To the Editor: It is not impossible to beat a incumbent president. The pattern of two four-year terms is merely tradition. But it's tradition going back to Geo. Washington, and we are not lightly lifted out of our rut. The few* who have beaten an incumbent are instructive: FDR beat incumbent Hoover; FDR had a program of change Reagan beat incumbent Carter; Reagan had a movement of change Bill Clinton beat incumbent Bush41; Bill represented generational change
Biden brings none of this himself. "YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok" won't fix what he lacks. But if he names and empowers Warren, that might be enough.
*I suppose Woodrow Wilson and TR together beat incumbent Taft, make of that what you will. Barry Levine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 9:16 PM Subject: re: Having a Torturer Lead the C.I.A. To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor: If we are to disregard Ms. Haspel's record of extraordinary rendition, and torture, and destroying evidence, and thwarting due oversight, she would be unfit to be director of the CIA for lack of experience. If we are to consider Ms. Haspel's criminal record, she is unfit for her violations of U.S. statute, of our treaty obligations, and of human decency. Whether "she forcefully renounces the use of torture during her confirmation hearing" or not, this is a nomination that no Senator should confirm. There is no place to equivocate here. Barry Haskell Levine
Steele's dossier's more prurient than hot material that no one needs to see the GRU's collected kompromat was not to be disseminated free. Trump tried to claim the whole thing was a bluff but women verified that they'd been paid like bridge, in which an elegant cross-ruff takes many tricks before the ace is played. Mike Pence pretends he doesn't know this guy refusing meals unless they're with his wife But Kaine got him repeatedly to lie he's chained to Trumpty-Dumpty now for life. It's time that we impeach, the face what's next. At least, let's argue policy, not sex.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 4:18 PM Subject: re: Turkey’s President Calls U.S. Indictments of His Guards a ‘Scandal’ To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
The scandal is that the police of the District of Columbia didn't protect Americans from Erdogan's thugs in May. It is shameful that they stood by as peaceful protesters were beaten in their own country, and ridiculous that the perpetrators were allowed to flee to Turkey. Indictment now it toothless.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Sun, Aug 27, 2017 at 7:20 AM Subject: re: Why Trump’s Pardon of Arpaio Follows Law, Yet Challenges It To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
The president's pardon power is broad; it "extends to every offense known to the law". But wielding that broad power for corrupt ends could still constitute an impeachable offense. Obviously, Congress could detect an impeachable offense if e.g. the president were to advertise that felons could buy pardons from him/her for cash, or for sexual favors. Likewise, Congress could impeach the president if it could be shown that the pardon of Arpaio were intended as a signal to Mike Flynn and to Paul Manafort that they could get such pardons themselves if they defied Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquest. That would constitute 'witness tampering' and clearly fits among "high crimes and misdemeanors".
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 8:24 PM Subject: re: Michelle Carter Didn’t Kill With a Text To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
Michelle Carter may in fact be innocent by reason of insanity; that is for her lawyer to plead and for the court to weigh. Her speech, however, is not protected by the First Amendment. Broad though our constitutional guarantee of Free Speech is, it is not without bounds. Ms. Carter incited imminent lawless action. The Supreme Court has found (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395U.S.44) that such speech is not protected, and may indeed be criminal.
From: barry levine Date: Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 6:26 AM Subject: re: Russian Military Says It Might Have Killed ISIS Leader To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
If it is confirmed, the killing of Abu-Bakral-Baghdadi is a blow both to ISIS/DAESH and to Saudi prince Mohammed bin-Salman. The latter desperately needs a big win on his resume to justify his position in the royal succession at his young age. Killing al-Baghdadi would have been such a trophy. As the succession fight looms closer (Salman is 81) the only remaining trophy of such stature would be Basharal-Assad, whom the Russians protect.
