Tag Archives: James Mattis

Bob Woodward: General James Mattis Plotted Overthrow of U.S. Government…by sundance

Posted on September 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

There are people within the military plotting to overthrow the government and they’re not being cashiered, although they should be. From sundance at theconservativetreehouse.com:

According to a pre-release excerpt from the Washington Post Bob Woodward writes about a discussion between General James Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats about a plot to overthrow the elected government of the United States.

[…] “Mattis quietly went to Washington National Cathedral to pray about his concern for the nation’s fate under Trump’s command and, according to Woodward, told Coats, “There may come a time when we have to take collective action” since Trump is “dangerous. He’s unfit.” (read more)

What do you call a conversation between the Defense Secretary and the head of the U.S. intelligence apparatus where they are talking about taking “collective action” to remove an elected President?  That’s called sedition…. A seditious conspiracy.

As alarming as that sounds on its face, this actually aligns with our own previous research into key military leadership, the joint chiefs, and their corrupt intent to overthrow the elected government.  Readers will remember when we noted this very issue after Lt. Col  Alexander Vindman compromised his position yet was not removed by his command structure within the Pentagon.

NOVEMBER 2019 – […] For emphasis let me repeat a current fact that is being entirely overlooked.  Despite his admitted usurpation of President Trump policy, Vindman was sent back to his post in the NSC with the full support of the United States Department of Defense.

The onus of action to remove Vindman from the NSC does not just lay simply at the feet of the White House and National Security advisor Robert O’Brien; and upon whose action the removal of Vindman could be positioned as political; the necessary, albeit difficult or perhaps challenging, obligation to remove Lt. Col Vindman also resides purposefully with the Dept. of Defense.

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The Madness of James Mattis, by Danny Sjursen

Posted on September 13, 2019 | Leave a comment

James Mattis has been in the thick of a string of failed wars, but don’t look for any humility or regrets. From Danny Sjursen at truthdig.com:

The Madness of James Mattis
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis. (U.S. Secretary of Defense / CC BY 2.0)

Last week, in a well-received Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis delivered a critique of Donald Trump that was as hollow as it was self-righteous. Explaining his decision to resign from the administration, the retired Marine general known as “Mad Dog” eagerly declared himself “apolitical,” peppering his narrative with cheerful vignettes about his much beloved grunts. “We all know that we’re better than our current politics,” he observed solemnly. “Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.”

Yet absent from this personal reflection, which has earned bipartisan adulation, was any kind of out-of-the-box thinking and, more disturbingly, anything resembling a mea culpa—either for his role in the Trump administration or his complicity in America’s failing forever wars in the greater Middle East. For a military man, much less a four-star general, this is a cardinal sin. What’s worse, no one in the mainstream media appears willing to challenge the worldview presented in his essay, concurrent interviews and forthcoming book.

This was disconcerting if unsurprising. In Trump’s America, reflexive hatred for the president has led many in the media to foolishly pin their political hopes on generals like Mattis, leaders of the only public institution the people still trust. Even purportedly liberal journalists like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who was once critical of U.S. militarism, have reversed course, defending engagements in Syria and Afghanistan seemingly because the president has expressed interest in winding them down. The fallacy that Mattis and other generals were the voice of reason in the Trump White House, the so-called “adults in the room,” has precluded any serious critique of their actual strategy and advice.

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As US and Western Allies Suddenly Push Peace in Yemen, Can Their Endgame be Trusted? by Ahmed Abdulkareem

Posted on November 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

Is peace in Yemen on the horizon after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder? From Ahmed Abdulkareem at mintpressnews.com:

The U.S. has expressed a desire to rely in Yemen upon the often practiced and rarely successful strategy of breaking a nation into multiple enclaves based on ethnicity and political affiliation. The process, known as balkanization, has been implemented with disastrous results in Syria, Sudan and elsewhere.

SANA’A, YEMEN — Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of Ansar Allah’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee, welcomed U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ recent remarks urging an end to the three-year-long Saudi-led war in Yemen. In a tweet, Al-Houthi urged Mattis to announce an immediate end to the war, as well as to the Saudi coalition’s blockade that has triggered a famine in the world’s poorest nation.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthis) and its allies have been receptive to previous initiatives to end the war, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians. Al-Houthi stressed on Wednesday that any initiative would be welcomed so long as it does not undermine Yemen’s independence and sovereignty.

