mad dog mattis gen

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">last adult {green?} hope standing? had a bunch of gen'ls, all gone 12/18, mulvaney acting COS</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-spewed-vulgarity-about-american-generals-for-not-prioritizing-his-trade-deals-book/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Alex Henderson September 9, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Veteran journalist Bob Woodward conducted a series of interviews with President Donald Trump for his new book, “Rage,” which is due out on September 15 — but the details are already coming out.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Between December 2019 and July 2020, Woodward conducted 18 on-the-record interviews with the president — and “Rage” is based in part on those interviews. And the revelations are nothing short of explosive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are seven of the most stunning details</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. Trump rages about the generals</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Woodward quotes Woodward as saying, “My fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">2. Mattis and Coats recognized Trump’s unfitness</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Rage,” according to Washington Post reporters Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, contains&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“brutal assessments of Trump’s conduct from Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, former Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and others:</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">In a separate conversation recounted by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, “The president has no moral compass,” to which the director of national intelligence replied: “True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>3. He knowingly misled about COVID-19</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another damning thing in Woodward’s book, the Post and CNN are reporting, is that Trump acknowledged that the coronavirus was “deadly” even when he was still claiming that it didn’t pose a major threat to the United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During a February 7 interview, according to CNN, Trump told Woodward, “This is deadly stuff.” Trump told Woodward it was “pretty amazing” how deadly COVID-19 was and acknowledged that it was perhaps five times “more deadly” than the flu.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“You just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump told Woodward that day. “And so, that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At that point, coronavirus was spreading rapidly in Mainland China. But Trump was still insisting that it wouldn’t imperil the United States. The COVID-19 death count, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has since killed more than 189,900 people in the U.S. and over 898,700 people worldwide (as of September 9).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Trump has said that back in January and February, he had no way of knowing how deadly COVID-19 could become in the U.S. But Robert Costa and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post report that on January 28 — according to Woodward’s book — National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien warned Trump, “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency. This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger agreed with O’Brien that day, telling Trump that based on what he was hearing from contacts in China, COVID-19 was shaping up to be the worst health crisis since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918/1919 — which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March, after the World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, Trump began to publicly acknowledge how dangerous it was. And during a March 19 conversation, according to Costa and Rucker, Trump admitted to Woodward that he had deliberately downplayed the danger.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” Trump told the journalist/author — who is famous for his Washington Post reporting, with Carl Bernstein, on the Watergate scandal back in the 1970s.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>4. Fauci reportedly lambasted the president in private</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to “Rage,” expert immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci — who has been part of Trump’s coronavirus task force —&nbsp; expressed frustration over Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis, describing Trump’s leadership as “rudderless” and complaining to others that his “attention span is like a minus number.” Fauci, Woodward says in the book, told an associate, “His sole purpose is to get reelected.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trumps-lies-cost-tens-of-thousands-of-american-lives-and-bob-woodward-has-the-proof-on-tape/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trumps-lies-cost-tens-of-thousands-of-american-lives-and-bob-woodward-has-the-proof-on-tape/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-movement-and-the-downfall-of-a-president/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-movement-and-the-downfall-of-a-president/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They almost always begin to right wrongs: illegitimate wars; decades of discrimination on the grounds of gender or racial or sexual identity; killings of innocents by police or gun-toting lunatics; oppression by governments wielding unequal laws; the deeply embedded legacy of centuries of racism.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/06/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-movement--and-the-downfall-of-a-president/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">first appeared in Salon</a>.</font></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They are imperfect. Arising out of rage, they can be unfocused, inchoate, contradictory. Protesting violence, they often involve violence. Protesting oppression, they sometimes oppress by destroying public spaces, small businesses, even entire neighborhoods.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But sometimes they are large enough and powerful enough and righteous enough to bend the arc of history. We are in such a moment. There has been a turning. A protest against the murder of a black man by police in Minneapolis has become a movement. Demonstrations, which began almost two weeks ago, are ongoing. They are huge. They are nationwide. They are peaceful. They show no signs of stopping.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the extraordinary things about this moment is the fact that every single person who has taken to the streets to demonstrate is risking his or her life. People who only days ago were huddled inside their homes, afraid of a virus that has taken in excess of 110,000 lives in this country, are putting on their face masks and gathering by the tens or even hundreds of thousands, unafraid of the virus or the forces arrayed on the streets against them. They are protesting the death of a man who should not have had to die, and they are protesting the man who seemingly gave permission for him to be murdered by the intolerance and racism he has openly promoted for more than four years.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If we had any doubts that our fellow citizens would turn out to vote in November because they would be afraid of the virus or intimidated by attempts to block their votes, we have our answer. More people will turn out to vote, not less, and this has Trump very, very worried.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The show of courage on the streets has frightened Trump and his allies in the Republican Party. If you have any doubts, all you have to do is watch the scene of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/06/sorry-im-late-for-lunch-reporter-asks-13-republicans-about-trumps-church-photo-op-then-posted-their-answers/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Republican senators scurrying away from MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt</u></a>&nbsp;on Capitol Hill when she asked them to comment on Trump’s disgusting and disreputable photo-op at St. John’s Church on Monday.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has turned Washington into an armed camp. He has built a three-mile-long wall around the White House and cowered in a basement bunker as protests grew on the streets outside. But Trump’s threat to use active-duty soldiers to suppress dissent has encountered some profound pushback from an unexpected source: the United States military.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It began with a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">statement by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis</u></a>&nbsp;in reaction to the use of force, including National Guard soldiers</b>, to clear peaceful demonstrators from a street near the White House so Trump could make his now-infamous “walk” to St. John’s Church for his Bible-waving photo-op. “I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis wrote in The Atlantic:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens — much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation. We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And then something extraordinary happened. Mattis’ clarion call was joined by more senior military figures, beginning with Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who had been the object of strong criticism for standing next to Trump during his Bible photo-op. Esper held a press conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday and announced that he was against invoking the Insurrection Act, which would (hypothetically) authorize the deployment of active-duty military on the streets of America. Trump is said to be very, very unhappy with Esper and reversed his order for elements of the 82nd Airborne Division to return to their base in North Carolina. By week’s end, however, Esper had prevailed, and the 82nd was on the way home.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Retired Adm. Mike Mullen</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Barack Obama, was next. He wrote a piece for The Atlantic entitled, “</span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/american-cities-are-not-battlespaces/612553" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">I cannot remain silent</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“t sickened me yesterday to see security personnel — including members of the National Guard — forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever Trump’s goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Retired General John R. Allen weighed in next,&nbsp;<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/03/trump-military-george-floyd-protests/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">writing ominously in Foreign Policy magazine</u></a>, “The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020. Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>More retired generals weighed in later in the week,</b>&nbsp;including two former chairs of the Joint Chiefs, Martin Dempsey and Richard Meyers. Both were critical of Trump’s handling of protests and opposed the use of the military to suppress dissent.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But even more extraordinary than the retired officers who spoke out was the letter from the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley, which was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.journaloftheplagueyear.ink/blog/did-america-s-military-stop-a-coup-d-etat?fbclid=IwAR0RkIO0tZKpypnd5LhfMJyUIVgveZysmwW1Upu9yU6Q5uQ6H5QqzrXGKFs" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">leaked to conservative pundit Bill Kristol</u></a>&nbsp;on Thursday.<b>&nbsp;Milley&nbsp;</b>is said to have had a contentious meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Monday before joining him in his infamous “walk” down the street cleared by police and National Guard soldiers. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-mattis-and-mullen-toppled-their-bridge-of-silence/2020/06/04/c71b8f58-a698-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><u style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">David Ignatius of the Washington Post</u></a>, Milley, “whose temper can match Trump’s…was vocal in reiterating his advice to the president against mobilizing troops, according to three knowledgeable sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”&nbsp; That is Washington-speak for “they were yelling at each other.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sent to all of the other chiefs of staff for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard and commanders of combatant commands, Milley’s letter is unlike anything I have seen, and I’ve been around the military since I was born in an Army field hospital in occupied Japan in 1947.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He reminded everyone in uniform of their oath to support and defend the Constitution. I’ve never seen that done before. All service members take the same oath, but they don’t go around reminding each other about it. Milley wrote of the Constitution, “This document is founded on the essential principles that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. We in uniform — all branches, all components, all ranks — remain committed to our national values and principles embedded in the Constitution.” He went on to note specifically that the National Guard “is operating under the authority of state governors.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For a military man, this comes close to a call for insurrection. Milley’s message is written in a code that everyone in uniform will understand implicitly. By reminding every member of the military that the soldiers currently deployed on the street around the country are not there under the authority of the president, and by reminding them of their oath to the Constitution, he is telling them that the military will not be carrying out any un-American orders issued by Donald Trump. Late Friday, Secretary of Defense Esper disarmed the National Guard doing riot duty in Washington, ordering them to turn in their weapons and ammunition.&nbsp; He also ordered all active duty troops amassed outside the capital earlier in the week by the White House to be sent home.&nbsp; He issued both orders without consulting the White House.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These generals are not politicians, but all their statements are as political as any I’ve ever seen by senior officers, retired or active duty. It’s the equivalent of lining up howitzers on Pennsylvania Avenue and aiming at the White House.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>I’ll bet Trump rues the day he appointed “Mad Dog” Mattis as secretary of defense. </b>They don’t go out and make statements like this without talking to one another. Mullen and Mattis were said to have been aware of Milley’s confrontation with the president at the time they wrote their articles on Tuesday and Wednesday. Milley and his fellow generals and admirals are giving a clear sign that the military leaders are turning against Trump. Colin Powell will reportedly be next, in an appearance on one of the Sunday morning shows.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The military is the most reliably conservative institution this country has. But inside the military establishment, the signals are being sent. They have announced that they are more reliable as defenders of the rights of their fellow citizens than the police. Without stepping over the line into insubordination, they have made it as clear as they can that their loyalty isn’t to the president. It’s to the Constitution.