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Started By
Message
Retired Green Beret officer: Mattis "left my men to die."
Posted on 12/2/16 at 10:56 pm
Posted on 12/2/16 at 10:56 pm
LINK
NB4 Benghazi. HRC answered for Benghazi at the ballot box, and it was one of the things that sunk her. Mattis will have to answer for this before Congress. Will it sink him? Probably not, but it will be on the record. If, in your view, Benghazi disqualified Hillary, would this disqualify Mattis? Why or why not?
Details at the link. Mattis commanded the closest American force to the incident and waffled while other units from much further away tried to get there. The team was finally extracted by USAF special operations helicopters flying from Pakistan.
quote:
WASHINGTON – A retired Green Beret officer alleged Friday that Gen. James Mattis, who has been nominated to be the next defense secretary, hesitated to send medical evacuation flights and left soldiers to die during a 2001 friendly fire incident in Afghanistan.
Retired Lt. Col. Jason Amerine, in a Facebook post, said a delay by Mattis in sending rescue aircraft from a nearby base might have led to the deaths of Staff Sgt. Brian Cody Prosser and at least two Afghans after they were hit by a U.S. bomb outside of Kandahar.
“He was indecisive and betrayed his duty to us, leaving my men to die during the golden hour when he could have reached us,” wrote Amerine, who is a future of war fellow at the New America think tank in Washington, D.C.
NB4 Benghazi. HRC answered for Benghazi at the ballot box, and it was one of the things that sunk her. Mattis will have to answer for this before Congress. Will it sink him? Probably not, but it will be on the record. If, in your view, Benghazi disqualified Hillary, would this disqualify Mattis? Why or why not?
Details at the link. Mattis commanded the closest American force to the incident and waffled while other units from much further away tried to get there. The team was finally extracted by USAF special operations helicopters flying from Pakistan.
41
Posted on 12/2/16 at 10:58 pm to Jim Rockford
Sounds like his decision cost no lives
Posted on 12/2/16 at 10:59 pm to Jim Rockford
Not gonna try to defend Mattis because I don't know the facts. But I'm eager to hear Mattis defend himself.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:00 pm to Jim Rockford
Let's wait till the full facts come out, and lets give Mattis a chance to defend himself. However, if true, my initial feeling that Mattis was a solid choice would severely change.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 11:01 pm
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:00 pm to Jim Rockford
I'm gonna file this one under fog of war.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:01 pm to Jim Rockford
Clearly unfit to lead. Because not another time, in the military history of the executive branch, have any of them lost men due to poor decisions
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:03 pm to joshnorris14
quote:
Sounds like his decision cost no lives
wrong
read again
sgt. named.
and two allied troops.
besides the dude does not meet the 7 yrs civilian requirements. too recent in military.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:03 pm to BJones
quote:
Let's wait till the full facts come out, and lets give Mattis a chance to defend himself. However, if true, this would severely hurt my opinion of Mattis as a good selection.
I'm just throwing it out there as something that will come up in the hearing. Maybe he has a reasonable explanation, maybe he fricked up royally, or maybe it's one of those shite happens in war situations. Amerine certainly feels bitter about it, though. I'm sure Mattis will have the votes regardless, but he will have to address it.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:07 pm to Jim Rockford
Just gonna have to let it play out but, if true and more people directly involved come forward and substantiate the story ... then it could be a deal breaker.
Another thing to understand is that, especially in combat, there is a lot of inter-service rivalry at times and, if this really happened, this will never be forgotten or forgiven by DOD guys like those in Group, Rangers, et al.
We didn't appreciate Marines too much at Bragg - they do things differently and we really thought they were overrated and their commanders were, for the most part, raving fricking asshats. Lots of stories to tell about that but regardless ... if he really pussied-out when it came time to evac some Group guys - others will come forward and it will probably be a deal breaker.
Another thing to understand is that, especially in combat, there is a lot of inter-service rivalry at times and, if this really happened, this will never be forgotten or forgiven by DOD guys like those in Group, Rangers, et al.
We didn't appreciate Marines too much at Bragg - they do things differently and we really thought they were overrated and their commanders were, for the most part, raving fricking asshats. Lots of stories to tell about that but regardless ... if he really pussied-out when it came time to evac some Group guys - others will come forward and it will probably be a deal breaker.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 11:08 pm
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:08 pm to Jim Rockford
I love these melts.