Dr. Yaser al-Houri, Secretary of the Supreme Political Council, the highest political authority in Sana’a, told MintPress:

“We welcome any call for peace that will end the war and we will deal responsibly with any future peace talks under the umbrella of the United Nations.”

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Could Trump Take Down the American Empire? by Gareth Porter

Posted on October 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

Although Trump doesn’t always beat the neoconservatives, he apparently doesn’t buy into their American Empire dream. From Gareth Porter at antiwar.com:

More than any other presidency in modern history, Donald Trump’s has been a veritable sociopolitical wrecking ball, deliberately stoking conflict by playing to xenophobic and racist currents in American society and debasing its political discourse. That fact has been widely discussed. But Trump’s attacks on the system of the global U.S. military presence and commitments have gotten far less notice.

He has complained bitterly, both in public and in private meetings with aides, about the suite of permanent wars that the Pentagon has been fighting for many years across the Greater Middle East and Africa, as well as about deployments and commitments to South Korea and NATO. This has resulted in an unprecedented struggle between a sitting president and the national security state over a global US military empire that has been sacrosanct in American politics since early in the Cold War.

And now Bob Woodward’s “Fear: Trump in the White House” has provided dramatic new details about that struggle.

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Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority”, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on June 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US is running low on moral authority; there’s not much for Putin or anyone else to undermine. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

At a graduation ceremony for the US Naval War College (barf), US Secretary of Defense James Mattis asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aims to diminish the appeal of the western democratic model and attempts to undermine America’s moral authority,” and that “his actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals.”

This would be the same James Mattis who’s been overseeing the war crimes committed by America’s armed forces during their illegal occupation of Syria. This would be the same United States of America that was born of the genocide of indigenous tribes and the labor of African slaves, which slaughtered millions in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Libya and Syria for no legitimate reason, which is partnered with Ukrainian Nazis, jihadist factions in Syria and Iranian terror cultists, which supports 73 percent of the world’s dictators, which interferes constantly in the electoral processes of other countries as a matter of policy, which stages coups around the world, which has encircled the globe with military bases, whose FBI still targets black civil rights activists for persecution to this very day, which routinely enters into undeclared wars of aggression against noncompliant governments to advance plutocratic interests, which remains the only country ever to use nuclear weapons on human beings after doing so completely needlessly in Japan, and which is functionally a corporatist oligarchy with no meaningful “democratic model” in place at all.

A casual glance at facts and history makes it instantly clear that the United States has no “moral authority” of any kind whatsoever, and is arguably the hub of the most pernicious and dangerous force ever assembled in human history. But the establishment Russia narrative really is that cartoonishly ridiculous: you really do have to believe that the US government is 100 percent pure good and the Russian government is 100 percent pure evil to prevent the whole narrative from falling to pieces. If you accept the idea that the exchange is anything close to 50/50, with Russia giving back more or less what it’s getting and simply protecting its own interests from the interests of geopolitical rivals, it no longer makes any sense to view Putin as a leader who poses a unique threat to the world. If you accept the idea that the west is actually being far more aggressive and antagonistic toward Russia than Russia is being toward the west, it gets even more laughable.

To continue reading: Mattis: Putin Is Trying To “Undermine America’s Moral Authority”

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US Finally Admits “No Evidence” Assad Used Sarin Gas, by Tyler Durden

Posted on February 12, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Syrian sarin gas stories in 2013 and 2017 were sketchy and not well-supported. It never made much sense that the Syrian government would gas its own people. Now Secretary of Defense James Matthis has admitted the US government has no real evidence to back up its claims. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated on or about February 2nd, 2018 that the United States has “no evidence” that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people in attacks in 2013 and 2017.

The most recent accusation provoked a massive Tomahawk strike ordered by President Trump that was quite provocative in the eyes of the Russian Federation and of course the Syrian government.

As TheDuran’s Seraphim Hanish details, Secretary Mattis’ assertion is in direct contradiction to the White House Memorandum which was rapidly written and declassified to justify the Americans’ strike.

However, the Secretary offered no specifics to his statement.  He did discuss the fact that there were aid groups and other people, including NGOs and other fighters operating in the area that had provided evidence and reports of what happened with the Sarin strike. Their information stopped short of naming President Assad as the culprit.

“I don’t have the evidence,” Mattis said. “What I am saying is that other groups on the ground – NGOs, fighters on the ground – have said that sarin has been used, so we are looking for evidence.”