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I don’t think we have to worry about the military following illegal orders from Trump. At least for now, they’re on our side.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">--</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">esper waffles/caves, sec of army better?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">620 an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/james-mattis-writes-a-devastating-rebuke-to-trumps-handling-of-protests/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Mattis writes a devastating rebuke to Trump’s handling of protests</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/james-mattis-writes-a-devastating-rebuke-to-trumps-handling-of-protests/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/james-mattis-writes-a-devastating-rebuke-to-trumps-handling-of-protests/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/cody-fenwick/" title="Posts by Cody Fenwick" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Cody Fenw</font></a></h3></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">some say work for doj?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/department-of-justice-deploys-rogue-force-of-unidentified-armed-militia-to-patrol-dc"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/department-of-justice-deploys-rogue-force-of-unidentified-armed-militia-to-patrol-dc</font></a></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">1019 book not critical? an</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NEW</font></p><h2 style="line-height: 1.375em; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://go.propublica.org/e/125411/l-utm-campaign-dailynewsletter/6yqfm6/411005241?h=-k7otS-5HNOQYARyo2fyQsDytYP5hm0vrJc7UXNuRAI" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">How Amazon and Silicon Valley Seduced the Pentagon</font></a></h2><p style="line-height: 1.375; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt have gotten unprecedented access to the Pentagon. And one whistleblower who raised flags has paid the price.</font></p><div class="yiv9101970470byline" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding: 0.25em 0em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by James Bandler, Anjali Tsui and Doris Burke</font></div><div class="yiv9101970470button-holder" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" class="yiv9101970470button" target="blank" href="https://go.propublica.org/e/125411/l-utm-campaign-dailynewsletter/6yqfm6/411005241?h=-k7otS-5HNOQYARyo2fyQsDytYP5hm0vrJc7UXNuRAI" style="text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block; border: 1px solid rgb(33, 124, 227); font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 40px; padding: 10px 20px; margin-top: 15px; border-radius: 3px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">View Story</font></a></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-amazon-and-silicon-valley-seduced-the-pentagon">https://www.propublica.org/article/how-amazon-and-silicon-valley-seduced-the-pentagon</a></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>How Amazon and Silicon Valley Seduced the Pentagon</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt have gotten unprecedented access to the Pentagon. And one whistleblower who raised flags has paid the price.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">by James Bandler, Anjali Tsui and Doris Burke Aug. 22, 5 a.m. EDT</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[pix From left: Eric Schmidt, the former chairman of Google’s parent company, James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. (Nate Kitch, special to ProPublica)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This article was co-published with Fortune.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On Aug. 8, 2017, Roma Laster, a Pentagon employee responsible for policing conflicts of interest, emailed an urgent warning to the chief of staff of then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Several department employees had arranged for Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, to be sworn into an influential Pentagon advisory board despite the fact that, in the year since he’d been nominated, Bezos had never completed a required background check to obtain a security clearance.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Mattis</b>&nbsp;was about to fly to the West Coast, where he would personally swear Bezos in at Amazon’s headquarters before moving on to meetings with executives from Google and Apple. Soon phone calls and emails began bouncing around the Pentagon. Security clearances are no trivial matter to defense officials; they exist to ensure that people with access to sensitive information aren’t, say, vulnerable to blackmail and don’t have conflicts of interest. Laster also contended that it was a “noteworthy exception” for Mattis to perform the ceremony. Secretaries of defense, she wrote, don’t hold swearing-in events.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.]!]</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Laster’s alarms triggered fear among Pentagon brass that Mattis would be seen as doing a special favor for Bezos, which could put him in hot water with President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly proclaimed his antipathy to Bezos, mainly because of his ownership of The Washington Post</b>. The swearing-in was canceled only hours before it was scheduled to occur. (This episode, never previously reported, is based on interviews with six people familiar with the matter. An Amazon spokesperson said the company was told that Bezos did not need a security clearance and that the company provided all requested information.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite the cancellation, Bezos met with Mattis that day. They talked about leadership and military history, then moved on to Amazon’s sales pitch on why the Defense Department should make a radical shift in its computing. Amazon wanted the department to abandon its hodgepodge of 2,215 data centers, located in various Pentagon facilities and run using different systems by an array of different companies, and let Amazon replace that with cloud service: computing power provided over the internet, all of it running on Amazon’s servers.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That vision is now well on its way to becoming a reality. The Pentagon is preparing to award a $10 billion, 10-year contract to move its information technology systems to the cloud. Amazon’s cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, or AWS, is the biggest provider of cloud services in the country and also the company’s profit engine: It accounted for 58.7% of Amazon’s operating income last year. AWS has been the favorite to emerge with the Pentagon contract.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Known as JEDI, for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, the project has been the subject of accusations of favoritism. Two spurned bidders have launched unsuccessful bid protests and one of them, Oracle, filed and lost a lawsuit. Meanwhile, there’s an ongoing investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The DOD defends JEDI. The agency’s decision-makers have “always placed the interests of the warfighter first and have acted without bias, prejudice, or self-interest,” DOD spokesperson Elissa Smith said in a statement. “The same cannot be said of all parties to the debate over JEDI.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">What’s happened at the Pentagon extends past the JEDI contract. It’s a story of how some of America’s biggest tech companies used a little-known advisory board, some aggressive advocacy by a few billionaires and some unofficial lobbying to open a backdoor into the Pentagon. And so, no matter who wins the JEDI contract, one winner is already clear: Silicon Valley. The question is no longer whether a technology giant will emerge with the $10 billion prize, but rather which technology giant (or giants) will.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There are certainly benefits. The Pentagon’s technological infrastructure does indeed need to be modernized. But there may also be costs. Silicon Valley has pushed for the Pentagon to adopt its technology and its move-fast-and-break-things ethos. The result, according to interviews with more than three dozen current and former DOD officials and tech executives, has been internal clashes and a tortured process that has combined the hype of tech with the ethical morass of the Washington industry-government revolving door.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Laster did her best to enforce the rules. She would challenge the Pentagon’s cozy relationship not only with Bezos, but with Google’s Eric Schmidt, the chairman of the defense board that Bezos sought to join. The ultimate resolution? Laster was shunted aside. She was removed from the innovation board in November 2017 (but remains at the Defense Department). “Roma was removed because she insisted on them following the rules,” said a former DOD official knowledgeable about her situation.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Laster filed a grievance, which was denied. “I’ve been betrayed by an organization I joined when I was 17 years old,” said Laster, who is 54. “This is an organization built on loyalty, dedication and patriotism. Unfortunately, it is kind of one-way.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Other criticism, from Amazon’s rivals and the press, has centered on the actions of several DOD workers who had previously worked directly or indirectly for Amazon and have since returned to the private sector</b>. The most important of those employees, Sally Donnelly — a former outside strategist for Amazon who had become one of Mattis’ top aides — helped give Amazon officials access to Mattis in intimate settings, an opportunity that most defense contractors don’t enjoy. Donnelly organized a private dinner, never reported before, for Mattis, Bezos, herself and Amazon’s top government-sales executive at a Washington restaurant, DBGB, on Jan. 17, 2018. The dinner occurred just as the DOD was finalizing draft bid specifications for JEDI. (Asked about the dinner and several others like it, the DOD’s Smith said: “One of the department’s priorities is to reform the way DOD does business. As part of this reform, leaders are expected to engage with industry — in a full and open manner within legal boundaries — to find ways to reform our business practices and build a more lethal force.” A spokesperson for AWS said the dinner “had nothing to do with the JEDI procurement, and those implying otherwise either are misinformed or disappointed competitors trying to distract with innuendo vs competing fairly with their technical capabilities.”)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Such meetings aren’t illegal, but they undermine public trust in defense contracting, said Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and one of the nation’s leading experts on government-contracting law. “This is a particularly serious example of the revolving door among Pentagon officials and defense contractors, which has been problematic in recent years and is getting worse under the Trump administration,” he said.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In July, Trump expressed concerns about the process and whether it was skewed in Amazon’s favor. Early this month, his new defense secretary, Mark Esper, announced a fresh review, which will delay the selection of a winner. The judge in the JEDI-related case ruled in favor of the government but nonetheless summed up the process as containing conflict-of-interest allegations that were “certainly sufficient to raise eyebrows” and a “constant gravitational pull on agency employees by technology behemoths.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The board that Bezos almost joined — called the Defense Innovation Board — was launched in 2016 by Ashton Carter, the last defense secretary in the Obama administration.&nbsp;</span>Carter worried that the Pentagon’s information technology was falling behind. He recruited a collection of tech luminaries, including Schmidt, then the executive chairman of Google’s parent company, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, by appealing to their patriotism and enticing them with the proposition that the DOD needed the insight and culture of Silicon Valley. Of course, the Pentagon also has an annual infotech budget of $38 billion, and what tech CEO could resist offering products and services to solve the department’s problems?</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Schmidt, the chairman of the innovation board, embraced the mission. In the spring and summer of 2016, he embarked, with fellow board members, on a series of visits to Pentagon operations around the world. Schmidt visited a submarine base in San Diego, an aircraft carrier off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and Creech Air Force Base, located deep in the Nevada desert near Area 51.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Inside the drone operations center at Creech, according to three people familiar with the trip, Schmidt observed video as a truck in a contested zone somewhere was surveilled by a Predator drone and annihilated. It was a mesmerizing display of the U.S. military’s lethal reach.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Yet as Schmidt and his colleagues studied the control panels and displays, they felt like they were witnessing technology frozen in the 1970s. He began asking questions about the challenges of controlling drones thousands of miles away. One operator complained that he had to use his joystick to toggle quickly between systems and screens, turning off one feed to use another. He had to do all of this while simultaneously flying the drone and trying to keep his attention on a target that was frequently in motion.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A little later, on the operations floor, Schmidt watched as dozens of people monitored video feeds from drones around the globe. One of the visitors noted that computers using recognition software and machine learning could much more efficiently and accurately perform the majority of these tasks.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A little more than a year after Schmidt’s visit, Google won a $17 million subcontract in a project called Maven to help the military use image recognition software to identify drone targets — exactly the kind of function that Schmidt witnessed at Creech. (Schmidt declined to be interviewed. A person close to the innovation board said he was unaware of his company’s involvement in Maven. Google, which has funded ProPublica projects on voting and video journalism in recent years, declined to comment on the record.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Schmidt’s influence, already strong under Carter, only grew when Mattis arrived as defense secretary. Schmidt’s travel privileges at the DOD, which required painstaking approval from the agency’s chief of staff for each stop of every trip, were suddenly unfettered after Schmidt requested carte blanche, according to three sources knowledgeable about the matter. Mattis granted him and the board permission to travel anywhere they wanted and to talk to anyone at the DOD on all but the most secret programs.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Such access is unheard-of for executives or directors of companies that sell to the government, say three current and former DOD officials, both to prevent opportunities for bribery or improper influence and to ensure that one company does not get advantages over others. “Mattis changed the rules of engagement and the muscularity of the innovation board went from zero to 60,” said a person who has served on Pentagon advisory boards. “There’s a lot of opportunity for mischief.