While A.G. Sessions spiritedly denies private meetings with ambassador Kislyak, our FBI has confirmed that he met with Kislyak at least twice, and probably three times. That means that Sessions lied in his confirmation hearing to the Senate of the United States. The current Congress shows no interest in defending its honor from such contempt. It is for us to replace it with one that will restore checks and balances.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Sat, May 13, 2017 at 4:29 PM Subject: re: Erick Erickson: The Fantasy of Impeachment To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
Although the President of the United States, as chief executive, can fire the director of the FBI for usurping the authority of the Attorney General, or for disclosing an ongoing investigation, or for no reason at all, he is not free to obstruct justice. Firing James Comey while the latter is directing an investigation into Russian meddling in our election of 2016 is both criminal and impeachable. The President of the United States has himself told us that ending it was his intention.
ATLANTA — After President Trump fired James Comey, the F.B.I. director, the media and political left ignited with talk of impeachment. “We are certainly moving down that path,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona. “The Comey Firing May Be the Beginning of the End of the Trump Administration” shouted a headline in New York magazine.
This is a fantasy.
Don’t get me wrong. I have long had concerns about President Trump. He can contradict himself within separate clauses of a single sentence, then lie about the contradiction. He lacks the depth of knowledge a president should have and seems far more concerned with what people on TV say about him than what is happening around him. Even if there is no evidence that the F.B.I. is investigating the president himself, it is reportedly looking at ties between advisers to his campaign and Russia.
But let’s be realistic. Though the firing looks bad, it was also reasonable.
Consider the case made by Rod Rosenstein, the highly respected deputy attorney general, who was recently confirmed by more than 90 members of the Senate. In a memo to the president, Mr. Rosenstein said Mr. Comey had usurped the attorney general’s authority last July by announcing his conclusion that the F.B.I.’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails should be closed without prosecution.
“It is not the function of the director to make such an announcement,” Mr. Rosenstein wrote. “Compounding the error, the director ignored another longstanding principle: We do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation.”Mr. Rosenstein likewise documented concerns from attorneys general from both parties. “The way the director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong,” he concluded. “As a result, the F.B.I. is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them.”
Mr. Comey only made things worse for himself by giving wrong information to Congress about emails belonging to Huma Abedin, Mrs. Clinton’s aide. Mr. Comey’s testimony was under oath, and the F.B.I. had to retract its own director’s testimony. No one can deny this was a bad thing.
Though they are criticizing his firing now, Democrats were calling for Mr. Comey’s head after he reopened the Clinton email investigation late in the campaign last year. If he was so bad then, is he really so good now? It also is telling that two of President Trump’s most vocal critics within the Republican Party, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both embraced Mr. Comey’s termination.
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Underlying liberals’ calls for impeachment is the belief that Mr. Comey’s firing will squelch the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian campaign meddling. But there are good reasons to think that the inquiry won’t be affected. The F.B.I.’s interim leader, Andrew McCabe, vowed on Thursday that the investigation would continue apace. Likewise, the Senate will have to confirm Mr. Trump’s nominee to replace Mr. Comey, and Republicans seem determined to keep the bureau independent. More than half the Senate Republicans have already raised concerns about how Mr. Comey was fired. Many of them are privately worried that Mr. Trump could lead them to electoral disaster. They are not going to serve as yes men for a yes man at the F.B.I.
Last, along with the F.B.I.’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling, there is a Senate investigation. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, and its ranking member, Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, have criticized Mr. Trump’s handling of the Comey termination and are committed to the investigation. A number of other Republican Senators, including John McCain and Ben Sasse, have also raised questions about the firing.
Instead of engaging in conspiracy theories about President Trump’s Russian connections, liberals would be better served demanding that Congress exercise its powers of the purse and investigation to ensure honesty and integrity in the confirmation of a new F.B.I. director and in the operation of the agency.
Frankly, by firing Mr. Comey, President Trump did what President Barack Obama should have done. Most Americans recognize the cynical and hypocritical reactions now being deployed over this. I suspect most Americans do not even care. Hillary Clinton’s supporters have long wanted Mr. Comey out, and President Trump’s supporters will stand by their man.
