MATTIS SCORES CONGRESSIONAL WAIVER TO LEAD PENTAGON (AVOIDS PC QUESTIONS)

GEN MATTIS SCORES CONGRESSIONAL WAIVER TO LEAD PENTAGON:

AVOIDS POLITICALLY CORRECT GAMES DURING CONFIRMATION HEARINGS.

MATTIS LOVES THE USA & RESPECTS US MILITARY.

Sources: Times of Israel, C-Span, YouTube

******* Trump’s Pentagon chief: The capital of Israel is Tel Aviv
~ "The capital of Israel that I go to, sir, is Tel Aviv, sir, because that’s where all their government people are."

Diverging from the signals the president-elect has been sending out, James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis opts to ‘stick with US policy’.


President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to head the Pentagon said Thursday that the United States should continue treating Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, breaking with Republican members of Congress and intimations the incoming president could fulfill his campaign pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Asked during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee if he supported the embassy’s relocation, retired Marine Corps general James “Mad Dog” Mattis said, “Right now I stick with the current US policy.”

Facing an hours-long session of questions from senators, he emphasized: “The capital of Israel that I go to, sir, is Tel Aviv, sir, because that’s where all their government people are.” He also noted, however, the determination was not part of his remit as defense secretary nominee.

“I would defer to the nominee of Secretary of State on that, sir,” he said.

The last three successive presidents have maintained that the future status of Jerusalem should be settled in final negotiations between the parties, as both Israelis and Palestinians claim the city as their rightful capital.

But Trump has indicated since his victory in November he will no longer honor that tradition. In December, he nominated his longtime friend and attorney David Friedman, a vocal supporter and donor to West Bank settlements, to be the next US ambassador to Israel

In a statement announcing the selection, Friedman said he expected to carry out his duties in “Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

Trump also repeatedly promised during the campaign that he would move the embassy. While past presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also vowed on the trail to do so, neither fulfilled that promise once they assumed the responsibilities of conducting America’s foreign policy.

Mattis’s position further underlines a difference with most Republican on Capitol Hill, who make up the majority in both chambers of Congress.

The Obama administration allowed passage of a United Nations Security Council Resolution last month that condemns settlements as a violation of international law. The text states that all areas Israel captured in the 1967 war — which includes East Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, with the Temple Mount and Western Wall, the holiest sites in Judaism — are “occupied Palestinian territory.”

Earlier this month, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller (R) proposed the Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act, which urges Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there.

Mattis declined to comment on the motion Thursday, telling the senators he needed more information on the particulars of its content.

He also diverged from most GOP lawmakers in expressing support for a two-state outcome to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

“If it brings peace to the Middle East,” he said, while also indicating he is willing to hear alternatives despite his skepticism that another resolution to the conflict exists.

“If there’s another solution, I’d be happy to hear what it is,” he said, before later stressing America had a “vital interest” in the two sides reaching a peaceful accommodation to their decades-long dispute.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, also endorsed the two-state solution.

In the past, Mattis has been a critic of the Israeli settlement enterprise, asserting that its continued expansion imperiled Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state.

“If I’m in Jerusalem and I put 500 Jewish settlers out here to the east and there’s 10,000 Arab settlers in here, if we draw the border to include them, either it ceases to be a Jewish state or you say the Arabs don’t get to vote — apartheid,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in July 2013.

During that same conversation, he also said the United States pays a security price with the rest of the Arab world for its support of Israel.

Mattis, who headed the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) under President Obama from August 2010 to March 2013 (a post that has command authority for all US forces in the Middle East with the exception of Israel), did imply during Thursday’s hearing that his former boss did not always send a comforting message to Israel as an ally.

There was “a sense” in Jerusalem, Mattis said, that the administration has been “indifferent to their security concerns.” Under that assessment, he told committee members, it was “time to build trust” with the Jewish state.

Mattis also addressed the Iran nuclear deal, saying he thought it was an “imperfect” pact, but that the US had an obligation to abide by its terms. “When America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies,” he said.

During the campaign, Trump sent conflicting messages on the Iran accord, suggesting he would both abrogate the deal and enforce rigorously. Since being elected, his top advisers have indicated he will not withdraw from the deal unilaterally unless Iran violates the agreement.

GEN "MAD DOG" MATTIS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTS SEC OF DEFENSE ROLE

GEN JOE "MAD DOG" MATTIS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTS SEC OF DEFENSE ROLE:

TRUMP GUARANTEES WAIVER APPROVAL.

US MILITARY NEEDS STRONG, COMPETENT LEADERSHIP.


Sources: AP, Fox News, YouTube


****** Mattis says he's 'grateful' to be nominated as defense secretary; House GOP introduces waiver language


President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Defense said Tuesday that he was "grateful" to be nominated as House Republicans introduced a must-pass spending bill that included language designed to speed up his confirmation.
Retired Marine Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis briefly joined Trump on stage at the president-elect's "Thank You" rally in Fayetteville, N.C.

"I’m grateful for the opportunity to return to our troops, their families, the civilians at the Department of Defense," Mattis said in brief remarks. "I know how committed they are and devoted they are to the defense of our country [and] the defense of our Constitution. And with our allies strengthened and with our country strengthened, I look forward to being the civilian leader, so long as Congress gives me the waiver and the Senate votes to consent."

"You're going to get that waiver," Trump said as Mattis left the microphone. "If you don’t get that waiver, there are going to be a lot of angry people."

Mattis retired from the military in 2013. However, since federal law requires the secretary of defense to be off active duty for at least seven years, Congress would have to approve a waiver allowing Mattis to lead the Pentagon.

Shortly before Trump took the stage, House Republicans included a proposal to expedite the waiver in legislation to keep the government funded into next spring.