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In a written statement, the DOD denied that Mattis extended Schmidt’s privileges, characterizing them as “no more and no less” than when Carter was defense secretary. As for Mattis, his former press secretary, Dana White, speaking on his behalf, said: “In order to do their job, all members of the Defense Innovation Board had full access to the department and its entities. Secretary Mattis insisted on it. He fully leveraged their unique experience to ensure DOD adapted and gained maximum advantage over the rising threats of near-peer competitors.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Over the next months, Schmidt and two other board members with Google ties would continue flying all over the country, visiting Pentagon installations and meeting with DOD officials, sessions that no other company could attend. It’s hard to reconstruct what occurred in many of those meetings, since they were private. On one occasion, Schmidt quizzed a briefer about which cloud service provider was being used for a data project, according to a memo that Laster prepared after the briefing. When the briefer told him that Amazon handled the business, Schmidt asked if they’d considered other cloud providers. Laster’s memo flagged Schmidt’s inquiry as a “point of concern,” given that he was the chairman of a major cloud provider.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The DOD became unusually deferential to Schmidt. He preferred to travel on his personal jet, and he would ferry fellow board members with him. But that created a problem for his handlers: DOD employees are not permitted to ride on private planes. Still, the staff at the board didn’t want to inconvenience Schmidt by making him wait for his department support team to arrive on commercial flights. So, according to a source knowledgeable about the board’s spending, on at least one occasion the department requisitioned military aircraft at a cost of $25,000 an hour to transport its employees to meet Schmidt on his tour. (The DOD’s spokesperson said employees did this because “there were no commercial flights available.”)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The fact that such unusual access was granted to a board member who was a DOD vendor raised alarm, according to current and former Pentagon employees. As she had in the Bezos episode, Laster took action. She was a former Marine who’d been a military police officer in the U.S. force in Somalia in the 1990s. Her official title was designated federal officer for the Defense Innovation Board. Laster’s job was to make sure that members’ conduct was ethical and in accordance with laws, regulations and rules. Blunt and direct, she was hardly a pushover. But Laster had never encountered tech billionaires before, much less ones empowered by the head of her agency.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The trouble started after Laster sought a clarification of how to carry out Mattis’ sweeping travel directive. She was concerned that it could expose the department to accusations of giving vendors an unfair edge. Three members of the board worked directly or indirectly for Google and two for United Technologies, a major defense contractor.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Schmidt responded by threatening to go over her head to Mattis, according to her grievance. She was told to stand down and never again speak to Schmidt. According to the grievance, her boss told her, “Mr. Schmidt was a billionaire and would never accept pushback, warnings or limits.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Schmidt episode captured the tension that had emerged inside the department. To one Silicon Valley supporter, it was a “textbook example of the bureaucracy trying to slow down progress and change using rules, rules, rules.” To Michael Bayer, the former chairman of another Pentagon advisory board, where he had worked with Laster, she was a person of “extraordinary character” who was working hard to make sure the board “did the right thing.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It would be hard to find a purer embodiment of the proverbial revolving door — or a stealth influencer — than Sally Donnelly.</span>&nbsp;For the past dozen years she has shuttled between the DOD and consulting firms, including at least once with Amazon as a client, that seek to influence the department. During her most recent government stint,&nbsp;<b>Donnelly, 59,&nbsp;</b>came to be viewed as the “fairy godmother” of the Big Tech advocates in the department, as one Pentagon official put it to ProPublica.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Donnelly is known as a superb crafter of narratives, a person who can present ideas in persuasive ways. She honed those skills in her first career, as a reporter at Time magazine, where, among other things, she covered the Pentagon and wrote glowingly of Mattis. Donnelly spent 20 years at the newsweekly before moving to the DOD for the first time in 2007. She worked for the then-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, then later for Mattis, including while he oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the head of Central Command.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2012, Donnelly departed and opened her own consulting firm, SBD Advisors. “Our team offers guidance and stealth strategies,” its website boasted, according to a 2014 article in Politico, “ensuring that clients benefit from the results of our campaigns while outwardly they are under-the-radar.” SBD’s clients included Amazon, Uber, Bloomberg, Palantir and others.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Donnelly was a master at quietly cultivating a network, one that straddled the permeable line between government and industry. Carter rented an office at the firm before he became Obama’s defense secretary, and a Politico story listed him as a SBD adviser. (During Carter’s tenure as secretary, Donnelly worked as a DOD consultant.) SBD’s other high-profile generals and defense-connected figures included Mullen, former director of national intelligence Dennis Blair and Michael Flynn, the former Defense Intelligence Agency chief and national security adviser who has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By 2015, Donnelly’s business had announced a new focus. SBD now specialized in “bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington, DC,” its website declared, by “facilitating engagements between the technology and defense sectors.” The next year her firm started advising Amazon Web Services on how to land DOD contracts.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In January 2017, Donnelly rejoined the department after successfully shepherding Mattis through the Senate confirmation process. Her title, senior adviser, understated her influence. She emerged as one of the most powerful people in the leadership of the Pentagon, according to numerous DOD staffers. She guided Mattis on politics (which was relatively new terrain for him), relations with the White House and dealing with the press.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Donnelly also helped the defense secretary connect with outside companies. She helped arrange not only the January 2018 dinner between Bezos and Mattis, but also a previously reported private dinner with Mattis </b>and Teresa Carlson, the head of the AWS division that sells services to governments, in March 2017 in London. (A host of that gathering told The Wall Street Journal that cloud computing was not discussed and that the purpose of the dinner was to talk about a charity involving wounded veterans.) The same year, at Donnelly’s behest, AWS’ Carlson met with several of Mattis’ top aides. People familiar with the matter say they discussed a possible job for Carlson at the Pentagon. No offer was made. (A source close to Carlson said such a job “would not have been of interest.”)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A lawyer for Donnelly, Michael Levy, said she “always adhered to all ethical and legal obligations and acted in the best interest of the national security of the United States.” He added that she played no role in the JEDI contract. “To suggest otherwise … reflects an absence of even the most rudimentary understanding of the government contracting process.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A veteran Marine general, Mattis was initially perceived as skeptical of what Silicon Valley was selling. He knew the flesh-and-blood realities of war and believed in giving autonomy to commanders on the ground. In his mind, anything that reinforced Pentagon leaders’ desire to micromanage events halfway across the globe was problematic. Technology, he believed, could make matters worse.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But Schmidt was an effective advocate for the power of big data, which he argued had become as important a strategic resource as oil. And he emphasized that the need for technological improvement was urgent: China was rapidly improving. In June 2017, at a private lunch in a Pentagon conference room, Schmidt told him Google’s lead over China in artificial intelligence technology had shrunk from five years to six months. “Mr. Secretary, they’re at your heels,” Schmidt said, according to three people familiar with the lunch. “You need to take decisive action now.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Schmidt wanted the department to adopt a Silicon Valley philosophy that emphasized innovation, taking risks and moving fast. Among his recommendations: embrace cloud computing. In the summer of 2017, Mattis decided to investigate firsthand. He departed on a tour that would include visits to Amazon and Google headquarters and a one-on-one with Apple CEO Tim Cook.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">At Amazon, despite the tempest about Bezos joining the innovation board, Mattis and the CEO hit it off. The two talked together for about an hour. Mattis gave a pithy sweep of lessons from military history and expressed his view on the perils of overreliance on technology. He noted how the British Navy, once famous for its derring-do, nearly lost the World War I battle of Jutland when ship captains hesitated, waiting for flag signals from their fleet commander.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Amazon bills itself as “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Yet its algorithm is hiding the best deal from many customers.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">After the meeting, Bezos and Mattis walked to another conference room, where AWS executives made their case that the company’s cloud products offer better security than traditional data centers, according to three people who attended. As evidence, they noted that the Central Intelligence Agency had embarked on a $600 million, 10-year cloud contract with Amazon in 2013 and, they said, it was working.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">To ensure that Mattis could visualize the impact Amazon’s technology could have on an actual battlefield, staffers placed on the conference room table a “Snowball Edge,” a suitcase-sized device with lots of storage that allowed soldiers in remote environments to quickly process information.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">One of Mattis’ last meetings on the trip seemed to tip him into the camp of the cloud advocates. He met with venture capitalists, including Marc Andreessen, an influential Silicon Valley figure who first made his name as the creator of the Netscape browser a quarter-century ago. Andreessen was a booster of Amazon. “You need to get to the cloud,” he told Mattis. “You’d be stupid not to.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Something seemed to click inside Mattis. He told his staff to begin preparing a memo laying out how the DOD would shift its computing to the cloud.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Pentagon’s cloud initiative ultimately ended up being led by Chris Lynch, the head of Defense Digital Service. DDS was no ordinary unit; it was a corps of software engineers hired from Google, Amazon and other tech companies to “challenge the status quo, burdensome policies and established bureaucracies in an effort to streamline DOD’s ability to introduce modern software development, tools and practices,” according to a department spokesperson. And Lynch himself was no ordinary government employee. As a teenager, he had been arrested and expelled from his Ohio high school after he and some friends called in a bomb threat as a joke. But he grew up, earned his high school degree, worked at Microsoft and then ran a series of startups. At 43, he wore hoodies to an office dominated by starched white shirts and still considered himself an insurgent, a point he conveyed by posting a sign reading “The Rebel Alliance” outside the entrance to his group’s office; the name also reflected his obsession with Star Wars. (His team came up with the acronym JEDI for the cloud project.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lynch had a vision of how the Pentagon’s cloud initiative should work: a single DOD-wide cloud run by one provider that would allow the agency to shutter all but the most secret of its data centers. Having one cloud would be ultra-efficient, he said. It would allow programmers to deliver instant software fixes to the entire department, rather than multiple divisions needing to wait weeks for an outside contractor to come by in person.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lynch also believed the department lacked the expertise to manage multiple vendors, each with its own idiosyncrasies. Better to give the entire agency one provider. And as he saw it, only three cloud companies in the U.S. were capable of that mission: Amazon, Microsoft and Google.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Some in the Pentagon believed that Lynch’s plan presented its own risk. They thought that putting all of the agency’s data in one company’s system made it more vulnerable, not less, than having it stored with multiple vendors. They also worried such an approach would stifle competition and create a huge monopoly.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>But Lynch had an advantage in the fight: Donnelly.&nbsp;</b>She obtained full access to the Pentagon front office for Lynch and secured a “letter of marque” for him, a written statement of support from Mattis that put the weight of the agency’s chief behind him.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Amazon often seemed to have allies close at hand. For example, the deputy defense secretary sometimes used his chief of staff, Tony DeMartino, as a point man to the key committee on JEDI. DeMartino had been managing director of Donnelly’s consulting firm, where he’d had Amazon as a client. He was warned to be “vigilant and consult” with ethics lawyers before involving himself in matters related to Amazon. But even after the warning, DeMartino repeatedly participated in the cloud-related matters, according to emails submitted by Oracle in its lawsuit against the government, as well as emails obtained by ProPublica and interviews with current and former Pentagon officials. For example, one November 2017 email reviewed by ProPublica, which was copied to Donnelly, shows DeMartino suggested a “huddle” with the new head of the Pentagon’s cloud executive steering group to discuss the man’s responsibilities. Later, after DeMartino was no longer serving the deputy secretary, he asked to remain “linked into” the cloud initiative. A contracting officer who examined DeMartino’s role concluded that his actions hadn’t affected the JEDI process since DeMartino’s role was “ministerial and perfunctory.” (A person in DeMartino’s camp insists that his only activity on JEDI was blocking a “stupid acronym” — C3PO — from being inserted in a larger memo.