They are delicious.
They are delicious.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:12 pm to HailToTheChiz
So Amerine is melting, huh?
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:15 pm to scrooster
quote:
We didn't appreciate Marines too much at Bragg - they do things differently and we really thought they were overrated and their commanders were, for the most part, raving fricking asshats. Lots of stories to tell about that but regardless ... if he really pussied-out when it came time to evac some Group guys - others will come forward and it will probably be a deal breaker.
I'll wait till the facts come out, not jump to conclusions like the OP. Nobody else is questioning why this story is coming out now? In a Facebook post no less?
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:16 pm to scrooster
quote:Geeze the insecurity here is so tasty.
We didn't appreciate Marines too much at Bragg - they do things differently and we really thought they were overrated and their commanders were, for the most part, raving fricking asshats.
quote:I'm not gonna say he made the right call. I mean, obviously he didn't. But I'm gonna chalk it to fog of war because that is the most likely explanation. SOF forces are notoriously bad at communicating with people outside of SOCOM. It's like a 99.5% probability that it was fog of war and less than .5% that he left them to die because of interservice rivalry.
if he really pussied-out when it came time to evac some Group guys - others will come forward and it will probably be a deal breaker.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 11:22 pm
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:19 pm to Vols&Shaft83
quote:
I'll wait till the facts come out, not jump to conclusions like the OP. Nobody else is questioning why this story is coming out now? In a Facebook post no less?
It's not just now coming out. It was chronicled in this book for years ago. It's gaining traction now because Mattis is nominated for Secretary of Defense. LINK
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:21 pm to GeauxxxTigers23
quote:
I'm not gonna say he made the right call. I mean, obviously he didn't. But I'm gonna chalk it to fog of war because that is the most likely explanation. SOF forces are notoriously bad at communicating with people out of SOCOM. It's like a 99.5% probability that it was fog of war and less than .5% that he left them to die because of interservice rivalry.
If he makes a reasonable case for that, it will go away. If he hems and haws about it, it will dog him. But he will probably be confirmed either way.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:30 pm to Jim Rockford
quote:
I'm just throwing it out there as something that will come up in the hearing. Maybe he has a reasonable explanation, maybe he fricked up royally, or maybe it's one of those shite happens in war situations. Amerine certainly feels bitter about it, though. I'm sure Mattis will have the votes regardless, but he will have to address it.
Command in combat is an imperfect science, and that goes thousand-fold when you're making tactical decisions in real time. I've read about this before, and there may be some on here who know more about it, but you must first and foremost understand that you have imperfect information on which to go.
Monday-morning quarterbacking that specific sort of thing is the death of a healthy command.
Given Mattis' aggressive and assertive tactical, operational, and strategic record for his entire career for more than a decade in the Middle East outside of this one instance, I am willing to give him more than a little leeway. If you spend that much time in combat zones, even the Jesus Christ himself would make a tactical mistake or two.
Edit to add: I am also not one to generally give Marines the benefit of the doubt with stuff like this as I tend to think they think a little too much of their abilities and competence, but Mattis' reputation was so good and even Army infantry and SOF respected the absolute hell out of that guy.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 11:33 pm
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:30 pm to Jim Rockford
Who gives a frick. NO matter who Trump appoints there will be frickchuckles like this guy speaking out against them
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:32 pm to Jim Rockford
Took only a day for the media to start trying to dig up anything they could.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:33 pm to Jim Rockford
Fake news is working overtime to derail anything Trump wants to do.
Posted on 12/2/16 at 11:33 pm to HailToTheChiz
What a bunch of bullshite. They fail to mention that the incident that Mattis "failed" to support was a spec-ops, CIA operation. The Marines are quite removed from such missions, especially in 2001 (it's much more integrated now). They also don't mention what the Marines were in the middle of doing when this situation came up. I read a good book related to this incident, but more focused on the CIA's operations leading up to and during the invasion of Afghanistan. Those guys had their own support system and were quite outside the Marine's scope of responsibility.
This post was edited on 12/2/16 at 11:34 pm
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