According to The New York Times, Donald Trump is considering making retired US Marine General James N Mattis, his Defence Secretary. The Times quotes Trump as saying of the General, who goes by the nickname ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis: “(He is) just a brilliant, wonderful man. What a career — we are going to see what happens, but he is the real deal.”
Mattis is known for his especially hawkish attitude towards Iran, advocating a tough military posture which, according to the Times, clashed with the views of President Obama and his security team. His voice at Trump’s cabinet table could mean the scrapping of the nuclear deal with Iran and the unraveling of the Middle East, if more unraveling were possible.
He commanded the US Marines during the invasion of Iraq and led the military onslaught against Falujah, rendering the city a slaughterhouse and decisively turning moderate Iraqi Sunni opinion against the Americans, which paved the way for the emergence of Al Qaeda in Iraq and arguably ISIS also.
The following quotes from Mattis, taken from Business Insider, reveal views that could easily have been expressed by ‘General Buck Turgidson‘, the cynical, hawkish and quite mad military adviser to ‘President Merkin Muffley’, in Stanley Kubrick’s memorable but terrifying movie, ‘Dr Strangelove’.
Here is a sample of ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis’ military philosophy. Soon, he may be the man in charge of the American military. Truly, America is becoming a lunatic asylum in which the inmates have taken charge.
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. 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. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”
“I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f* with me, I’ll kill you all.”
“The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some *******s in the world that just need to be shot. There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.”
“We’ve backed off in good faith to try and give you a chance to straighten this problem out. But I am going to beg with you for a minute. I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”
“There are some people who think you have to hate them in order to shoot them. I don’t think you do. It’s just business.”
“Marines don’t know how to spell the word defeat”
“Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.”
“Fight with a happy heart.”
The Broken Elbow 
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No The Americans took charge.
The lunatics are out.
Or if you like the American lunatics are in charge again.
BTW in terms of fighting Generals there’s nothing above that places Mattis out of spec. He’s also quite cerebral and a student of history. Even a Scholar.
Like he said it’s just business.
It reads like something straight out of the Nazi archives. Let’s hope this provides an impetus for Europeans to finally pull away from the insanity that is now the United States.