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A second former Amazon employee would spark more controversy. Deap Ubhi, a former AWS employee who worked for Lynch, was tasked with gathering marketing information to make the case for a single cloud inside the DOD. Around the same time that he started working on JEDI, Ubhi began talking with AWS about rejoining the company. As his work on JEDI deepened, so did his job negotiations. Six days after he received a formal offer from Amazon, Ubhi recused himself from JEDI, fabricating a story that Amazon had expressed an interest in buying a startup company he owned. A contracting officer who investigated found enough evidence that Ubhi’s conduct violated conflict of interest rules to refer the matter to the inspector general, but concluded that his conduct did not corrupt the process. (Ubhi, who now works in AWS’ commercial division, declined comment through a company spokesperson.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ubhi worsened the impression by making ill-advised public statements while still employed by the DOD. In a tweet, he described himself as “once an Amazonian, always an Amazonian.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By the time the draft JEDI bid was formally unveiled in March 2018, rumors had begun surfacing in trade publications that the specifications had been written with Amazon in mind. For example, the bid required that the JEDI contract could not account for more than half of the provider’s cloud data load. And it required that the provider have at least three physical data centers, each separated by more than 150 miles. Only a tiny handful of companies could fulfill those mandates.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Many tech companies were furious.</b>&nbsp;Indeed, the only major cloud computing company that defended JEDI was Amazon. The harshest reaction came from IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, which would form the nucleus of a coalition that would work to stop JEDI. “This one-size-fits-all idea is, I think, limited to JEDI and promoted by Amazon, because it fits Amazon’s needs,” said Ken Glueck, Oracle’s top Washington executive.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The DOD’s spokesperson said, “The requirements were not designed around any one provider.” An Amazon spokesperson said that “from day one, we’ve competed for JEDI on the breadth and depth of our services, and their corresponding security and operational performance.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Oracle responded by using its own access. As first reported by Bloomberg, Oracle arranged for its co-CEO, Safra Catz, to attend a private dinner in April 2018 with Trump and Peter Thiel, a founder of defense firm Palantir and a Trump ally. Catz told Trump she thought the JEDI specifications had been written so that only Amazon could win, according to a person familiar with the conversation and Bloomberg.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Only four companies submitted bids for JEDI</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Google had already withdrawn from the bidding, citing its belief that the project should be split among multiple providers. The decision came after its own employees protested the company’s participation in Maven, expressing opposition to the idea that their technology would be used to help kill people. Two bidders — IBM and Oracle — were eliminated after they failed to meet the bid requirements. That has left only Amazon and Microsoft still standing in the JEDI competition.</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Both IBM and Oracle filed protests. IBM’s protest was dismissed and Oracle’s was denied by the Government Accountability Office. Oracle sued the government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, asserting JEDI had been tainted by conflicts of interest. The judge in the case ruled against Oracle. He agreed with the contracting officer that Oracle lost the bid on the merits and that any “errors and omissions” were “not significant and did not give AWS a competitive advantage.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Oracle did not give up. The company hired former members of the Trump administration and made its case to allies on key congressional committees. Largely as a result, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee blocked the DOD from spending money on JEDI until it demonstrated it was using multiple cloud vendors.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Then, in July, Trump himself got involved, saying he was considering intervening in JEDI. Soon after, the new secretary of defense, Mark Esper (a former chief lobbyist for Raytheon), requested another review.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Much of the information that has surfaced in the press about JEDI is the product of investigations performed by Oracle and its lawyers. Meanwhile, PowerPoint presentations and investigative reports containing allegations of all sorts of byzantine chicanery by Amazon began circulating last year. By the spring of 2019, multiple corporate interests had deployed private teams to investigate their rivals and DOD officials.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Pentagon’s inspector general continues to investigate, according to a spokesperson, including “whether current or former DOD officials committed misconduct relating to the JEDI acquisition, such as whether any had any conflicts of interest related to their involvement in the acquisition process.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The claims and investigations have left JEDI shrouded in uncertainty. The project might not survive in its current form, according to people knowledgeable about the DOD, but there’s little doubt that the agency will move its computing to the cloud in one form or another.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As for Donnelly, she left government again last year. A going-away party was thrown for her at the Pentagon. Jared Kushner and former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn attended. Today, Cohn is the chairman of the advisory board of a new firm that Donnelly has opened, Pallas Advisors, which she founded along with Tony DeMartino, the former DOD political appointee and ex-strategy consultant for SBD.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Pallas describes itself as a “strategic advisory firm” that provides “insight into how governments think and operate.” According to a person familiar with the matter, one of Pallas’ staffers, Robert Daigle — who had previously worked on the JEDI project at the DOD — turned up in early August in the offices of at least one U.S. senator. Daigle was accompanied by Chris Lynch, who has left the DOD and founded a company, Rebellion Defense, that is seeking defense contracts relating to artificial intelligence. (Rebellion’s board members include Eric Schmidt.)</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lynch and Daigle were pushing a familiar agenda from a new vantage point: They wanted to explain why a single-cloud makes sense for the Defense Department. And if their own companies got some new opportunities as a result, it went without saying, that would be just fine with them.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Claire Perlman contributed to this story.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Filed under: Military Technology</font></font></font></font></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/good-riddance-james-mattis-trumps-last-general">https://www.alternet.org/good-riddance-james-mattis-trumps-last-general</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/trumps-getting-us-ready-fight-nuclear-war">https://www.alternet.org/trumps-getting-us-ready-fight-nuclear-war</a></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>=</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/are-we-quietly-planning-go-war-china">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/are-we-quietly-planning-go-war-china</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/23/james-mattis-defense-secretary-how-to-succeed-in-trump-cabinet-without-getting-fired-217699">https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/23/james-mattis-defense-secretary-how-to-succeed-in-trump-cabinet-without-getting-fired-217699</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">last July, James Mattis and Rex Tillerson arranged a tutoring session at the Pentagon for President Donald Trump in the secure, windowless meeting room known as “The Tank.” <b>The plan was to lay out why American troops are deployed in far-flung places across the globe, like Japan and South Korea. Mattis spoke first.</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The postwar, rules-based international order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation,” Mattis told the president, according to two meeting attendees. The secretary of defense walked the president through the complex fabric of trade deals, military agreements and international alliances that make up the global system the victors established after World War II, touching off what one attendee described as a “food fight” and a “free for all” with the president and the rest of the group. Trump punctuated the session by loudly telling his secretaries of state and defense, at several points during the meeting, “I don’t agree!” The meeting culminated with Tillerson, his now ousted secretary of state, fatefully complaining after the president left the room, that Trump was “a fucking moron.”</span></div><div>
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</div><div><b>Trump is said to divide the members of his Cabinet into first-tier “killers” and second-tier “winners.” Mattis is indisputably a killer, but he’s also something rarer: a sometime loser — of policy arguments, that is — who manages to disagree with the president without squandering his clout or getting under Trump’s skin</b>. He opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change accord, decertify the Iran deal, slap tariffs on steel and aluminum, and move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He opposes the president’s proposed ban on transgender service members and has reportedly ignored requests from the White House to see plans for a military strike against North Korea.</div><div>
</div><div>Yet Mattis has been able to present the president with views he doesn’t like without bearing the brunt of his frustration. The departure of H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, was announced Thursday amid rumors that the president is poised to fire beleaguered Cabinet secretaries like David Shulkin of Veterans Affairs and Ben Carson of Housing and Urban Development, and is agonizing over whether to dismiss John Kelly, his chief of staff. Mattis’ name has been conspicuously absent. One senior administration official called him “bulletproof.”</div><div>
</div><div>Of the Cabinet selections and staff picks cheered by Trump critics, including McMaster, Kelly and former chairman of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, Mattis is the only one who seems to still have job security. Trump remains as enthused about Mattis, one of his first Cabinet picks, as he was when he tapped him for the job in December 2016, according to several White House aides.</div><div>
</div><div>Even his detractors on the right are reluctant to criticize Mattis, a retired Marine general who fought in both Gulf wars and Afghanistan, on the record, either because they are looking to join the administration or because, despite their disagreements, they are happy he’s there. Those critics say privately that Mattis is too cautious and conventional in his thinking, and that he doesn’t sufficiently appreciate the political nature of his current job. But “they regard him as better than the likely alternatives,” one such critic told me, and consider him “a restraining hand on an otherwise unpredictable and impulsive president.”</div><div>
</div><div>People close to the president sense that on a subset of important issues, he will defer to Mattis, who represents an institution, the military, that the president venerates, and whose status as a combat veteran has earned him Trump’s respect. In contrast with, say, Cohn, who had to contend with the fact that Trump considers himself a business expert, Mattis benefits from serving a president who has never claimed to understand the military or international affairs. White House aides say Trump is cowed and intimidated by Mattis, who peppers his comments with aphorisms and historical arcana gleaned from his extraordinary personal library.</div><div>
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</div><div>John Bolton’s arrival in April as the president's new national security adviser will give Mattis a more ardent and skillful adversary at the National Security Council. Mattis outranked McMaster in military terms and always considered him his junior, even though Mattis is retired. He likely won’t view Bolton that way, and Bolton prizes his ability to corral the bureaucracy for his purposes.</div><div>
</div><div>Mattis, who was pushed out of the military by President Barack Obama because of his hawkish views on Iran, also sees eye to eye with Trump on plenty of policy matters, chief among them the importance of rebuilding the military. So the secretary of defense has, for example, stayed quiet about the president’s request for a costly military parade, tentatively set for November, but has secured a 10 percent budget increase for the Pentagon. Both White House and Pentagon aides say Mattis has also been more discreet than some of his colleagues when he disagrees with the president, never undermining him publicly except in congressional testimony. “He makes his recommendations, gives his advice, and it’s up to the president to decide,” says Dana White, Mattis’ Pentagon spokeswoman.</div><div>
</div><div>The president goes gaga for the sort of tough talk Mattis dished out on the battlefield. “There’s nothing better than getting shot at and missed,” Mattis has said. He doesn’t run the Pentagon like “Mad Dog” the Marine, but White House aides say he has endeared himself to President Trump by continuing to play the part in front of him — never showing weakness and maintaining the aura of invincibility with which he entered the job.</div><div>
</div><div>“Mattis has figured out how to play Trump perfectly. He keeps his head down and keeps his face out of the news,” says Tom Ricks, a columnist for the military news site Task & Purpose and the author of several books on military affairs. Mattis, said Ricks, is a “natural-born killer,” and “Trump, just like dogs smell fear, I think somebody like Trump who has very little natural courage, just smells it.”</div><div>
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</div><div>Mattis has told friends he doesn’t like the nickname he acquired as a battlefield commander, but the fact that he rose to prominence as “Mad Dog” made him a subject of immediate fascination for a president-elect whose concept of military valor was shaped largely by the movie “Patton.” (Some might say Mattis bears a passing resemblance to a younger George C. Scott, who played the hard-charging Gen. George Patton in the 1970 film, a Trump favorite.)</div><div>
</div><div>“The secretary of defense is not simply ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis the Marine; he’s really a thoughtful guy,” says Mark Perry, the author of “The Pentagon’s Wars.” Perry says Mattis possesses a chameleon-like quality that allows him to be the Platonic ideal of a warrior at one turn, and a monkish scholar at another.</div><div>
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</div><div>Appearing on Face the Nation last May, Mattis played the warrior when CBS News’ John Dickerson asked him, “What keeps you awake at night?”</div><div>
