshine
Updated Sep 17, 2017; Posted Sep 17, 2017



By Paul Mulshine

Columnist, The Star-Ledger

Did you see all those front-page stories last week about how ISIS is getting trounced in Syria?

Neither did I.

In recent weeks I read more about the high heels that Melania Trump wore on a trip to Texas than I did about the positive developments in a war that was at the center of the foreign-policy debate in last year's presidential election.

In that debate, you may recall, Donald Trump went against most of the candidates from his own party in welcoming the Russian military into the war against ISIS as an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"Russia wants to get rid of ISIS as much as we do because they don't want them coming into Russia," he said way back in 2015.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A friend of mine sent me this link a couple years back and I showed it to the guys at the St. Pete Times and they just laughed.

I'd love to go down there and see them laughing today...

[FORD]

Thing is, much of the resistance to ISIS came from the Kurds. And Cheeto pulling out of Syria is effectively a green light to Turkey, ISIS, and everyone else who hates the Kurds to go ahead and attack them. Which would be a really shitty thing, because in terms of the rough neighborhood collectively called "the Middle East", the Kurds are probably the best neighbors you could have, given the other options.

[DavidLeeNatra]

Jeeeez...Putin must laugh his KGB ass off in his red palace. He gave the USA a president that fucks up the US economy and environment, fucks up the inner peace and the values that made America great, breaks up alliances, weakens the NATO and builds the ground to overtake the influence in the middle East for Russia, Iran and their partners. Mission accomplished!

And redneck America is still celebrating. Good job!

Gesendet von meinem SM-G955F mit Tapatalk