In continuing to misread the political situation and reality itself, the left is setting itself up for failure and disappointment. The odds are that the president comes out of a Russian investigation unscathed. Even if Democrats take back Congress in 2018, they would probably fall short of the two-thirds vote in the Senate needed to convict him of impeachable offenses.
Impeachment is not on the horizon, and this is not the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency. It is just one day closer to the next presidential election. And until then, and maybe longer, I’m betting Donald Trump will remain our president.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 6:33 PM Subject: re: Hydrogen Cars, Coming Down the Pike To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
The hydrogen economy in general and the hydrogen car in particular are huge boondoggles, designed mostly to reap government subsidies. While it is true that hydrogen as a fuel has a terrific energy density, that ignores the weight of the container needed for a pressurized gas with a propensity for leaking through steel.
Add to that hydrogen's role as a potent greenhouse gas and the much greater cost of a hydrogen fueling station relative to the charging station for an electric car. There is no and should be no market for this thing.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 8:35 AM Subject: re: To Win Again, Democrats Must Stop Being the Abortion Party To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
Donald Trump is on record saying that he is "very pro-choice". That he is also on record saying that he is "very pro-life" shows not that he has moral principles, but only that he's a shameless liar. If this single issue is paramount for Thomas Groome, he should vote his conscience, of course. But to advance his own pet issue as the general formula for Democratic success is disingenuous.
To Win Again, Democrats Must Stop Being the Abortion Party
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A sticker on the ground at a campaign rally for Donald Trump.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times
When I came to this country from Ireland some 45 years ago, a cousin, here 15 years before, advised me that Catholics vote Democratic. Having grown up in the Irish Republic, I was well disposed to Republican Party principles like local autonomy and limited government. Yet a commitment to social justice, so central to my faith, seemed better represented by the Democratic Party. I followed my cousin’s good counsel.
But once-solid Catholic support for Democrats has steadily eroded. This was due at least in part to the shift by many American Catholic bishops from emphasizing social issues (peace, the economy) to engaging in the culture wars (abortion, gay marriage). Along the way, many Catholics came to view the Democrats as unconditionally supporting abortion.
Last year’s election was a watershed in this evolution. Hillary Clinton lost the overall Catholic vote by seven points — after President Obama had won it in the previous two elections. She lost the white Catholic vote by 23 points. In heavily Catholic states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, she lost by a hair — the last by less than 1 percent. A handful more of Catholic votes per parish in those states would have won her the election.
Her defeat is all the more remarkable considering that Mrs. Clinton shared many Catholic social values. By contrast, Mr. Trump’s disrespect for women, his racism, sexism and xenophobia should have discouraged conscientious Catholics from voting for him. So why did they? Certainly his promises to rebuild manufacturing and his tough talk on terrorism were factors. But for many traditional Catholic voters, Mrs. Clinton’s unqualified support for abortion rights — and Mr. Trump’s opposition (and promise to nominate anti-abortion Supreme Court justices) — were tipping points.
In its directive, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops make clear that American Catholics do not need to be single-issue voters. The bishops say that while Catholics may not vote for a candidate because that candidate favors abortion, they can vote for a candidate in spite of such a stance, based on the totality of his views. Yet despite that leeway, abortion continues to trigger the deepest moral concern for many traditional Catholics, including me.Polls indicate that the nation holds mixed views about abortion. About 80 percent of Americans don’t want to criminalize it again. At the same time, at least 60 percent of Americans — and most likely a higher percentage of Catholics — oppose abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Yet despite the clear complexity of those attitudes, political discourse largely ignores the possibility of a middle ground between making all abortions legal or prohibiting them entirely. Ms. Clinton, like most Democratic politicians, fell into this either/or trap last year.
When asked about abortion in the third presidential debate, Mrs. Clinton focused on the importance of a woman’s right to choose, saying: “I strongly support Roe v. Wade.” But in making it appear as if she was viewing a wrenching moral decision only through a legal lens, she was losing many Catholic and evangelical voters. For them, her uncompromising defense of Roe was comparable to telling a group of Quakers, “I’m in favor of war,” without even mentioning preconditions.