</div><div>“Nothing,” Mattis told him. “I keep other people awake at night.” The response delighted the president, who told several White House aides how much he liked it. In private, Mattis talks with the president the same way. “He’s said similar things several times,” said a former White House aide. “Trump loves it.”</div><div>
</div><div>Mattis channeled the same sentiment when he was asked, in early February, whether he had any misgivings about the president’s plans for a military parade. “I’m not paid for my feelings,” he replied. “I save those for my girlfriend.”</div><div>
</div><div>The president talks about Mattis in public and behind closed doors like he is still a battlefield commander. Trump asked top-dollar Republican donors last September, for example, what they thought of Mattis and bragged, “The guy never loses a battle, never loses. Winning record.”</div><div>
</div><div>The irony of all of this is that, by all accounts, Mattis is deeply committed to protecting the military from politics. Some describe him as a conservative Democrat, but he has taken great care to keep his political views private and has been open about his belief that national security should be a bipartisan matter. That said, he has clashed behind the scenes not only with the president but also with some of his closest advisers, from McMaster and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to Jared Kushner and, before them, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and McMaster predecessor Michael Flynn.</div><div>
</div><div>Mattis worked from the outset to make diplomatic overtures to presidential aides, including Bannon and Kushner, but also Cohn, Flynn and Flynn’s deputy, K.T. McFarland, all of who could have thwarted his personnel preferences and policy preferences. Mattis’ senior adviser, Sally Donnelly, who left the Pentagon last month, led these diplomatic efforts.</div><div>
</div><div>The work began immediately, on December 7, on the plane to North Carolina, when Mattis formally accepted the president’s nomination as secretary of defense. On the plane ride to the event, Mattis and Donnelly joined the president-elect — along with Bannon, Kushner, and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer — and they began a discussion about how Mattis would staff the Pentagon.</div><div>
</div><div>Donnelly’s first request was that they be allowed to retain a handful of senior Obama administration officials at the Pentagon, including Bob Work, the Defense Department’s No. 2. The White House acceded. Mattis personally spoke with Bannon about his desire to bring on Michele Flournoy, who was the leading candidate to be Hillary Clinton’s secretary of defense, as his deputy to replace Work — a move that raised hackles among conservatives both in and out of government. Although Flournoy ultimately withdrew herself from consideration, it was not because of White House objections to her nomination. Likewise, Mattis’ pick to run the Pentagon’s policy shop, retired diplomat Anne Patterson, was pulled from consideration not over White House objections, but because Republicans on Capitol Hill threatened to veto her nomination.</div><div>
</div><div>“On all of the appointments, they were fully open in coming to me and saying, ‘Hey, these are the guys we think are the best team,’ and I said, ‘Fine,’” Bannon says. “And Trump told me, ‘Get the general the guys he thinks are the best team.’ They played totally straight with that.”</div><div>
</div><div>Visiting Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the second weekend after he was elected, Mattis and the president-elect discussed how to conduct a war against ISIS, which Mattis made clear would “not be a war of attrition, it’s going to be a war of annihilation,” according to a source familiar with the discussion. “Trump couldn’t get enough of it,” this person says.</div><div>
</div><div>At the same time, Mattis told Trump he disagreed with his views on torture — Trump had said he was strongly in favor of it — and, by the time the meeting ended, he seemed to have chastened the soon-to-be commander in chief.</div><div>
</div><div>“‘He said, ‘I've never found it to be useful,’” Trump recounted after the meeting. He went on to say that Mattis told him he found it more useful to build trust with terror suspects. “I was very impressed by that answer,” Trump said.</div><div>
</div><div>The goodwill Mattis engendered with the White House has given him freedom not only to disagree with the president when he sees fit, but also to run the Pentagon without political interference from the White House — much to the chagrin, at times, of the National Security Council and others close to the president.</div><div>
</div><div>The Trump administration and the president himself say they are decentralizing what was, in the Obama era, a defense policy run largely out of the West Wing. The president and his advisers have worked to devolve decision-making to Mattis and the combatant commanders who report to him. They have left the American military’s war against ISIS, for example, largely in his hands. After making the decision to strike Syria in April 2017, Trump delegated to Mattis how and when carry out the strikes.</div><div>
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</div><div>When the White House does make requests, national security aides express frustration that their demands often go unanswered. According to two National Security Council officials, Mattis has ignored McMaster’s requests for military options that would have allowed the U.S. to strike Eastern Gouta, in Syria, as well as requests to see plans on North Korea, and two requests for options to strike Iran—one in response to a scenario in which the country sank an American ship in the Persian Gulf, another to the possibility that Iranian-funded Houthi missiles coming out of Yemen could strike the Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia or the Saudi Aramco oil refinery.</div><div>
</div><div>“Mattis and Tillerson routinely ignored NSC requests on all sorts of things,” says a second former White House official.</div><div>
</div><div>The Pentagon denies that Mattis has slow-walked any requests for military options. “Secretary Mattis is committed to ensuring our diplomats always operate from a position of strength and options equal strength,” White says.</div><div>
</div><div></div><div>
</div><div>Whatever tough talk Mattis dispenses to the president is measured and intentional. People close to him say he spends a lot of time thinking about how to communicate effectively, that he is always aware of his audience and that he often asks aides for a pithy quote to drive home a point. Friends and former colleagues say he was well aware of the position in which he entered the administration, uniquely admired by the news media. In contrast with his close friend and White House colleague John Kelly, he has been careful not to tarnish his reputation with inaccurate or ill-advised comments to the news media. He has steered clear of high-profile interviews and avoided making the sorts of off-the-record remarks that have, in some cases, cost his colleagues their jobs.</div><div>
</div><div>According to a former senior White House official, the president once complained to Tillerson about his news coverage, asking him, “How come you only get bad stories?”</div><div>
</div><div>“Mattis only gets good stories,” the former White House official says. “The progressive media loves him, and it’s one of the reasons Trump loves him.”</div><div>
</div><div>It’s a skill Mattis learned partly from watching his former colleague, then-Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, lose his job eight years ago after mocking President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in what he thought were off-the-record remarks to a Rolling Stone reporter. Before that, Mattis had his own unpleasant collision with the news media when he told a group of Marines at a 2005 event that it was, at times, “a hell of a lot of fun” to shoot people. Unbeknownst to him, cameras were rolling.</div><div>
</div><div>“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,” Mattis said. “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.” The February 4, 2005, broadcast of NBC’s “Today” show led with the video, with Katie Couric declaring: “Fighting words. A decorated Marine Corps general raises eyebrows with these comments.”</div><div>
</div><div>The Marine Corps brass at the time dismissed calls for Mattis’ firing, and Mattis never formally apologized for the comment. But friends say the furor his remarks occasioned was enough to prompt some private reflection. For a Marine who likes to trade barbs, he learned that civilians have different sensitivities and that the news media will play up statements that have been made in jest. He began to choose his words more carefully.</div><div>
</div><div>In the Trump administration, where the president judges his Cabinet officials in large part based on the coverage they generate on television, Mattis has navigated the news media more deftly. He has appeared on just one Sunday morning news show during his time in office and rarely appears behind the lectern at the Pentagon. He seems to take pains never to overshadow the president.</div><div>
</div><div>Those close to him dismiss the idea that Mattis has undertaken any sort of conscious strategy to enchant the president. Rather, they say, he is not a politician and simply isn’t interested in publicity — something, they note, that is hard for many Washingtonians to understand. He has fended off White House requests that he appear on Fox News, and his friends say that’s not out of a concern for self-preservation but because he’s just not interested in being on TV.</div><div>
</div><div>“Secretary Mattis doesn't change who he is for anyone, but he is a battle-hardened Marine, who can talk about Thucydides and Chesty Puller in the same breath,” White says.</div><div>
</div><div>Reporters travel with Mattis as he jets from one foreign capital to another — Tillerson generated a slew of negative headlines for abandoning this tradition at State — but he is pointed in his refusal to answer questions that he considers “out of his lane.” That includes the events leading up to a potential meeting between the president and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, about which Mattis told reporters, “What I want you to understand is that right now every word is going to be nuanced and parsed apart across different cultures, at different times of the day, in different contexts, and right now I want a very straight line from those actually responsible, not from those of us in a supporting or background role.”</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>McMaster, in contrast, said last month in Munich that the evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election was “incontrovertible,” prompting Trump to slap him down on Twitter.</div><div>
</div><div>Running Central Command under Obama, Mattis learned that presidents are particularly sensitive to what military leaders say about them. If watching McChrystal defenestrated didn’t drive that home, his own experience did when, in 2013, he was ousted by the president for what the White House perceived as his outspoken hostility to the administration’s diplomatic overtures to Iran. Mattis’ frank remarks cost him access and, ultimately, his job.</div><div>
</div><div>“He was shut out of certain discussions at certain points,” a former senior military commander said of Mattis’ experience in the Obama administration. “They sort of knew what they wanted to do, and they didn’t want to hear what they didn’t want to hear.” The commander added, “They told him, ‘Thank you, we’ve heard your views on Iran, now go sit under a tree.’”</div><div>
</div><div>It was useful preparation for his current role, working for a notoriously sensitive and temperamental commander in chief who has discarded advisers, including Tillerson, for disparaging him privately. Trump never forgave Tillerson for the NBC News report that the former secretary of state called him a moron.</div><div>
</div><div>“You won’t ever hear Mattis quoted off the record saying Trump is dumb or an idiot — he’s careful,” said Perry, the military historian.</div><div>
</div><div>His survival in the administration may depend on it.</div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://psmag.com/environment/our-government-is-in-two-minds-over-climate-change">https://psmag.com/environment/our-government-is-in-two-minds-over-climate-change</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP AND THE MILITARY ARE AT ODDS ON CLIMATE CHANGE</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>While the Trump administration has largely rejected climate change as an issue, the Department of Defense and Congress have identified it as a major potential threat to national security.</div><div>SEAN MOWBRAYJAN 18, 2018</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>The United States government appears to be of two minds, with utterly opposing worldviews, on climate change policy.</div><div>
</div><div>On one hand, the Trump administration has pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, proposed eliminating three vital new climate satellites, reneged on an Obama-era $2 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund, and wants to slash funding to the Environmental Protection Agency's domestic climate programs and the Department of State's USAID climate programs around the globe. The president has also denounced global warming as a hoax and a Chinese plot.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On the other hand, the Republican-dominated Congress has affirmed that climate change is a prominent national security threat and mandated that the Department of Defense (DOD) look closely at how climate change is going to affect key installations, while also addressing the need to boost the military's finances considerably to deal with global warming threats</b>. When Trump's national security strategy—announced in January—erased climate change as a threat to U.S. security, that decision drew the ire of a bipartisan group of congressional legislators.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>As a result of this dichotomy, the DOD has emerged as an unlikely champion of climate action in the Trump government, with the Pentagon declaring emphatically that a rapidly warming world is bringing with it alarming security risks ranging from rising sea level (which threatens naval bases such as Norfolk, Virginia, the largest in the world), to the "mother of all risks"—unpredictable and worsening political instability around the globe brought by climate chaos.</div><div>
</div><div>Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.</div><div>Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.</div><div>
</div><div>(Photo: Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)</div><div>
</div><div>Indeed, Trump's own secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, was hailed before taking office as the "lone green hope," due to his recognition of global warming's clear and present danger.</div><div>
</div><div>However, the U.S. military is far from being environmentally friendly. It has a horrifically destructive record as one of the planet's worst polluters, and it also can lay claim to a heavy, and largely unreported, carbon footprint (it is the single largest institutional user of fossil fuels in the world).</div><div>
</div><div>A year into Trump's term, it remains to be seen whether the president's climate-unfriendly policies will curtail the DOD's global warming response. Complicating this question are efforts by the White House and Congress to wildly expand the size of the military, which could exponentially increase its fossil fuel footprint, something critics argue is the opposite of what is environmentally needed.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>A BOOMING U.S. MILITARY BUDGET</div><div>