The bill would prevent the government from shutting down this weekend and buy several months for the new Congress and incoming Trump administration to wrap up more than $1 trillion worth of unfinished agency budget bills.

However, it also includes language meant to force Senate Democrats to consider whether to oppose the entire spending bill over Mattis' confirmation, risking a government shutdown over the matter.

The legislation requires Mattis to receive 60 Senate votes to receive the waiver. However, the legislation would limit debate on the measure to 10 hours.

For Mattis to receive the waiver, at least eight Senate Democrats would have to join 52 Senate Republican to approve it.

Trump himself was less bombastic Tuesday evening than at a similar rally last week in Cincinnati. The president-elect attempted to strike more of the healing notes traditionally delivered in the weeks after a bruising campaign. He even stopped the crowd when it started to boo the media.

"We will defend American jobs. We have to look at it almost like a war," Trump thundered. "We want the next generation of innovation and production to happen right here in America.

"We will heal our divisions and unify our country. When Americans are unified there is nothing we cannot do -- nothing!" he added. "I'm asking you to dream big again as Americans. I'm asking you to believe in yourselves."

TRUMP PICKS GEN "MAD DOG" MATTIS TO LEAD US TROOPS TO VICTORY AGAINST ISIL

TRUMP PICKS GEN JAMES "MAD DOG" MATTIS TO LEAD US TROOPS TO VICTORY AGAINST ISIL:

EXCELLENT CHOICE FOR SECRETARY OF DEFENSE.


Sources: LA Times, MSNBC, YouTube


****** Why Trump needs James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis


"Trump needs Cabinet officers who are willing to stand up to him and push back when he’s wrong. Mattis has already done that."

When President-elect Donald Trumpannounced that James N. Mattis was his choice to lead the Department of Defense, what seemed to delight him most was the retired general’s Iraq war nickname: “Mad Dog.”

“Mad Dog Mattis!” Trump told a post-election rally. “Mad Dog. He is great, he is great…. They say he is the closest thing to Gen. George Patton that we have.”

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to hear a lot about Mattis’s prowess as a combat commander and his salty exhortations to the troops he led.

“Be professional, be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet,” he told his Marines. (A pretty good definition of what combat forces are for, actually.

And he incautiously told a partly-civilian audience that fighting is “a hell of a hoot. ... It’s fun to shoot some people.” (He apologized for that one.)

But if Trump chose Mattis for his mad-dog reputation, he made a good choice for the wrong reason.

Yes, Mattis was a Marine who demanded “ferocity” from his troops in battle. But he’s also a strategic thinker and scholar who ordered his officers to read military history, can quote Marcus Aurelius or Ulysses S. Grant — and never much liked the “mad dog” sobriquet his men bestowed on him in Anbar province.

Off the battlefield, he’s soft-spoken, thoughtful, cautious — and, most important, un-Trumplike.

Indeed, Mattis has already disagreed with many of the foreign policy positions Trump adopted without evidence of deep study during his campaign.

Trump has suggested that the United States should adopt an “America First” foreign policy, shedding excess obligations and spending less on traditional alliances. Mattis has called for “continued engagement in the world” and “stronger alliances,” and said Trump’s dismissal of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance was “kooky.”

When Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, Mattis said the proposal caused “great damage” to U.S. relationships in the Middle East. (Trump later softened the policy to “extreme vetting.”)

Trump has suggested that Vladimir Putin’s Russia could be a U.S. ally; Mattis considers Putin a major threat, and believes the U.S. should do more to help Ukraine.

And, as Trump himself reported, Mattis told the president-elect to his face that he was wrong to suggest that U.S. forces should torture suspected terrorists for information. “Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, and I’ll do better,” the general told the president-elect.

Trump and Mattis also differ on Iran, which could set up one of the new administration’s first big foreign policy debates.

Trump has said dismantling Obama’s 2015 nuclear arms deal with Tehran would be his top priority. Mattis says that’s simply impractical.

“There’s no going back,” Mattis said in April. “I don’t think that we can take advantage of some new president’s [arrival] and say we’re not going to live up to our word on this agreement. I believe we would be alone if we did, and unilateral economic sanctions from us would not have near the impact of an allied approach.”

Instead, he said, the priority should be to keep pressure on Iran to curb its intervention in the rest of the Middle East, and to deter Iran from abandoning the nuclear agreement in the years ahead.

“I think we’re going to have to hold at risk the nuclear program in the future — in other words, make plans now of what we’d do if in fact they restarted,” he said.

There’s one big problem with Mattis’s nomination: the law that prohibits a former military officer from being secretary of Defense unless he or she has been retired for at least seven years.

It’s a sensible law, meant to guarantee the principle of civilian control, and it’s only been waived once before, for George C. Marshall in 1950. Marshall was an extraordinary case: the chief of staff who organized victory in World War II and then served as a successful secretary of State.

This is an extraordinary case for a different reason: Trump needs Cabinet officers who are willing to stand up to him and push back when he’s wrong. Mattis has already done that.

And Trump needs someone to balance the influence of his other favorite general, the volcanic Michael Flynn, who will be his national security advisor.

Mattis and Flynn, who know each other well, are likely to go head-to-head on a long list of issues. (According to one report, Flynn wasn’t thrilled with the idea of nominating Mattis, who outranked him four stars to three. Generals remember details like that.)

Trump’s infatuation with generals — he boasted frequently in the campaign about their support — sometimes takes on an odd fanboy tone. (“Mad Dog!”)

But in this case, it might be a good thing. When Mad Dog Mattis tells Trump that blowing up the Iran nuclear agreement, weakening alliances, bombing civilians or reinstating torture is a bad idea, the boss might actually listen.