Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   Issues – one at a time Date:   12/22/2018 9:22:28 AM

ON THE RETIREMENT OF GEN MATTIS:  I am a retired Army (Combat Engineer) officer.  Thinking back, I cannot truthfully name (without creating a spreadsheet) the many commanders I have served under (brigade level and lower).  A few… fortunately, only a few… were insufferable.  When you serve under a “bad” commander" … a bad commander is one whose directions and directives are considered unfathomable by most of your peers… guess what:  You follow orders (unless they [very rarely] are illegal under the Geneva Conventions).  However, when you come of retirement tenure, you can show your displeasure by retiring.  The farther you progress beyond twenty years, the more significant is your retirement. GEN Mattis disagreed with his commander.

[Note: I retired because I wanted to be with troops. After two “desk” jobs in “purple” (joint services) assignments… it became clear that working amongst a plethora of full colonels is like running with a pack of alpha wolves.]

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I had the unpleasant experience of serving a tour in Iraq.  President Bush was right to utterly defeat Sadam Hussein. He was a thug who openly vowed to sell or give WMDs to international terror organization. President Bush was WRONG to stay in Iraq and engage in “Nation Building.” Islamic cultures view that sort of coddling as weak… and will be happy to live off the US’s largess while they wait for Americans to leave.  Please note that this Islamic culture is conducting the same violence laced hucksterism in Afghanistan and will do so in Syria.  They also condone, by default, insurgent operations AGAINST Americans.

The British, Russians, French, and Italians have learned this lesson.  We should take it to heart.

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So… what DO the Muslims understand? They understand defeat. They neither appreciate nor respect “nation building” or “charity” or “forgiveness” on the part of the victor in a conflict.

First – We must extract American soldiers from Islamic soil.

Second - We should meet their expectations - we strike preemptively or in retaliation for the harboring and or exporting of terrorism. If they ignore our diplomatic warning… we should exact selective and meaningful destruction of infrastructure… while avoiding carnage.

Our military strategy should be to simultaneously drop EVERY significant bridge (halt all motorized transportation) and simultaneously demolish EVERY power station and electrical switchyard (turn off utilities).  This aerial/cruise missile campaign MUST be followed by dead silence on our part. No occupation… no nation building.  ISLAM UNDERSTANDS THIS PERFECTLY.  I predict we would have to do this only once per country (do you remember Muammar Gaddafi?)

The goal should be to punish misbehavior.  Make it VERY costly to sponsor or export terrorism. Let them live in the 7^th century again. Notice I did not say "peacefully live."  Islam is NOT peaceful. Their form of  "justice" bears no resemblence to ours.

- LMF Curmudgeon