Tag Archives: General McMaster

Which Way for the Trump Administration? by Justin Raimondo

Posted on August 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

Justin Raimondo reviews the foreign policy issues facing the Trump administration and the positions of key officials. From Raimondo at antiwar.com:

It’s decision time at the White House. We’re six months into the Trump administration, and several foreign policy issues have to be resolved. What happens in the next few weeks will likely determine the course Trump will take for the next four years – which is why we’re seeing more reports about the intense internal wrangling going on behind the scenes.

First and foremost is Afghanistan, with two White House factions battling it out in full public view: on one side we have newly-appointed National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, who wants a renewed long-term commitment to occupying that country and is angling for thousands more troops to be sent in. On the other side of the barricades is Steve Bannon, the Trumpian ideologue hated by the liberal media, who, as the Daily Caller puts it, “has pushed for the ‘America First,’ populist, noninterventionist foreign policy that Trump espoused during the campaign.”

At a policy meeting held last month, Bannon argued for a major pullback. McMaster made the case for yet another “surge.” Dissatisfied with those options, the President sent everyone back to the drawing board.

The good news is that Trump is reportedly highly skeptical of our continued presence in Afghanistan. The bad news is that he is also wary of presiding over a Taliban takeover of the country. Yet it may be that the non-interventionists have the advantage. As the Weekly Standard relates:

“Encouraging [Trump’s] skepticism are the America Firsters in the administration, led by [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions and Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who is firmly fixed on the idea of Afghanistan as graveyard of empires. It may be owing to his conversations with Bannon that the president has cited to his war cabinet the unhappy experiences of the British at the Khyber Pass and even quoted Alexander the Great (‘Afghanistan is easy to march into, but hard to march out of’).

“Bannon vehemently opposes what he calls McMaster’s ‘Big Army plan,’ and his argument to the president is at least partly a political calculation: Does Trump want to explain to voters why he’s committing $50 billion to build schools in Afghanistan (on top of a 16-year military expenditure that is already nearing $1 trillion) before starting the infrastructure projects he’s promised to Michigan and Ohio?”

To continue reading: Which Way for the Trump Administration?

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Fire McMaster, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on August 7, 2017 | 1 comment

You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, especially in the Trump administration with its frequent lineup changes. Justin Raimondo is calling for another lineup change. From Raimondo at antiwar.com:

He wants to escalate the Afghan war, invade Syria, and antagonize Russia

The internal battle taking place in the Trump administration, pitting the “adults” – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, General John Kelly, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster – against the “America First” nationalists, led by Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, has now spread to the media. At the center of the controversy is McMaster, whose foreign policy views are in many ways the exact opposite of Trump’s, and who – rumor has it – may be on the way out. There are indications that, despite recent expressions of support for McMaster, the President has clashed with him repeatedly: Eli Lake reports that Trump “screamed” at his National Security Advisor for calling his South Korean counterpart after Trump said Seoul would have to pay for the THAAD antimissile defense system.

The Never Trump progressive-neocon alliance is taking up the cudgels on McMaster’s behalf, while the Trump loyalists are calling for his ouster. So what are the policy differences between the two factions?

The current issue is what to do about the war in Afghanistan – the fifteen year-plus futile crusade that is now the longest war in our history. Bannon wants out, the “adults” want to escalate the war with more troops. Trump himself leans toward the Bannon view: he reportedly rejected a plan prepared by the “adult” faction and sent them back to the drawing board.

However, from a noninterventionist perspective, the battle lines are not all that that clear. In an interview with an administration insider, the Daily Caller reports:

“Everything the president wants to do, McMaster opposes. Trump wants to get us out of Afghanistan – McMaster wants to go in. Trump wants to get us out of Syria – McMaster wants to go in. Trump wants to deal with the China issue – McMaster doesn’t. Trump wants to deal with the Islam issue – McMaster doesn’t. You know, across the board, we want to get rid of the Iran deal – McMaster doesn’t. It is incredible to watch it happening right in front of your face. Absolutely stunning.”

