secretary of defense

Appointed in the final days of Trump’s presidency to remove all US troops from Afghanistan, Douglas Macgregor tells The Grayzone how military leadership undermined the withdrawal and pressured Trump to capitulate. In an exclusive interview with The Grayzone, Col. Douglas Macgregor, a former senior advisor to the acting secretary of defense, revealed that President Donald Trump shocked the US military only days after the election last November by signing a presidential order calling for the withdrawal of all remaining US […]

To truly avoid a conflict of interest, the Boeing executive appointed acting secretary of defense would have to avoid many significant decisions, write Mandy Smithberger and William D. Hartung of Tom’s Dispatch.  By Mandy Smithberger and William D. Hartung Tom’s Dispatch The way…Read more →

Outgoing Defense Secretary Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was famous for quipping, “It’s fun to shoot some people.” It remains a supreme irony that Mattis was widely considered the only “adult in the room” in the Trump administration. Compared to whom? John Bolton, the rabid neocon serving as national security adviser? That would be the epitome of “condemning with faint praise.”

WASHINGTON — On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis would be “retiring” in February and that a replacement for Mattis would soon be named.

WASHINGTON — Media reports emerged this week that suggest that U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis may soon find himself out of a job, as President Donald Trump and his closest advisors are now “actively” discussing possible candidates to replace the Pentagon chief.

WASHINGTON – Like Rex Tillerson and H.R. McMaster before him, Secretary of Defense James Mattis – one of the longest-serving members of the Trump cabinet – may soon be out of a job. Just as was the case for the former secretary of state and the former national security adviser, media reports are now asserting that Mattis has been shut out of major White House decisions for months and is increasingly “out of the loop.”

(ANTIWAR.COM) — Monday night’s out-of-nowhere statement from the White House, claiming a Syrian chemical weapon attack was imminent and promising to make Syria pay a heavy price must’ve been successful, Secretary of Defense James Mattis reasoned, since no chemical attack happened after all.

(ANTIMEDIA) — According to a U.N. Commission of Inquiry tasked with investigating violations of international war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria, the intensification of airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition has led to a “staggering loss of civilian life,” the Guardian reports.

President-elect Donald Trump, center, listens to a member of the military in the stands as he watches an Army-Navy NCAA college football game at M&T Bank Stadium, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016, in Baltimore. (AP/Andrew Harnik)

The move is in response to remarks by Secretary of Defense James Mattis.