</div><div>Trump has been a notably unorthodox Republican president, with a frequently tenuous attachment to his party's agenda. But when it comes to military spending, he is in tune with long time GOP policy. Trump is currently seeking an $18 billion military bump for 2018, compared to 2017 levels, to be made at the expense of domestic spending, including the budget of the EPA.</div><div>
</div><div>Senator John McCain (R-Arizona).</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Arizona Senator John McCain, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declared this figure as "inadequate" and laid out his plans for a much larger increase of $85 billion. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president this past December, goes much further than Trump's own figure.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The NDAA allots $700 billion, sailing past the $619 billion Congress agreed to in last year's bill, and includes a budget-cap-busting wish list that revamps the military and includes new navy ships, fighter jets, more troops, and a pay increase for all current officers.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Of course, that behemoth budget boost may never happen as it is Congress that has the final say on the military budget and it has yet to vote. NDAA spending for 2018 also exceeds caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, and it is uncertain where the increased spending will come from.</div><div>
</div><div>However, the NDAA does something Trump probably doesn't want it to do: it clearly designates climate change as a "direct threat" to the national security of the U.S. and orders the military to submit a "report on vulnerabilities to military installations and combatant commander requirements resulting from climate change over the next 30 years."</div><div>
</div><div>"A THREAT MULTIPLIER"</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While the NDAA mandate is important, it is not entirely new. Climate change has been on the military's radar for well over a decade, but not due to the threat it presents to the planet's environment.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">First and foremost in the military mind is the Pentagon's mission: to defend the U.S. and its national interest. Seen within this framework, climate change is viewed as a "threat multiplier," rather than a distinct, standalone issue.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration," potentially leading to civil strife and war, reads the grim forecast outlined by the 2010 DOD Quadrennial Defense Review. The Pentagon isn't alone in its predictions; a report from the American Security Project says that 70 percent of the world's nations have assessed climate change as a threat to their national security.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, the U.S. Armed Forces response isn't to immediately cut its carbon emissions in order to curb climate change. Rather, it is to determine how best to defend against the instability and chaos that climate change may bring to the international community, as well as the threat it poses to U.S. military bases and operations around the globe.</span></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>THE WORLD'S OCEANS VS. THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At home, the threat to U.S. military installations is evident. A 2011 U.S. Navy report found that a three-foot rise in sea level would endanger 128 DOD installations, valued collectively at around $100 billion. A further study by the Union of Concerned Scientists delved deeper into the future of 18 bases which already face flooding: "By the end of this century, most installations can expect a large increase in the frequency of tidal flooding, storm surges that cover greater areas at increased depth, and loss of utilized land area to the sea."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In short, said the UCS, U.S. coastal military bases face a "flooded future."</span></div><div>
</div><div>A three-foot sea level rise is already considered by scientists to be "locked in." But many researchers believe the world could be looking at rises of eight feet, and even up to 11 feet by century's end, which would swamp pretty much all current DOD base adaptation efforts.</div><div>
</div><div>Curt Storlazzi, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, has been carrying out research on the Marshall Islands with funding from the DOD, to look at how climate models threaten U.S installations there. He says that, in the past, the islands were over-washed by storms roughly once every 20 to 30 years. Now, it's more like once, or even twice, per decade.</div><div>
</div><div>"All I can say is we're talking decades, not centuries," before the islands are over-washed so frequently that they become almost uninhabitable, he adds. The recent Congress Armed Forces Appropriations bill states quite clearly: "In the Marshall Islands an Air Force radar installation built on an atoll at a cost of [$1 billion] is projected to be underwater within two decades."</div><div>
</div><div>This is a looming reality U.S. coastal military installations face around the globe—many will be overrun by the sea and lost forever soon, without the firing of a single shot by a hostile power.</div><div>
</div><div>"UNLEASH US FROM THE TETHER OF FUEL"</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As already mentioned, the DOD is the world's oil-hungriest institution; it consumed 87.4 million barrels in 2014, with nearly half used by the Air Force, and a third burned by the Navy. A 2008 report entitled A Climate of War, and produced by Oil Change International, found that the second Iraq war emitted at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The DOD also owns a mammoth amount of real estate, with several thousands of facilities and structures scattered globally, covering nearly 25 million acres—all with energy demands.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That said, the U.S. military has been working over recent decades to reduce fossil fuel dependency. But this isn't meant to turn the military into "Prius-driving tree-huggers," explains Andrew Holland, senior fellow for energy and climate at the American Security Project. The No. 1 Pentagon priority is improving mission effectiveness—the ability to defend and promote U.S interests via military muscle.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Secretary of Defense Mattis' own concerns with the need to increase mission effectiveness by decreasing fossil fuel consumption can be traced back to the second Iraq war.</b>&nbsp;In 2005, he penned a document, "Future Fuels," in which he called on the Pentagon to "unleash us from the tether of fuel." Reliance on oil left mobile units exposed in the Iraqi desert during refueling, and made the armed forces less nimble in their response to threats scattered across the vast desert battlefield.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Soon after, President George W. Bush signed into force a bill that mandated the DOD reduce its fossil fuel dependency and ordered each branch to produce 25 percent of its facility energy from renewables by 2025. Since then, the Pentagon has increased energy efficiency at bases, reduced fuel use, and produced around 12.6 percent of its facility energy from renewables as of 2016.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, the vast majority, around 75 percent, of the DOD's energy consumption occurs not at facilities but in operations—think hundreds of globetrotting aircraft, ships, and vehicles. This very big slice of the military's energy pie is not subject to the DOD's renewable goals.</span></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Still, renewable initiatives are now common-place across the services. Between 2011 and 2015, the DoD nearly tripled the number of renewable energy projects on its bases.</div><div>
</div><div>This, however, doesn't mean that preparing for climate change is now the No. 1 priority. Mattis "is not saying it's the most important issue on his plate, he's just saying it is an issue," explains John Conger, former DOD comptroller and senior advisor for the Center for Climate and Security. War, and preparedness for it, is still where the action is.</div><div>
</div><div>A BIG, GREEN FIGHTING MACHINE?</div><div>...</div></div><div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></b></div><div><div class="bkWMgd" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="srg"><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="38" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQgmKAAwAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/23/james-mattis-defense-secretary-how-to-succeed-in-trump-cabinet-without-getting-fired-217699" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/23/james-mattis-defense-secretary-how-to-succeed-in-trump-cabinet-without-getting-fired-217699&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFggnMAA" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Why Trump Hasn't Fired Mattis - POLITICO Magazine</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.politico.com/.../james-mattis-defense-secretary-how-to-succeed-in-trump-...</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b0" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0IKDAA" style="border-radius: 0px; 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color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;and Rex Tillerson arranged a tutoring session at the Pentagon for President Donald&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>&nbsp;in the secure, windowless meeting room known as “The Tank.” The plan was to lay out why American troops are deployed in far-flung places across the globe, like Japan and South Korea.</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="44" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQgsKAEwAQ"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFggtMAE" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">James Mattis Has Somehow Stayed on Trump's Good Side - The Atlantic</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b1" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0ILjAB" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8ILzAB" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ACRnp9bz74sJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:ACRnp9bz74sJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAgwMAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ACRnp9bz74sJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:ACRnp9bz74sJ:https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/mattis-trump/555518/%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAgwMAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Mar 13, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>On the contrary,&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>&nbsp;has gone out of his way to praise&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>, singling him out during his State of the Union speech in January for “doing a great job.”&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>&nbsp;has acknowledged that he likes generals—so much so that he named three of them to his inner circle after becoming president:&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>, McMaster,&nbsp;...</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="50" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQgyKAIwAg"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFggzMAI" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">McMaster's Problem Isn't Trump. It's Mattis and Kelly. – Foreign Policy</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b2" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0INDAC" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8INTAC" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9XVctXmgo9UJ:foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:9XVctXmgo9UJ:foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAg2MAI" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9XVctXmgo9UJ:foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:9XVctXmgo9UJ:foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/mcmasters-problem-isnt-trump-its-mattis-and-kelly/%2B%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAg2MAI" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Mar 7, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>McMaster has always had a tense relationship with President Donald&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>. But for the last several months his relationships with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>, both of whom were once his strongest defenders, have deteriorated irreparably. At issue, several&nbsp;...</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="56" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQg4KAMwAw"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFgg5MAM" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Running Out of Punching Bags, Trump Turns on Mattis | Vanity Fair</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/.../donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdra...</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b3" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0IOjAD" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8IOzAD" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMvAKCzT5doJ:https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:RMvAKCzT5doJ:https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAg8MAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMvAKCzT5doJ:https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:RMvAKCzT5doJ:https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/donald-trump-timeline-syria-troop-withdrawal%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAg8MAM" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Apr 6, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>Indeed, in the past week,&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>&nbsp;has made James&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis's</span>&nbsp;job nearly impossible by declaring that he would send the military to guard the border with Mexico (the White House later clarified that he meant the National Guard), and insisting that the U.S. pull out of Syria (something<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;promised last year&nbsp;...</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="62" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQg-KAQwBA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-standing" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-standing&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFgg_MAQ" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">How Jim Mattis Became Trump's “Last Man Standing” | The New Yorker</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.newyorker.com/...trumps.../how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-stan...</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b4" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0IQDAE" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8IQTAE" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kQFyGziD28wJ:https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-standing+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:kQFyGziD28wJ:https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-standing%2B%26cd%3D5%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhCMAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kQFyGziD28wJ:https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-standing+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:kQFyGziD28wJ:https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/how-jim-mattis-became-trumps-last-man-standing%2B%26cd%3D5%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhCMAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Apr 20, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>Susan Glasser writes about how Donald&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump's</span>&nbsp;Defense Secretary, James&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>, has survived the turbulent Administration thus far.