The reporting on this is highly suspect, though.  Newsweek, Reuters and the Washington Post are three American publications that all have run pieces pointing out this contradictory matter.  At this time, FoxNews has nothing on its site about this matter, but ZeroHedge does.

General “Mad Dog” Mattis, is known for an uncompromising approach to dealing with America’s enemies:

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.

He was an outspoken critic of President Obama’s Middle East policy, naming Iran as the single most serious threat to stability in the region. By all accounts, then, the General is faithful to the idea that projecting American power abroad is a good thing.

 Seen with this context, the general’s statement seems unusual, and the media outlets that have a less than favorable view of Donald Trump as the American President have been quick to jump on board the train to point out that the General disagrees with his CO, the President.

To continue reading: US Finally Admits “No Evidence” Assad Used Sarin Gas

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Compete, Deter, and Win With Big Guns and Better Chow in the Baltic States, by Brian Cloughley

Posted on January 27, 2018 | 1 comment

The US is the biggest and meanest kid on the block, and it will show anyone who doesn’t believe it. From Brian Cloughley at antiwar.com:

The censored version of the 2018 US National Defense Strategy has a motto – and, absurdly, a bumper sticker – proclaiming that the United States must “Compete, Deter, and Win” which is an aggressive declaration of uncompromising military confrontation.

As observed by the Brookings Institution, the Strategy “unveiled a global operating model to help centrally manage posture and make it more ‘lethal, agile, and resilient,’ all in line with facilitating the emphasis on fighting and winning conflicts with China or Russia.”

Brookings just loves General Mattis, the Defense Secretary, and fawns that “The US military, according to the NDS, will sustain its presence in the Middle East, but will aim to focus on Asia and Europe despite it. This tension plagued the previous administration and will surely be difficult to implement short of Secretary Mattis’s personal and deft hand.”

The enemies have been selected and now General Mattis is going to deal with them. This is the the man who declared “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

Stand by, world, for the deft and manly hand of General Mattis who is going to ensure that the United States will devote its vastly expanding military might to achieving Competition, Deterrence and Victory.

The craving for military domination began before Mattis was appointed Top Dog in the Pentagon, and China and Russia have been in the sights of Washington for a long time, but it will be interesting to see how Mattis develops US military provocation from the Baltic to the South China Sea.

A headline in the US military magazine Stars and Stripes last September was eye-catching. It told readers that there were “Big guns, better chow for US soldiers on Russia deterrence mission” in Lithuania. The artillery and nourishing provisions were provided for the “500 173rd Airborne Brigade soldiers that swooped into the Baltics this month on a mission to deter Russian aggression.”

To continue reading: Compete, Deter, and Win With Big Guns and Better Chow in the Baltic States

 

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Trump Ups Defense Budget By 13% – “Can’t Have World’s Best Military On An Obama Budget”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 27, 2018 | 2 comments

US military spending is almost three times that of China, and almost nine times that of Russia. They have now been declared our geopolitical rivals that we must best. So Trump is increasing the defense budget by 13 percent over the next two years. If he didn’t, the Chinese and Russians would probably be planning an invasion of the US this very minute. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

With Washington having seemingly turned its turret away from ‘terror’ and back to “revisionist, authoritarian” regimes like ‘Russia and China’, the Military-Industrial Complex is ‘gonna need a bigger budget’ – a 13% bigger $716 billion one by 2019.

US military spending already dwarfed the rest of the world…

But, while presenting the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS2018) of the United States on Friday at the Johns Hopkins University, Secretary of Defense James Mattis painted a picture of a dangerous world in which U.S. power – and all of the supposed “good” that it does around the world – is on the decline.

“Our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace,” he said. “And it is continually eroding.”

And now, as The Washington Post reports, President Trump is expected to ask for $716 billion in defense spending when he unveils his 2019 budget next month, a major increase that signals a shift away from concerns about rising deficits, U.S. officials said.

The proposed budget is a victory for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who recently unveiled a strategy that proposes retooling the military to deter and, if necessary, fight a potential conflict with major powers such as China and Russia.

And it represents a setback for deficit hawks such as Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who last year pressed for an increase in defense spending that could be offset by cuts to domestic programs.

The $716 billion figure for 2019 would cover the Pentagon’s annual budget as well as spending on ongoing wars and the maintenance of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It would increase Pentagon spending by more than 7 percent over the 2018 budget, which still has not passed through Congress.

