Did the Media Care When Obama Fired General Mattis?
By Daniel John Sobieski
AmericanThinker.com
December 23, 2018
Defense secretaries come and go. President Obama had four of them in eight years, who had some unkind things to say about his leadership or lack of it. There was no talk of chaos or of the only adult in the room leaving.
Suddenly, the media are in a meltdown after “Mad Dog” Mattis announced his departure from the Cabinet after President Trump announced our departure from Syria:
Foreign Policy Pentagon reporter Lara Seligman wrote the press corp [sic] is contemplating suicide over Mattis’ resignation, “I think I speak for all national security reporters tonight when I say I’m about ready to jump off a cliff. But at least I already wrote the “who will replace Mattis” story two months (only two months?????) ago[.”]
Democrats who won’t defend our southern border and who slept as Obama drew red lines with vanishing ink worry about an ISIS Obama created by a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq regaining strength and reforming in Syria and Iraq. The general Obama fired is suddenly a man of principle whose leadership was indispensable:
House Speaker-designate Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she was “shaken and “concerned”. “General Mattis was a comfort to many who were concerned about the path the Trump Admin would choose to take. His resignation letter is defined by statements of principle – principles that drove him to leave the Administration. All of us should be concerned at this time.”
There was no such concern when Obama relieved Mattis as commander of CENTCOM without so much as a phone call, a factoid typical of Obama’s disdain for the military, its missions, and its heroes.
[Thomas E.] Ricks says Mattis was fired because:
Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way – not because he went all “mad dog,” which is his public image, and the view at the White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran. Some of those questions apparently were uncomfortable. Like, what do you do with Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What do you do if Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, “And then what?”
There is also a belief that Mattis and Obama differed on Iran. “A particular point of disagreement was what to do about mischief Iran is exporting to other countries. Mattis is indeed more hawkish on this than the White House was,” writes Ricks in yet another post.
The Rest…HERE
