…from Press TV, Tehran

[ Editor’s Note: VT had referred to Mattis as one of the grownups in the Trump White House; and knew he would be a marked man, as he was a rookie, with “handlers” around him who were not about to let him influence the president more than they planned to use him for.

You never know, when the big experienced wheels leave, whether they will fade away or write a book and come back swinging.

We have not had time to preview Mattis’ book, as we have been in a busy news cycle and can’t cover everything, but we will try to watch what Mattis does. Readers can help out in the comment boards, as we need your eyes and ears more than ever now, as we are inundated with material.



That said, one interesting message in the Mattis book, pointedly to military commanders and politicians, is if you have not read hundreds of books, then you are functionally illiterate; and he inferred that military leaders would hence not be able to competently lead.

Jim W. Dean with Ed Muskie, 1985 – When you have a chance to talk to a former Secretary of State you have to be able to hold your own in a conversation, where someone’s autobiography is always an easy topic to bring up of someone they knew

While Gordon and I have almost no time to read books now, with our publishing VT 365 days a year, we both have libraries from when we once had the time.

I am on my third, with the first two stolen out of storage facilities during my traveling days, 3000, and 2000 books respectively, painstakingly collected over years of thrift store hunting, library sales and combing the close-out inventories.

Gordon, with his photographic memory, had a life of inhaling books with the added benefit of being able to remember it all, which makes me green with envy, but alas I did not get that gene.

We both had deep backgrounds before we came here, so we brought that to the table. But every morning, the world is waiting at our doors, and once you open it, it never stops all day long, current events flowing in like a river.

Staying on top of it all is like riding the proverbial bucking bronco. Sure, it gets tiring, with lots of frustrations and disappointments with the horrible soup we swim in all day and into the night. But we love it, or we would not be hereJim W. Dean ]

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When I began my Heritage TV work in Atlanta, I quoted historical figures frequently, particularly on controversial topics, so autobiographies and biographies were my main staple.

First published … September 04, 2019

Former US Defense Secretary James Mattis has said that he had expressed his opposition in a forceful way to President Donald Trump’s policies than by leaving the Pentagon.

Mattis made the remarks in an interview on Wednesday with MSNBC when asked when officials such as him would begin to forcefully condemn the Trump administration.

“Well, I don’t know how I could have spoken more loudly to where I stand [than] when I put in my letter of resignation, and quitting a job when I had not completed it, two years in,” Mattis said.

“This isn’t about one man and the solution isn’t going to be one person speaking out. It’s going to be about the majority of Americans saying that’s enough, we owe better to the next generation than what we’re doing right now,” Mattis added.

Mattis resigned from the Defense Department in late 2018 after Trump announced plans to withdraw US troops from Syria, which he strongly opposed.

Trump later backed away from his decision, allowing a portion of the US troops to remain in Syria in what the Pentagon claims as an effort to prevent a resurgence of the Daesh terrorist group.

Mattis is breaking months of public silence as he promotes his new book, “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead,” which hit the stands on September 3. Mattis has given a series of media interviews about his time in the administration.

“I want people to understand why I couldn’t stay. I’ve been informed by four decades of experience, and I just couldn’t connect the dots anymore,” he told The Atlantic last week.

“If you leave an administration, you owe some silence,” he added at the time. “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country.”

Regarding his reasons for leaving the Trump administration, Mattis offered a more critical explanation than the one he wrote in his resignation letter.

“When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution,” he wrote in an essay adapted from his new book and published by The Wall Street Journal last week.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Absolutely agree! Politics begin wars, and generals and soldiers finish it. You can condemn the general as much as you like, but in the hands of politicians he becomes a pawn. Sorry for him as a military man. You may be surprised, but Mattis is very respected by the military in Russia. And as a general, he was tired of undercover games. The military needs clear orders. Politics is a dirty business. Don’t blame Mattis. He is a soldier of his country!

  2. Every time I see that guy’s face I hear Kay Griggs talking about her experiences with Marine Corps officers.

  3. Four days from today will mark 9/11/19. How about the truth of the staged events 18 years ago and your part in it General? Did you have prior knowledge of it as so many others obviously did? If so are you not a traitor too?

  4. I can think of better reasons for Mattis resigning than Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria, who if they were there, were so illegally. I can still recall the backlash over US bombing in Laos during the Vietnam War, and the controversy it created. Now, having US troops illegally deployed isn’t even noticed by lapdog media.

Comments are closed.