The proposed budget would be a 13 percent increase over 2017 when the United States spent about $634 billion on defense. In the absence of a budget, spending continues at 2017 levels.

To continue reading: Trump Ups Defense Budget By 13% – “Can’t Have World’s Best Military On An Obama Budget”

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Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1, by Michael Krieger

Posted on October 10, 2017 | Leave a comment

Unfortunately, President Trump is cozying up to people who never met a war they didn’t like. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

There are a variety of reasons Trump supporters voted the way they did in November, but one clear message many found attractive was the idea his administration would be driven by an “America First” doctrine. America first meant a lot of things to a lot of different people, running the gamut from economic populism and immigration, to an avoidance of barbaric and costly overseas wars. The economic populism part was the biggest ruse from day one, a betrayal which (as we had seen under Obama) became undeniable as soon as he started appointing lifelong swamp-dwelling billionaires and Goldman Sachs partners to run his administration. Irrespective of who you elect, Wall Street runs the empire, as Trump proved once again.

The coming massive pivot when it comes to destructive wars abroad will take a little longer, but the writing’s been on the wall for months. I’ve published several posts on the topic, with the most popular one titled, Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the End for U.S. Empire.  Here’s an excerpt:

This is not the sort of thing you see in a confident, brave, and civilized nation, it’s the sort of stuff you’d expect to see toward the end. It’s the stuff of craven war-mongers, of dishonest cowards, of a totally deranged and very dangerous media. The signs are everywhere; imperial decline is set to accelerate rapidly in the coming years…

Expect more of all the above as the U.S. empire enters its most devastating phase of collapse. Think about what it might mean for you and your family and prepare accordingly.

When I compare who Trump currently has advising him and who he’s getting closer to, the future looks increasingly ominous. This is especially true when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal. Irrespective of what you think of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis, these two look like a couple of the most sane humans on earth compared to some of the others Trump’s cozying up to. I alluded to this earlier today on Twitter.

To continue reading: Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1

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‘Mad Dog’ Mattis and the Spirit of Trumpism, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on December 7, 2016 | Leave a comment

There is probably more uncertainty about both Trump’s policies and personnel heading into his inauguration than there has been for any president since FDR. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

When it comes to foreign policy, the incoming Trump administration displays a split personality. This was readily apparent during the campaign, when, on the one hand, Donald Trump told us we were lied into the Iraq war, that NATO is “obsolete,” and that we have no business supporting regime change in Syria – and, on the other hand, he declared that he would crush ISIS, that it was a mistake to leave Iraq, and that we have to “rebuild our military,” as if we don’t already spend as much as the top ten defense spenders. It was a combination of “isolationist” rhetoric and belligerent bombast – surely an odd combination (albeit not one without precedent in our history, but we’ll get to that later).

We are seeing this ambiguity play out in the process of the Trump transition, as national security slots are slowly filled. Mike Flynn, a three-star general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, exemplifies this Janus-faced persona: in Flynn’s interview with Al Jazeera, interviewer Mehdi Hasan remarked “There’s a dove General Flynn and there’s a hawk General Flynn,” and this applies not only to Trump himself but also to his latest appointee, Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, chosen for Secretary of Defense.

A retired four-star Marine Corps general, former commander of CENTCOM, Mattis commanded the Marines during the invasion of Iraq, and also served as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (2007-09). Mattis is idolized by many and feared by some. The Cato Institute’s Christopher Preble, a staunch anti-interventionist, sees him as a restraining influence on our new commander-in-chief: “[W]ithin the Trump administration he could be a critical voice of caution with respect to the wisdom or folly of the use of force going forward.” Preble cites Mattis as saying:

“As I look back over these wars since World War II – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, dare I say Afghanistan, stick Somalia in there somewhere, other expeditions – when America goes to war with murky political end states, then you end up in a situation where you are trying to do something right, but you’re not sure if it’s the right thing. And suddenly you end up with a situation where the American people say ‘what are we doing here?’ And ‘what kind of people are we that we do this sort of thing?’

“If you don’t know what it is that you’re going to achieve, then don’t be surprised that eventually you’ve wasted treasure, lives, and the moral authority of the United States.”

According to several reports, Gen.Mattis’s favorite reprise to those who advocate some form of military intervention is “And then what?”

To continue reading: ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis and the Spirit of Trumpism

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