Send The 'Mad Dog' To The Corporate Kennel
22
December, 2018
Outgoing
Defense Secretary Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was famous
for quipping,
“It’s fun to shoot some people.” It
remains a supreme irony that Mattis was widely considered the only
“adult in the room” in the Trump administration. Compared to
whom? John Bolton, the rabid neocon serving as national security
adviser? That would be the epitome of “condemning with faint
praise.”
With
his ramrod-straight image, not to mention his warrior/scholar
reputation extolled in the media, Mattis
was able to disguise the reality that he was, as Col. Andrew
Bacevich put
it on
Democracy Now! this morning, “totally unimaginative.” Meaning
that Mattis was simply incapable of acknowledging the
self-destructive, mindless nature of U.S. “endless war” in the
Middle East, which candidate-Trump had correctly called “stupid.”
In his resignation letter, Mattis also peddled the usual cant about
the indispensable nation’s aggression being good for the world
Mattis
was an obstacle to Trump’s desire to pull troops out of Syria and
Afghanistan (and remains in position to spike Trump’s
orders). Granted,
the abrupt way Trump announced his apparently one-man decision was
equally stupid. But withdrawal of ground troops is supremely sane,
and Mattis was and is a large problem. And,
for good or ill, Trump — not Mattis — was elected president.
Marine Wisdom
Historically,
Marines are the last place to turn for sound advice. Marine
Gen. Smedley Butler (1881-1940), twice winner of the Medal of Honor,
was brutally candid about this, after he paused long enough to
realize, and write, “War is a Racket”:
“I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. …”
Shortly
after another Marine general, former CENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni,
retired, he stood by silently as he personally watched then-Vice
President Dick Cheney give his most important speech ever (on August
26, 2002). Cheney
blatantly lied about Iraq’s (non-existent) WMD, in order to grease
the skids for the war of aggression against Iraq. Zinni
had kept his clearances and was “back on contract.” He was well
read-in on Iraq, and knew immediately that Cheney was lying
A
few years later, Zinni admitted that he decided that his lips would
be sealed.
Far be it for a Marine to play skunk at the picnic. And, after
all, he was being honored that day at the same Veterans of Foreign
Wars convention where Cheney spoke. As seems clear now, Zinni
was also lusting after the lucrative spoils of war given to erstwhile
generals who offer themselves for membership on the corporate Boards
of the arms makers/merchants that profiteer on war.
(For
an earlier critique of senior Marines, see: “Attacking
Syria: Thumbing Noses at Constitution and Law.” )
Butler:
Said “No.”
Marine
officer, now Sen. Pat Roberts, R, Kansas, merits “dishonorable
mention” in this connection. He never rose to general, but did
become Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee at an auspicious
time for Cheney and Bush. Roberts kowtowed, like a “good Marine,”
to their crass deceit, when a dollop of honesty on his part could
have prevented the 2003 attack on Iraq and the killing, maiming,
destruction, and chaos that continues to this day. Roberts
knew all about the fraudulent intelligence, and covered it up —
together with other lies — for as long as he remained Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairman
Scott Ritter on Pat Roberts
Roberts’s
unconscionable dereliction of duty enraged one honest Marine, Maj.
Scott Ritter, who believes “Semper Fi” includes an obligation to
tell the truth on matters of war and peace. Ritter,
former UN chief weapons inspector for Iraq, who in April wrote
in April 2005 “Semper Fraud, Senator Roberts,” based partly on
his own experience with
that complicit Marine.
Needless
to say, higher ranking, more malleable Marines aped Zinni in
impersonating Uncle Remus’s Tar Baby — not saying nuttin’.
It
is conceivable that yet another sharply-saluting Marine, departing
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, may be tapped
by Trump to take Mattis’s job. If that happens, it will add to
President Trump’s bizarre penchant for picking advisers hell bent
on frustrating the objectives he espoused when he was running for
office, some of which — it is becoming quite clear — he genuinely
wants to achieve.
Trump
ought to unleash Mattis now, and make sure Mattis keeps his distance
from the Pentagon and the Military-Industrial Complex, before he is
asked to lead an insurrection against a highly vulnerable president —
as Gen. Smedley Butler was asked to do back in the day. Butler said
no.
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