</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="68" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQhEKAUwBQ"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFghFMAU" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Mattis warns Trump about Syria risks - CNNPolitics - CNN.com</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b5" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0IRjAF" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8IRzAF" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AOt55AaLVS0J:https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:AOt55AaLVS0J:https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html%2B%26cd%3D6%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhIMAU" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AOt55AaLVS0J:https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:AOt55AaLVS0J:https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/13/politics/trump-mattis-syria-policy/index.html%2B%26cd%3D6%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhIMAU" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Apr 13, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>Top military officials, including Defense Secretary James&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>, warned President Donald<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>&nbsp;during an afternoon meeting Thursday that he risks escalating US involvement in Syria if he goes forward with the type of aggressive bombing campaign he has pressed for over the past week, according to US&nbsp;...</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="74" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQhKKAYwBg"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton-pompeo-trump/index.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton-pompeo-trump/index.html&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFghLMAY" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Surrounded by hawks, Mattis digs in amid Trump admin chaos ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton...trump/index.html</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b6" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0ITDAG" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8ITTAG" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RrgPZooNxYJ:https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton-pompeo-trump/index.html+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:RrgPZooNxYJ:https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton-pompeo-trump/index.html%2B%26cd%3D7%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhOMAY" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RrgPZooNxYJ:https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton-pompeo-trump/index.html+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:RrgPZooNxYJ:https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/mattis-isolated-bolton-pompeo-trump/index.html%2B%26cd%3D7%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhOMAY" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Mar 28, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>Washington (CNN) Defense Secretary James&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;is doing his best to downplay notions that he is concerned about working with President Donald&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump's</span>&nbsp;hawkish new national security adviser John Bolton despite signs of a shifting power dynamic at the highest levels of the administration and strong&nbsp;...</span></a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="80" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQhQKAcwBw"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/magazine/can-jim-mattis-hold-the-line-in-trumps-war-cabinet.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/magazine/can-jim-mattis-hold-the-line-in-trumps-war-cabinet.html&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFghRMAc" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Can Jim Mattis Hold the Line in Trump's 'War Cabinet'? - The New ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/.../can-jim-mattis-hold-the-line-in-trumps-war-cabinet.ht...</cite></div><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Mar 26, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>A year into&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump's</span>&nbsp;tenure,&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;has become a quietly central figure in an administration of near-constant purges. He may be the lone cabinet member to have survived with his status and dignity intact, and in the process his Pentagon — perhaps the one national institution that is still fully functional — has&nbsp;...</span></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px;"><div data-hveid="83" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFQhTKAgwCA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/15/trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/15/trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQFghUMAg" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump may bluster but James Mattis is calling the shots on Syria ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.theguardian.com/.../trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=mattis+trump&oq=mattis+trump&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7136j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b8" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ7B0IVTAI" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQqR8IVjAI" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); font-size: 13px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9MUdfpnON4sJ:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/15/trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:9MUdfpnON4sJ:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/15/trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots%2B%26cd%3D9%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhXMAg" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;" /></li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9MUdfpnON4sJ:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/15/trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:9MUdfpnON4sJ:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/15/trump-bluster-about-syria-james-mattis-calling-shots%2B%26cd%3D9%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQIAhXMAg" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px; font-size: 14px;"><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="f" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128);">Apr 15, 2018 -&nbsp;</span>Unlike&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>, who used a televised address to castigate Russia and its president<wbr />, Vladimir Putin, in highly personal and emotive terms,&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;kept his eye on the ball. The US was attacking Syria's chemical weapons capabilities, he said. That, nothing more or less, was what the air strikes were about.</span></a></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="bkWMgd" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="srg"><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="90" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ1CcIWigAMAk"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-jim-mattis-check-an-impulsive-president-and-still-retain-his-trust/2018/02/07/289297a2-0814-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/can-jim-mattis-check-an-impulsive-president-and-still-retain-his-trust/2018/02/07/289297a2-0814-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ1ScIWzAJ" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump's favorite general: Can Mattis check an impulsive president and ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/...mattis.../289297a2-0814-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2...</cite></div><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;">By staying out of the media's glare and in&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump's</span>&nbsp;good graces, Jim&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;has become the most influential Pentagon chief in years.</span></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px;"><div data-hveid="92" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ1CcIXCgBMAo"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/us/politics/jim-mattis-trump-pentagon.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/us/politics/jim-mattis-trump-pentagon.html&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ1ScIXTAK" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Mattis Shows How to Split With Trump Without Provoking Him - The ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/us/politics/jim-mattis-trump-pentagon.html</cite></div><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;">Where Mr.&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump</span>&nbsp;threatened in a bombastic United Nations speech on Tuesday to “destroy” North Korea, Mr.&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;emphasized that the issue should be resolved “through diplomatic means.” On Mr.<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Trump's</span>&nbsp;ban on transgender people in the military, Mr.&nbsp;<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(106, 106, 106);">Mattis</span>&nbsp;has said little publicly but put the question on&nbsp;...</span></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; font-size: small; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px;"><div data-hveid="94" data-ved="0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ1CcIXigCMAs"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2017/08/why_james_mattis_viral_rebuke_of_trump_was_so_disturbing.html" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2017/08/why_james_mattis_viral_rebuke_of_trump_was_so_disturbing.html&ved=0ahUKEwjC5eDK6vHaAhWM94MKHWsLAvQQ1ScIXzAL" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 153); cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Why James Mattis' viral rebuke of Trump was so disturbing.</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; color: rgb(84, 84, 84); line-height: 18px;"><div class="f hJND5c TbwUpd" style="color: rgb(128, 128, 128); height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="iUh30" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;">www.slate.com/.../why_james_mattis_viral_rebuke_of_trump_was_so_disturbing.html</cite></div><span class="st" style="line-height: 1.4; word-wrap: break-word;">You just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></b></div><div><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pentagon-climate-change-2485164596.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.ecowatch.com/pentagon-climate-change-2485164596.html</font></a></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">trump rev ignored?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pentagon Moves Ahead With Obama-Era Climate Preparation Plan Despite Trump's Orders</font></h1></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2485164596" data-headline="Pentagon Moves Ahead With Obama-Era Climate Preparation Plan Despite Trump's Orders" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Department of Defense (DoD) has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pentagon-declares-war-on-climate-change-1881962314.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">warned for years</a>&nbsp;that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">climate change</a>&nbsp;is a national security threat and, despite&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">President Trump</a>'s orders, the agency continues to take steps to help the military navigate and prepare for the impacts of a warming planet.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.militarytimes.com//news/your-military/2017/09/12/pentagon-is-still-preparing-for-global-warming-even-though-trump-said-to-stop/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Military Times</a>&nbsp;reports, the Pentagon is plowing ahead with its 2014 "Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap" even though Trump issued an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/03/28/presidential-executive-order-promoting-energy-independence-and-economi-1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">executive order</a>&nbsp;in March seeking to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-executive-order-weather-underground-2334907513.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reverse</a>&nbsp;Obama-era federal climate and clean energy initiatives.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">Under Obama's orders, the Defense Department issued</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/d4715_21.pdf" target="blank" style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none">directive 4715.21</a><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;</span><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">in January 2016 to implement the roadmap, which "lays out reasonable adaptation and mitigation actions to ensure or at least bolster our national security against measured and measurable climate change events, whatever the causes, or the duration, of the</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="text-align: center; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">observed events," as retired Navy Adm. Frank Bowman said.</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But now—thanks to Trump–the agency is reviewing directive 4715.21 "to determine if it should be suspended, revised, or rescinded," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Evans told the publication.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, the department is still preparing for the effects of climate change even though Trump told them to stop. For instance, as Military Times reports, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Mid-Atlantic has been taking steps to protect the Hampton Roads base in Virginia—home to 60 Navy ships, hundreds of fix-wing and rotary aircraft and more than 83,000 active duty personnel. The 2014 climate roadmap, which Trump invalidated, stipulated that the assets were protected from a "projected sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I can't talk the science, but I can tell you what we've done," Todd Lyman, NAVFAC Mid-Atlantic spokesman, explained. "For many years, NAVFAC has been replacing any single-deck pier with double-deck piers. We've also built structures here at a higher elevation than code requires in an effort to improve stormwater management. The goal is for us to continue our mission, maintain resilience."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Military Times:</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The DoD has found space to maneuver by separating the argument of climate change from the threats that more extreme sea states, wind and flooding can generate. Essentially, the DoD is moving forward by leaving the semantics of climate change to others.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-left: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"As Secretary Mattis has said, the department evaluates all potential threats that impact mission readiness, personnel health and installation resilience, then uses that information to assess impacts and identify responses," Evans said. "The effect of a changing climate is one of a variety of threats and risks, but it's not a mission of the Department of Defense."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It looks like the Pentagon's strategy is just to avoid using language related to climate change and instead focus on how the military can fortify its installations against extreme weather events and natural disasters (which, like Hurricanes&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-harvey" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Harvey</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-irma" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Irma</a>, are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/harvey-climate-change-2479874136.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">linked to climate change</a>.)</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Unlike his White House boss, Defense Sec. Jim Mattis does not believe that climate change is a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-climate-change-hoax-2018812943.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">"hoax" invented by the Chinese</a>.</span>