To continue reading: Fire McMaster

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McMaster: U.S. Preparing For “Preventive War” With North Korea, by Tyler Durden

Posted on August 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

Will the US and North Korea soon be at war? Seems inconceivable, but the Trump administration is keeping every option on the table. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The United States is preparing for all options to counter the growing threat from North Korea, including launching a “preventive war,” national security adviser H.R. McMaster said in an interview that aired Saturday on MSNBC. The comments come after North Korea carried out two tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the past month and after the president said he has been clear he will not tolerate North Korea’s threats to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

The key excerpts (full transcript):

H.H.: Let me switch if I can to North Korea, which is really pressing. And– and remind our audience, at the Aspen Institute ten days ago, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Joe Dunford, said, “There’s always a military– option. It would be horrific.” Lindsey Graham on Today Show earlier this week said– “We need to destroy the regime and their deterrent.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday, I believe, to North Korea, “You are leaving us no choice but to protect ourselves.” And then the Chairman of the Chief of Staff of the Army said, “Just because every choice is a bad choice doesn’t mean you don’t have to choose.” Are we looking at a preemptive strike? Are you trying to prepare us, you being collectively, the administration and people like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton for a first strike North Korea?

 

H.R.M. Well, we really, what you’re asking is– is are we preparing plans for a preventive war, right? A war that would prevent North Korea from threatening the United States with a nuclear weapon. And the president’s been very clear about it. He said, “He’s not gonna tolerate North Korea being able to threaten the United States” if they have nuclear weapons that can threaten the United States; It’s intolerable from the president’s perspective. So of course, we have to provide all options to do that. And that includes a military option.

To continue reading: McMaster: U.S. Preparing For “Preventive War” With North Korea

 

 

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McMaster And Mattis Have Twelve Months To Succeed In Afghanistan, by James Durso

Posted on August 1, 2017 | 1 comment

It appears that President Trump may not be on board the military’s “generational war” in Afghanistan. From James Durso at realcleardefense.com:

Recently we learned that Erik Prince, founder of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide, and Steve Feinberg, financier, and owner of DynCorp International, a leading military logistics, and training contractor, approached the Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, with their plan to use contractors instead of American troops to stabilize Afghanistan. The meeting was arranged at the behest of President Trump’s advisors who want to ensure their boss is apprised of the full range of options in Afghanistan.

The Secretary decided to stick with an in-house solution, that is to say, more of the same, for a war we are, in his words, “not winning.” Secretary Mattis is no enemy of contractors, but hopefully, he reflected on what Messrs. Prince and Feinberg said before he briefed President Trump last week on the way ahead in Afghanistan.

Let’s review our progress in Afghanistan:

  • Provinces under central government control: according to data from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, “the Afghan government controls or influences just 52 percent of the nation’s districts today [February 2017] compared to 72 percent in November 2015.”
  • Opium production increased 43% from 2015 to 2016 and has been on an upward trend since 2001.
  • U.S. casualties: 2385 dead and 20,290 wounded military; 1691 dead contractors.
  • Money spent: over $700 billion, though some analysts say the true cost is in the trillions. 

I previously said we should let the Afghans and the neighbors – Iran, Pakistan, and China – try to sort it out, and minimize our work with Afghanistan to counternarcotics and intelligence sharing while we work with the Central Asian states to secure their borders. During the campaign, candidate Trump described the war in Afghanistan as “a complete waste” and has focused his efforts since inauguration on everything else, leaving the policy review to the national security advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, which brings us to the problem…

General McMaster spent several months trying to convince the President to commit more troops and agree to a four-year timeline in advance of May’s NATO summit meeting; he was blocked by the secretaries of Defense and State.  McMaster then made a second try at last week’s National Security Council Principals Committee, only to get pushback from Trump. Seen in that light, the suggestion that the White House would consider the Prince-Feinberg plan was a billboard-sized hint that the President does not want a more-of-the-same solution.

To continue reading: McMaster And Mattis Have Twelve Months To Succeed In Afghanistan

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