Mr. Trump, in contrast, offered a graphic description of “ripping the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day,” as if this were standard procedure. (More than 90 percent of American abortions are in the first trimester.)
Amid Mr. Trump’s dysfunction as president, Democrats may have a chance to reclaim their Catholic base in the 2018 midterm elections. By tradition and by our church’s teaching on social justice, many Catholics could readily return to voting reliably Democratic. But for this to happen, their moral concerns regarding abortion must get a hearing within the party, rather than being summarily dismissed. How might that happen?
To begin with, Democratic politicians should publicly acknowledge that abortion is an issue of profound moral and religious concern. As a candidate, Barack Obama did just that in a 2008 interview, saying, “Those who diminish the moral elements of the decision aren’t expressing the full reality of it.”
Democrats should not threaten to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funds to be used for abortion except in extreme circumstances. They could also champion an aggressive program to promote adoption by strengthening the Adoption Assistance Act of 1980 and streamlining adoption procedures. The regulations in many states seem designed to discourage it.
Democratic politicians should also continue to frame their efforts to improve health and social services as a way to decrease abortions. The abortion rate dropped 21 percent from 2009 to 2014. That downward trend would most likely end if Republicans eliminate contraception services provided through the Affordable Care Act.
That Donald Trump, claiming to be anti-abortion, got the majority of Catholic votes to defeat a competent and decent Democrat underscores the continuing influence of abortion in American politics. If Democrats want to regain the Catholic vote, they must treat abortion as a moral issue, work for its continued reduction and articulate a more nuanced message than, “We support Roe v. Wade.”
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 7:21 AM Subject: re: The Enlightenment Project To: letters@forward.com
To the Editor:
David Brooks seems to resent the Enlightenment for challenging his smug messianic telos. But the nostalgia he's peddling is a sham; the world of the shtetl was objectively awful. It is the Enlightenment, and the separation of Church from State that permitted the invention of the modern world. Meaning is the mission of the Church, not of our government. What is great in America is the embodiment of the Enlightenment. The United States of America is not separable from it.
Roy Blunt invites Mike Flynn to come and speak to his Committee on Intelligence the new administration's up a creek the only winner looks to be Mike Pence by undermining foreign policy in violation of the Logan Act to testify on pain of perjury what part of what's alleged's objective fact the president can pardon many things but what of felonies himself commands? our chief executives are less than kings and Donald's web of lies is out of hand the Trump regime's already on the rocks but who can fill the shoes of Archie Cox?
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 7:15 PM Subject: re: ‘Alternative Facts’ and the Costs of Trump-Branded Reality To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor: My thesaurus offers: lie, fib, dissemble, dissimulate, misinform, mislead, prevaricate...none of which appear in your article on Sean Spicer's bizarre, dishonest performance. If this 'paper won't bluntly confront a falsehood, it cannot hold our government to account. What then is it for? Barry Haskell Levine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 9:54 AM Subject: re: Can Carbon Capture Technology Prosper Under Trump? To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
The best form in which to sequester carbon for geologically-relevant periods is as low-valent solids (coal, peat, biochar). Second best is as a low-valent liquid (petroleum). Geological formations that can securely hold a gas (e.g. CO2) are finite and only rarely are they present where you would want them for CCS. To spend energy to capture, and to compress, and to ship, and to inject CO2 (Petra Nova has its own power plant just to drive CCS!) makes sense only for capturing federal subsidies. It is wiser to leave carbon which is already stably sequestered in the earth. What should be captured and sequestered is the carbon of waste cellulose (newsprint, bagasse, straw, sawdust, stoker...). Photosynthesis day by day is cleaning CO2 out of our atmosphere. As biochar, it can be blocked from cycling back as greenhouse gases.
