Not-So-Retiring Retired Military Leaders

By Victor David Hanson June 7, 2020

Sometimes retired generals are deified. Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower won two presidential terms in landslide elections.  At other moments, war heroes such Generals Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay were vilified as near insurrectionaries for their blistering attacks on sitting presidents.

In such a climate, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which became effective law in May 1951, prohibits active generals from disparaging their commander in chief — in the way perhaps MacArthur had bitterly pilloried then-president Harry Truman over the Korean War. Article 88 of the UCMJ makes it a crime to voice “contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State.”

But no one quite knows, and debate continues over, whether such codified prohibitions on free expression apply to retired generals receiving military pensions. Yet, given the spate of recent “contemptuous words against the President” leveled from retired generals, it seems that few worry about regulation AR 27-10 of the code: “Retired members of a regular component of the Armed Forces who are entitled to pay are subject to the UCMJ. (See Art. 2(a)(4), UCMJ.) They may be tried by courts-martial for offenses committed while in a retired status.”..........To Read More....

Pull Out of Syria and Afghanistan, Use the Money to Build a Wall

Take the $50 billion we spent arming Jihadis, and use it to build a big wall to keep them out of America.

December 21, 2018 Daniel Greenfield 43 

When President Trump first dispatched the first 2,000 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, there was a loud outcry. And now that he’s pulling 2,000 troops out of Syria, there’s more outrage.
But where do 2,000 soldiers belong more, in Syria or on our own border? When it comes to deploying troops on the border, the media is quick to rush out and inform us that it will cost $182 million. But no calculators are in sight when 2,000 troops are deployed in enemy territory thousands of miles away.

Are we spending $600 billion on national defense to protect Syria or to defend the United States? Are young men and women volunteering to risk their lives to defend their country or someone else’s?
The government faces a shutdown over Trump’s call for $5 billion for a wall. Meanwhile the $8.6 billion we’ve spent on “humanitarian assistance” in Syria has never been challenged. Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq was budgeted at $15.3 billion for FY2019. But that $5 billion can’t be found.

$2.2 billion was diverted from counterterrorism to arm and train Syrian Jihadis, some of whom were Muslim Brotherhood while others joined up with Al Qaeda. Some of the Jihadis we funded in Syria even ended up fighting each other. Still others turned our weapons over to ISIS. And many ran away.
We had $500 million to spend on training Syrian Jihadis in 2018, but nobody can find $5 billion to build a wall and keep Jihadis out of our country........To Read More....

Mattis Is Wrong—This Scholar-General Was Right

By Joseph Duggan| December 21st, 2018

OK, let’s combine today’s two most obnoxious Washington-speak clichés into one ugly mashup:  “Mattis Exit Paves Way for Global Chaos” was the sober CNN top headline during the hours following the announcement Thursday of the defense secretary’s resignation.  The end is near. If the Church of Mammon heard confessions, Washingtonians would be queued out along Constitution Avenue waiting to be shriven and wondering if Mammon even cared if they were heartily sorry.............Today Trump is behaving with the shrewdness and self-awareness of a civilian commander-in-chief who knows, with Clemenceau, that war is too important to be left to the generals. Trump recognizes too, with another French leader, Charles de Gaulle, that the cemeteries are full of indispensable men...........

“If I were a journalist,” Odom began, “I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.”.............“The U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.”.............“Those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.”........To Read More....

Mattis was no good

December 21, 2018 By David Archibald

American Thinker readers were warned about General Mattis over a year ago in this article.  Briefly, Mattis was and remains a supporter of global warming.   The issue of global warming continues to be a reliable and simple litmus test. If someone believes in global warming, then you can be sure he is a globalist who loathes Western civilization.

Then there was his support for the Islamist Anne Patterson, loathed by the Egyptian people for her support for the Muslim Brotherhood.   Then there was the matter of allowing one of his underlings to throw Fox Company, of Task Force Spartan in Afghanistan in 2007, under bus so he could advance his own career.............Mattis argued the case for staying in Afghanistan, overriding Trump's gut instinct.  There is no point in staying in Afghanistan.  When someone stops paying for the imported grain that allows Afghanistan's population to double every 25 years, then Afghanistan will collapse.  Mattis's reasoning for staying in Afghanistan is that we either fight them there or fight them here.  The opposite is true.  By continuing to feed them, we are creating more future terrorists.  The way to keep this country safe is to forbid them to enter........... Read more

‘You Have Been in Afghanistan, I Perceive’

By Michael Walsh December 21st, 2018


President Trump’s decisions to withdraw from Syria and to start drawing down the number of our troops in Afghanistan should come as welcome news to all Americans. The pointless wars in the Middle East and the Hindu Kush have been going on since 9/11—longer if you count the entirely unnecessary incursion into Iraq in 1991—and have brought only misery in their wake. If Trump does nothing else but put an end to the endless wars bequeathed to us by the house of Bush, his will have been a consequential presidency.

That these orders have seemingly resulted in the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis is not necessarily a bad thing. Trump is a churning force, as his track record already shows, and if his appointees disagree with his policies, then they go, not the policies. Just ask Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson. Like John Kelly, currently on his way out the door as White House chief of staff, Mattis is a distinguished officer in the United States Marine Corps—but no conservative. As anyone who understands the USMC knows, Marine officers are not ideologues; indeed, by training they are apolitical, owing their allegiance to the Constitution and the commander-in-chief. I’m not sure whether this is still true today, but when I was a kid growing up on various Marine duty stations, they didn’t even vote...........To Read More.....

Why do we have such a liberal secretary of defense?

May 13, 2018 By Ed Straker
 

Secretary of defense Jim Mattis seems to always be on the wrong side of every issue.

1. He believes that global warming is a national security threat............

2. Mattis believes that the so-called "settlements" in Israel's Judea and Samaria are an "obstacle to peace" and that Israel could become an "apartheid state." ............. 

3. Mattis resisted a broader air strike on Syria when it was found to be using chemical weapons.  Instead, we struck a few empty buildings at night..............  

4. Mattis wants to keep the mentally ill so-called "transgendered" in the military. ........... 5. Mattis is flatly against water boarding, presumably even for terrorists in "ticking timebomb" cases.

6. And most recently, Mattis wanted the administration to stay in the Iran deal........

Questions for discussion:.............Read more