I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019. Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!
I just had a long and productive call with President
@RT_Erdogan of Turkey. We discussed ISIS, our mutual involvement in Syria, & the slow & highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area. After many years they are coming home. We also discussed heavily expanded Trade.
One can only wonder if this amazing call with Erdogan came before BOTH tweets, which should be causing alarm bells inside the highest levels of America’s national security. Trump stated the Erdogan call was “long and productive”.
Our adversaries, especially Putin, know how to manipulate Trump. All it takes is stroke his ego and praise him as “strong” and “great”. The really serious national security problem with Trump though, is if you dare criticize him, YOU become “the enemy”. He has no ability to look at any issue beyond his own fragile ego.
I expect Trump will use every vestige of presidential power to wage personal attacks and find ways to spite “his enemies” (any American leader who challenges him), while at the same time sucking up to America’s adversaries, craving their praise. Fun times…
Added thought: Timelines matter. There are reports now that Pompeo was the one to call Mattis and inform Mattis that he was ousted ASAP. One wonders if Pompeo was informed before or after the Erdogan call? Trump’s first step in orchestrating “the slow & highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area” was to create more chaos in the Pentagon and to leave top US military commanders in the dark about this amazing plan…
Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics
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