to reify the wave, you break the sea and ask each part to make sense on its own as if it's somehow possible to be an insular phenomenon, alone a language conjures objects up by name imposing bound'ries on our mental maps but why two minds should divvy it the same one must fall back on faith to fill the gaps
emergent qualities defy Descartes and chief among them is this thing called "mind" that isn't found in any smaller part (some argue that there is no "thing" to find)
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 8:30 AM Subject: re: Delayed U.N. Vote to Condemn Israeli Settlements Is Reset for Friday To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
The U.S. stands firmly with Israel. The U.S. condemns Israel's illegal settlement activity. That Danny Danon, and the Likud government for whom he speaks cannot see the line between the two is the problem.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: barry levine Date: Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 11:21 AM Subject: re: Donald Trump: The Russian Poodle To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
What the CIA alleges is nothing less than an attack on America. What no one of us has seen is the evidence. Our CIA has a long record of swaying elections through campaigns of disinformation. Our Electoral College needs to see the evidence before voting. To vote without knowing the issues at stake would be a farce.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon’s White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party offices. That Watergate burglary and related “dirty tricks,” such as releasing mice at a Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love for a Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans — and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue journalism.
Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering. Russian agents apparently broke into the Democrats’ digital offices and tried to change the election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed by Russia’s president, saying, “Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.”
In Watergate, the break-in didn’t affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don’t know for sure. There were other factors, but it’s possible that Russia’s theft and release of the emails provided the margin for Donald Trump’s victory.
The C.I.A. says it has “high confidence” that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion.
Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and Trump by denouncing the C.I.A. and, incredibly, defending Russia from the charges that it tried to subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America’s intelligence community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the dictator.
Let’s be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still profoundly damaging to our system. It’s not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an election. But if the C.I.A. is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog — a Russian poodle.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George W. Bush’s poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
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Frankly, it’s mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he excoriates everyone else, from C.I.A. officials to a local union leader in Indiana.
Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States.
Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it’s notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia’s “Order of Friendship.”
Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia’s interference in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?
Tillerson’s closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump’s other Russia links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump family itself has business connections with Russia.
It’s true that there will be counterbalances, including Gen. James Mattis, the former Marine commander who has no illusions about Moscow and is expected to be confirmed as defense secretary. But over all it looks as if the Trump administration will be remarkably pro-Putin — astonishing considering Putin’s Russia has killed journalists, committed war crimes in Ukraine and Syria and threatened the peaceful order in Europe.
So it’s critical that the Senate, the news media and the public subject Tillerson to intense scrutiny. There are other issues to explore as well, including his role in enabling corruption in Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world. The same is true of his role in complicity with the government of Angola, where oil corruption turned the president’s daughter into a billionaire even as children died of poverty and disease at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world.
Maybe all this from Russia to Angola was just Tillerson trying to maximize his company’s revenue, and he will act differently as secretary of state. Maybe. But I’m skeptical that his ideology would change in fundamental ways.
This is not only about Tillerson just as the 1972 break-in was not only about the Watergate building complex. This is about the integrity of American democracy and whether a foreign dictator should be rewarded for attacking the United States. It is about whether we are led by a president or a poodle.
From: barry levine Date: Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 7:01 PM Subject: re:James Mattis, Outspoken Ex-Marine, Is Trump’s Choice as Defense Secretary To: "letters@nytimes.com"
To the Editor:
President-elect Trump may not care what the law says, but we have a statute on the books (10 U.S. Code § 113) forbidding anyone from becoming Secretary of Defense within seven years of serving on active duty. Statutorily, gen. James Mattis--whatever his qualifications--is ineligible. Is this law only a law when the Senate and the White House are held by different parties?
James Mattis, Outspoken Ex-Marine, Is Trump’s Choice as Defense Secretary
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James N. Mattis, a retired Marine general, leaving a meeting with President-elect Donald J. Trump in Bedminster, N.J., last month.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Thursday he had chosen James N. Mattis, a hard-charging retired general who led a Marine division to Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to serve as his secretary of defense.
Mr. Trump made the announcement at a rally in Cincinnati, calling General Mattis “the closest thing we have to Gen. George Patton.”
