General Mattis grants rare interview to high school newspaper

[MillCreek]

http://mihsislander.org/2017/06/full-transcript-james-mattis-interview/

http://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/mercer-island-student-newspaper-lands-interview-with-us-defense-secretary-mattis/

A local high school journalist gets an interview with General Mattis.  A thoughtful article and the General has many interesting things to say.

[Hawkmoon]

Amazing. Someone understands that Bush did something right!

The most important thing is, if you have to go to war, then do everything you can not to go to war if at all possible. Then you’ve got to get the political end state right or you’ll never figure out how to end it successfully. War is such a tragedy and because in our society those decisions are made by civilians, and not by military, you’ve got to get that part right up front. Notice I left one war out and that was Desert Storm. In that war, President Bush, the first President Bush, said “we’re not going to tolerate a nation being taken over,” and went to war. And we went in, kicked them out of Kuwait, freed Kuwait, and then he would not go any further.

Some people said “oh we’re winning let’s charge into Baghdad.” He said “nope. all we’re going to do is free Kuwait.” Now, he got a lot of heat for that. But, we went in with more troops than we needed and we ended it quickly, because he had the political end state right.

[RevDisk]

I'm not that old, but the majority of our Secretaries of Defense have been politicians or essentially time serving door steps. Gates, who I didn't necessarily agree with, was probably the only other competent SecDef within my life. Mattis... This isn't a job. Or the capstone to a career. This is his life. He's dedicated to the defense of this country in ways that virtually no other SecDef or equivalent since the War of 1812 has ever reached. Or probably will for a long time. We have absolutely no clue how lucky we are.

As I've stated repeatedly. I don't like Trump. There are times however when I believe all the negative costs of his election will be worth every last dime, literal or metaphorical, just for having Mattis at the head of our military.

[RevDisk]

Also, that high school junior smoked virtually every professional journalist I've listened to or watched in the past decade or two. Easily. Great and informative interview with very good questions, good control of the flow. The MIHS Islander set a higher standard than most print news I've seen in quite a while.

I'm quite sure the rest of the Islander's student journalists are probably thinking "Well. Crap. How the hell do we top that? Can anyone snag the Pope's personal cell?"

http://mihsislander.org/

[HankB]

"Can anyone snag the Pope's personal cell?"

Try:  Et cum spiri  2 - 2 - 0  ^*






* If you're not Catholic, you probably won't get this . . .

[230RN]

Got it.  Former, but ingrained.  Ecce Terry

[Hawkmoon]

Try:  Et cum spiri  2 - 2 - 0  ^*


* If you're not Catholic, you probably won't get this . . .

Not Roman Catholic, but I took Latin in high school.

[HeroHog]

Try:  Et cum spiri  2 - 2 - 0  ^*






* If you're not Catholic, you probably won't get this . . .

Or a Frank Zappa fan ("St Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast/Father O’Blivion")