I was delighted to see that President Trump has decided to defer to Secretary of Defense James Mattis on no use of torture (even though he doesn’t share the general’s belief) – because “he’s an expert.” I hope his good sense continues and he continues to defer to Mattis on several other defense issues that Mattis is on recent public record as advocating.
Mattis is critical of much of the U.S. nuclear “modernization” plan as unnecessary and overly expensive. Remarkably (and wisely, I think), he has favored scrapping the land-based ICBM leg of the triad as redundant and unduly dangerous (accidental launch-on-warning).
Although a longtime critic of Iran and not initially supportive of a nuclear deal with Iran, Mattis believes it would be a serious mistake for the U.S. to withdraw now that the P5+1 deal has been concluded, as Trump repeatedly vowed to do during the presidential campaign.
Mattis favors a two-state solution to the long-standing Israel-Palestinian problem and has also been very critical of Israel, especially over the internationally illegal expansion of settlements in the occupied territory.
One can’t help notice that our new president’s inaugural speech extolled a new patriotism painfully bereft of any cosmopolitan values – nothing of the U.N., international law or even international cooperation (as opposed to competition).
I suspect (and hope) that Gen. Mattis may be an important antidote to a new “America First” – the rest of the world be damned – nationalism.
RAY PERKINS Jr.
Concord