General Mattis, 66, led the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, from 2010 to 2013. His tour there was cut short by the Obama administration, which believed that he was too hawkish on Iran.
But his insistence that Iran is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East, as well as his acerbic criticism of the Obama administration’s initial efforts to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, made him an attractive choice for the incoming president, whom he met for the first time after Mr. Trump’s election.
Video
Trump Victory Tour
President-elect Donald J. Trump held a rally in Cincinnati to say thank you to Ohio, and revealed his choice for defense secretary.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES on Publish DateDecember 1, 2016. Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times.Watch in Times Video »
After retiring from the military, General Mattis told Congress that the administration’s “policy of disengagement in the Middle East” had contributed to the rise of extremism in the region. The United States, he told lawmakers in 2015, needs to “come out from our reactive crouch and take a firm, strategic stance in defense of our values.”
But in some important policy areas, General Mattis differs from Mr. Trump, who has been filling the top ranks of his national security team with hard-liners. General Mattis believes, for instance, that Mr. Trump’s conciliatory statements toward Russia are ill informed. General Mattis views with alarm Moscow’s expansionist or bellicose policies in Syria, Ukraine and the Baltics. And he has told the president-elect that torture does not work.
Despite his tough stance on Iran, General Mattis also thinks that tearing up the Iran nuclear deal would hurt the United States, and he favors working closely with allies to strictly enforce its terms.
General Mattis, whose radio call sign during the invasion of Iraq was Chaos — reflecting the havoc he sought to rain on adversaries — has been involved in some of the United States’ best-known operations. As a one-star general, he led the first Marine force into Afghanistan a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and established Forward Operating Base Rhino near Kandahar.
At times, General Mattis’s salty language has gotten him into trouble. “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys that slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” he said in 2005. “So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
But the retired general, a lifelong bachelor who has said that he does not own a television and has often been referred to as a “warrior monk,” is also famous for his extensive collection of books on military history. “Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation,” he wrote a colleague in 2003. “It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.”
General Mattis would be the first former ranking general to assume the post of defense secretary since George Marshall in 1950-51. He would need a special congressional waiver to serve as defense secretary. He retired from the Marines in 2013, and federal law stipulates that the Pentagon chief be out of uniform for seven years.
But General Mattis has strong support in Congress, especially on the part of John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a recent phone call, Mr. McCain urged Mr. Trump to consider appointing General Mattis or Gen. Jack Keane, a retired Army vice chief of staff, as defense secretary. But General Keane has decided against returning to government in a full-time capacity.
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General Mattis appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee as a general in 2010.CreditBrendan Smialowski for The New York Times
The selection of General Mattis is a boost for the Marines. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be working with Joseph F. Dunford, the four-star Marine general who serves as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It would also create an unusual situation at the Pentagon because the new defense secretary would be General Dunford’s former commanding officer. During the Iraq invasion, General Dunford was a colonel who led a Marine regiment that reported to General Mattis.
General Mattis led the First Marine Division during the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. He later commanded American troops during the hard-fought battle to retake Falluja from Sunni insurgents in 2004. As head of the Central Command, General Mattis was heavily involved in plans to counter Iran’s military and protect the sea lanes in the Persian Gulf.
William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard and a staunch opponent of Mr. Trump’s, sought to persuade General Mattis to mount an independent presidential bid. And he was courted by both the campaigns of Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton to speak at the political conventions, but declined.
In a new book, “Warriors and Citizens,” which General Mattis edited with Kori Schake, a Hoover Institution fellow who served in the George W. Bush administration, he complained that politicians had relied too much on military commanders to make the case for their policies.
“President Bush left to Gen. David Petraeus the task of overcoming congressional opposition to the 2006 Iraq surge,” General Mattis and Ms. Schake wrote. “President Obama has been mostly silent on the war in Afghanistan since 2009; the case for continuing American troop presence has been made entirely by the military.”
Military commanders, they wrote, have a responsibility to carry out and advocate the president’s policies. “This does not remove elected officials from the responsibility to win political arguments instead of depending on the military to do so,” they added.
