The Trump Administration and Syria

Politics and religion
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Mattis is a civilian, he retired in 2013, he would have been eligible in 2020 the way the law is written.

Again, they wrote the law and within 3 years made an exemption for it. And we went 171 years without it really being a problem. Then wrote a law about it that we almost immediately circumvented.

You’re acting like it’s part of Article I or something. It really isn’t. It’s just a wonky rule that didn’t really do anything. Our nation was less militaristic before it even existed, so obviously it didn’t mean much of anything as far as keeping the military under civilian oversight.

Consider this: if it hadn’t been Mattis here were some of our potential choices:
Mike Flynn - a Russian agent and insane person who worships Trump like a God. Thinks Muslims are inhuman cancer
Tom Cotton - who basically wanted to go to war with Iran and is a prime Trump boot-licker
Jeff Session - he ended up being AG. A racist hobgoblin who would drown babies if Trump told him to.

I could go on, but every person Trump would have nominated would be loyal to Trump, not the nation or the Constitution. Because that’s what Trump’s people are like. But hey they’re civilians so that would be better!

The “tradition” is a new one that got an exemption almost the moment it started and is circumvented by 7 years as a civvie. Pretty sure in 3 years Mattis will still be the person he is right now.

Anyway, I’m done. But I seriously don’t get your angle. In the extreme abstract I sort of do, but our first President was literally a general and at the end of the day the President is all that matters and he is a civilian. The only reason Sec of Defense matters is because Trump is an idiot and doesn’t give a shit about what the military is doing as long as they drop a bomb on something when he tells them to. Crap like Sessions/DeVos is a far bigger deal.

405

Yes, sorry, that statement was referring to the previous one about a situation where the president himself had recently served in the military, like Washington, or Eisenhower, or other cases where the outside was a general.

This is actually pretty clear when reading the rest of the post which you quoted specifically.

And they waived it for Mattis.
Hmm, I wonder why they have the ability to waive it.

406

Why are we setting up laws then waiving them when convenient?

407

Because everyone was pretty sure that if obstacles were thrown in Mattis’ way, Trump’s second pick would be much worse.

Maybe all can agree:

It is bad in principal and in precedent for the President to cede so much control of defense to a general, because of the tradition highly valued within and without the military, that defense policy and politics is best determined by civilians answerable to the voters…

…while it is good in practice for Trump to cede control of defense to Mattis, because Mattis appears to know what he’s doing and Trump is an imbecile.

408

I think the principle is that the Congress should exert additional civilian oversight of the military.

That is what is achieved by the waiver process.

409

I find nothing to disagree with here. We don’t have to like the situation, but its one that has bad principles, is ultimately the best hopeful situation to be in currently.

Though we get to see the real stuff Mattis is made of now that the airspace above Syria has become suddenly hotter.

Anyone else feel like watching Doctor Strangelove today?

410

I think Mattis is competent and probably a much better pick as SecDef than we could normally expect from Trump. I haven’t had any issues with Mattis’ performance so far.

I dislike the fact that we set up a law to help insure civilian oversight of the military, then waived it when we found it convenient to do so. Either stick to the damn law, or get rid of it. The confirmation process is supposed to be the congressional oversight on the cabinet picks. I understand that Trump’s picks and the GOP made a mockery of the whole thing, but that’s because we’re stuck in a nightmare of bullshit.

411

I think this highlights the gray area between “laws” and “norms”.

For most of the history of the United States there’s no standing army so there’s no need to have a bunch of detailed rules to govern civilian oversight of the army. Then World War 2 ends and the Cold War begins. The government realizes that they’re going to need to maintain a large standing army during a time of “peace.” At the same time, the sudden and substantial growth of the bureaucracy and the military means that unwritten traditions become less powerful.

So traditions get codified as laws to help guarantee civilian oversight. But a Congress cannot bind a future Congress, so these laws are just a way of explicitly laying out a norm. It’s probably better to waive the law in exceptional circumstances than to get rid of the law and trust that the context of the repeal will signal that we still care about civilian oversight.

412

You mean the President who was pretty adamant about civilian leadership of the military? Washington himself would be dismayed that you’re using his role as a general in the Revolutionary War as a justification for not caring who controls the military.

Dude, seriously? Do you not understand how government and by extension the military works? “The buck stops here” is about accountability, not day-to-day operations. The President doesn’t just sit in the Oval Office and issue decrees. Well, a normal President doesn’t.

In a functioning administration, The Secretary of Defense matters. There’s a reason Congress confirms cabinet appointments and I’ll give you three guesses what that reason is. If your guess is that the heads of government departments don’t have any power, guess again.

You’re so close to actually getting it!

So if that’s the case, who’s deciding important stuff like how we respond to Russia’s threats in Syria yesterday, how deeply we reinvest in a failed solution in Afghanistan, and where we saber rattle with the Fifth Fleet? Gosh, if Trump doesn’t care, who’s going to take the reigns? The answer at this point seems to be: the Secretary of Defense, who was active military a few years ago, and is now de facto in charge of what the military does.

Voila! Civilian leadership of the military effectively denied. Will it work out for the best? I hope so. As I’ve said repeatedly, Mattis seems like a straight shooter and as others have pointed out, it could have been much worse. Some Islamophobe dipshit like Flynn or unqualified know-nothing like DeVos or loathesome toadie like Manafort as Secretary of Defense would be an absolute horror show.

But nevertheless, Mattis’ appointment runs counter to what George Washington cared deeply about when he was made President.

Uh, okay? I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. This is a thread where we’re talk about the implications of a Trump administration in military matters, but that’s not stopping anyone from kvetching about Sessions and DeVos in other threads.

-Tom

413

Ah, the halcyon days of every other presidency.

414

The Democrats grumbled a bit that Mattis’ waiver didn’t give them the chance to question him – which is partly a matter of Congressional showboating, but it would have also been a venue to raise concerns about whether and how much this violates civilian oversight – but I suspect you’re absolutely right.

TRUMP: Tillerson! DeVos! Carson! And for SecDef, uh, this guy!

CONGRESS: Hey everyone, psst, quick, let Mattis through before Trump changes his mind.

-Tom

415

“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed…”

416

US shoots down an armed Iranian-made drone in Syria.

This seems to be escalating nicely. This should be a fun war for Trump to get us into – Russia, Iran, & Syria all at once. It’ll probably knock the “Russia Thing” out of the news cycle until the cockroaches re-power the Internet and discuss how those silly humans killed themselves.

417
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Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia (“MSB”) has replaced his uncle as crown prince and will remain the Saudi Defence Minister. He’s a big Trump supporter and also has a reputation for being an anti-Iran hardliner.
(Not Syria related, I know, but eff me if I can figure out which thread is actually the right thread for this.)



419

@Tomchick has an ally in the Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum.
Why ‘Mattis in charge’ is a formula for disaster

She makes some of the same points Tom did. I understand the concerns, but for me Mattis setting a dangerous precedent doesn’t make my top 100 list of stuff to be worried about in the Trump administration.

420

This is a situation where you can both be right. It can be both a bad precedent and barely a dip in the bucket of bad Trump stuff. This only actually becomes important if we can regain our senses as a country.

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Wouldn’t surprise me at all if this administration starts getting (and prioritizing) info from their own sources (probably Russian plants), and ignoring our own IC.

What could possibly go wrong?