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today," Mattis wrote in March. "It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning."</font></p></div></div></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><p style="line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ask the Department of Defense, Too</font></strong></p><p style="line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Dept. of Defense does not appear to share the Trump administration's concerns about renewable energy. In fact, the military has made&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-security-drives-u-s-military-to-renewables/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">significant investments</a>&nbsp;in renewable energy in order to enhance national security—an&nbsp;<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-military-green-energy-insight-idUSKBN1683BL" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">investment that continues</a>&nbsp;with Trump in the White House. The U.S. Navy just recently&nbsp;<a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7c8718e4a1244b9294e3db6c76933cda/navy-wind-farm-opposed-gop-lawmakers-wont-harm-radar" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">refuted misleading claims</a>&nbsp;that a new wind farm could interfere with a radar system made by some Republican lawmakers in North Carolina who wrote a letter to the Trump administration.</font></p><p style="line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Change Is a Real Threat to Energy and National Security</font></strong></p><p style="line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2015, the Dept. of Energy&nbsp;<a href="https://energy.gov/search/site/climate%20change%20reliability" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">released a report</a>&nbsp;that documented the threat climate change poses to energy security—and by extension national security—in every region of the U.S.</font></p></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Dept. of Defense has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/612710/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">documented</a>&nbsp;the national security risks posed by climate change— risks <b>James Mattis&nbsp;</b><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/trump-s-defense-chief-cites-climate-change-national-security-challenge" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">acknowledged</a>&nbsp;during his confirmation as Trump's Secretary of Defense.</font></p></div></blockquote><div><p style="line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump's efforts to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.energyandpolicy.org/scott-pruitt-cites-the-success-of-the-epa-and-clean-air-act/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">rollback limits</a>&nbsp;on carbon dioxide pollution from power plants and his embrace of the so-called "<a href="https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/30/clean-coal-myth-trump-carbon-capture-energy-no/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">clean coal</a>" put the nation's energy and national security at further risk from climate change. Preempting state and local support for renewables would only increase those risks.</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/defense-secretary-threatens-walk-unless-trump-axes-fanatic-loyalist-source-says">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/defense-secretary-threatens-walk-unless-trump-axes-fanatic-loyalist-source-says</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mattis reportedly told the White House he would resign unless a Trump campaign loyalist was removed from her job.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DefenseNews&nbsp;<a href="http://www.defensenews.com/articles/sources-mattis-ricardel-clashed-over-pentagon-appointees" style="text-decoration: none;">reported</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday that supporters of Mattis were expecting the White House to reassign Mira Ricardel from her job at the Office of Presidential Personnel.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the report, Ricardel is a former member of Trump’s campaign who is seen as “a loyal soldier who is looking out for the interests of the President.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sources told DefenseNews that Ricardel was “a roadblock for nominees,” making it difficult for Mattis to fill top-level positions at the Pentagon.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ricardel has allegedly imposed an ideological purity test that blocked many potential nominees. Sources said that the White House has blacklisted all candidates who signed “never Trump” letters during the election.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A source within the administration said that Ricardel’s opposition to “politically unacceptable” candidates was seen as a “badge of honor” in the White House.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mattis told the White House either Mira goes, or he walks,” one Pentagon source explained to Defense News. “They blinked.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ricardel is expected to be reassigned to a position at the Department of Commerce.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sources within the administration reportedly disagreed, insisting that “Jim Mattis has zero to do with her job prospects.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Wednesday, Mattis was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/defense-secretary-mattis-withdraws-patterson-as-choice-for-undersecretary-for-policy/2017/03/14/dd5ec8bc-08b6-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html" style="text-decoration: none;">forced to withdraw</a>&nbsp;his choice of Anne W. Patterson for undersecretary for policy after Republicans complained that she had served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013 under President Barack Obama</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/13/trumps_pick_for_defense_secy_made</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="story_summary" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 27px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the confirmation hearing for retired General James "Mad Dog" Mattis, several senators asked whether he would support Defense Department projects in their home states, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts). Mattis had a 41-year military career before he retired in 2013,<b> and Politico reports his financial disclosure statement says that he is worth more than $10 million. Some of his wealth was garnered after he retired when he worked for General Dynamics, among other companies.</b> We speak with retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich and Aaron Glantz, a senior reporter at Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.</font></p></div><hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 1px; margin: 40px 0px; border: none; clear: both; background: rgb(236, 238, 239);" /></div><div class="transcript" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h5 style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.5px; text-transform: uppercase; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRANSCRIPT</font></h5><div class="grey_description fine_print" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-style: italic; line-height: 18px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.</font></div><div class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 27px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDREW</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BACEVICH</span>:</strong>&nbsp;To your question, Juan, I was chagrined at the extent to which quite a number of the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, provided their few minutes to pose questions, basically posed questions that said to General Mattis, "Hey, can you promise me that if you become secretary of defense, that you are going to ensure that my state’s investment in the military-industrial complex is going to be protected?" We heard that from Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, who went out of his way to get Mattis on the record of saying that he supported the building of more <b>submarines, which just happen to be produced in Connecticut. And Senator Warren, </b>from my state, went through a long list of assets that are available here in Massachusetts, between labs and research facilities, wanted to make sure that Mattis was on the record of saying that he appreciated that, therefore the expectation that our own contribution to the military-industrial complex is going to be preserved.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Andrew Bacevich, can you talk about the issue of the waiver? The Senate just voted on this waiver. The significance of why we do have a rule in place in the United States that the defense secretary has to serve in civilian life for seven years and not be active-duty, active military? Retired Mattis has been there—what? He left in 2013, so he needed this waiver?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ANDREW</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BACEVICH</span>:</strong>&nbsp;You know, if somehow we had to have a general be secretary of defense, I’d probably say Mattis may be better than most of the alternatives. He certainly is a more of a reasonable figure, let’s say, than Lieutenant General Flynn, who’s about to become the national security adviser.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that said, as a matter principle, I think it’s a bad idea to have a former general running the Pentagon. Earlier on, Aaron talked about—made mention of the fact that Mattis’s entire professional career, until his retirement, has been in the military. And I have to say that we need to appreciate the extent to which that kind of a professional background has a shaping and, indeed, I would say, a narrowing effect on a person’s outlook. If we decided to have somebody who was a cardinal archbishop in the Catholic Church become secretary of defense, well, we would have some expectation that all those years spent in that very specific, all-encompassing environment would have a profound effect on the outlook of that individual. I think that’s true with military people. And my problem is that given where we are, our position in the world, given the absence of success of our military activism, I don’t think we need somebody who has that mindset. I think we need somebody as a defense secretary who can bring to the office greater creativity than General Mattis manifested yesterday when he was responding to the questions of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He’s a very conventional marine. That’s not what we need right now.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUAN</span>&nbsp;GONZÁLEZ:</strong>&nbsp;Aaron Glantz, I’d like to ask you about, you—both you and Andrew Bacevich have mentioned General Mattis’s long career, more than 40 years, in the military. But&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Politico</em>&nbsp;reported that his financial disclosure statement says that he’s worth more than $10 million. Now, apparently, all of this wealth was garnered just in the few years after he retired, when he worked for, among other companies, the defense giant General Dynamics. Your response to this issue of his sudden wealth after he left the military?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AARON</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GLANTZ</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Juan, it’s not uncommon to have a senior military officer go into consulting after retirement, which is exactly what General Mattis did. It is interesting that this is among the many other issues that wasn’t really discussed during the hearing, that could have been discussed instead of the pork-barrel projects that you were talking about. And, you know, he could have been asked about these apparent conflicts of interest that might have developed as a result of his consulting work, and how he might deal with them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the issue of civilian control of the military, another point to consider is that not only are we talking about General Mattis needing a waiver to this law that goes back to 1947, but also, in addition to General Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, we also have General Kelly, who is going to be most likely the secretary of homeland security. And then, of course, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will still be in the room, General Dunford. So, there is going to be four generals, if all, you know, are confirmed, in the room talking with Trump. And to the point of narrowing, you know, all of these different generals have their own perspective, but it does mean that there are perspectives that you might normally have in the room that will be missing because of the overwhelming presence of retired and current military in the administration at a high level.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Aaron Glantz, do you think that General Bacevich—sorry, do you think that General Mattis should be brought up on war crimes charges?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AARON</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GLANTZ</span>:</strong>&nbsp;I think it’s something that we need to seriously explore here. As I said in my article, the case that I document regarding General Mattis’s command in Fallujah resembles, in many ways, the case that the United States of America brought against General Yamashita of Japan following World War II. He was not accused of directly perpetrating war crimes during World War II, but he had command authority over Japanese troops that did commit very serious war crimes in Southeast Asia. And they involved very similar activities to the ones that the <b>U.S. marines under General Mattis’s command committed in Fallujah</b>. And this is the doctrine of command responsibility. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld the execution of General Yamashita. Other military commanders in Yugoslavia and Rwanda have been convicted under similar doctrines. And I think that this is something that really should be discussed thoroughly before his confirmation is approved. And at this point, it doesn’t look likely.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Well, I want to thank you very much all for being with us. We want to thank Aaron Glantz, senior reporter at&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Reveal</em>&nbsp;with The Center for Investigative Journalism. We want to thank Andrew Bacevich, a professor emeritus at Boston University, retired colonel and Vietnam vet, and Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council.</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>