Mattis was no Shining Knight

By Juan Cole 

Source: Informed Comment 

December 21, 2018

Posted in: Politics/Gov., US, War and Peace | No comments

Official Washington was horrified at the resignation on Thursday of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who wrote Trump a letter (below) that said “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.” The move came in response to Trump’s abrupt announcement on Twitter that the US would withdraw its 2000 special operations forces from northeast Syria, fully and immediately. Trump tried to represent the departure as a retirement, but it seems clear that Mattis is resigning in protest, having attempted Thursday morning to argue Trump out of his precipitous move.

On Thursday evening, US officials said that Trump would pull 7,000 troops out of Afghanistan, out of 14,000 there presently, and rumors swirled that he would get out entirely.

Trump is erratic and selfish and transactional, and it is understandable that the idea of having him in charge of US military affairs with no check by a seasoned officer like Mattis should terrify Washington.

And it certainly is the case that Mattis has often restrained Trump’s worse instincts, arguing him out of reviving black sites and torture, arguing him out of siding with Saudi Arabia in the attack on little Qatar, and opposing Trump’s punitive measures toward transgender troops.

But if you were going to judge Mattis’s performance as Secretary of Defense, you’d have to look at his performance with regard to military challenges.

Mattis basically followed through on the policies toward ISIL set by the Obama administration and by his predecessor Ash Carter. The alliance with the leftist Kurds to defeat ISIL in Raqqa was an Obama/Carter production that Mattis benefitted from and pursued in his own tenure (Raqqa fell to the Kurds in October of 2017). Likewise the taking of Mosul in northern Iraq followed the Obama/ Carter template (Mosul fell in July 2017).

There is, however, a difference between Obama policies toward ISIL and those of Mattis. The Rules of Engagement appear to have been substantially loosened under Trump. In 2017, US airstrikes in the region killed 215% as many civilians as had died in them the year before. Trump may have ordered it, but Mattis could have pushed back the way he did on other issues. There is no evidence he did.

After ISIL was defeated, Trump blocked civilian aid for civilians in Raqqa, without which there was always a risk that the young men would turn back to radicalism. Refusing to fund the rebuilding of Raqqa after it was destroyed by unnecessarily brutal bombing raids (compared to the Obama era, which was not ‘nice’ to begin with) is a way to ensure the reemergence of ISIL down the road.

Why didn’t Mattis resign over *that* policy?

In Afghanistan during the past two years there has been a steady worsening of the security situation on the ground. Mattis years ago said that it was “fun” to kill Taliban who mistreated their women. Fun or not, he hasn’t been effective at it. It is now estimated that 40% – 50% of the country is under Taliban rule. Some 28,000 Afghanistan National Army troops have been killed since 2015, which is not exactly a win. Trump’s dropping of the mother of all bombs on some radicals had no long term effect. Mattis said he sought a political solution that did not involvewithdrawing US troops from that country. Mattis was losing Afghanistan, as even the right wing Weekly Standard admitted, and can’t be accounted as a success story on that front.

Mattis vehemently supported the Saudi war on Yemen, with all its brutality and the endangerment of millions of civilians (who may starve to death). Mattis is so gullible that he bought the silly Saudi propaganda that the indigenous Houthi rebel group is Iranian-controlled. Iran has had something to do with the Houthis. It hasn’t had that much to do with them. Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, whom Mattis backed, is a wild man, and Mattis tried to whitewash the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in testimony on the hill, saying there is no “smoking gun.” (How about a smoking bone saw?).

Mattis isn’t a knight in shining armor but another right wing general of the Westmoreland sort, who will always win your war for you if you just let him play dirty enough and give him enough men and money and decades.

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/mattis-was-no-shining-knigh/