Mattis goes against Trump.

Mattis on why he agreed to serve the Trump Admin

"First time I met with President Trump, we disagreed on three things in my first 40 minutes with him: on NATO, no torture, and on something else. And he hired me," Mattis said. "This is not a man who is immune to being persuaded if he thinks you've got an argument. Anyway, press on."

Just because the man disagreed with the president is not any indication of a coup,it just means he disagreed with him.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Aazadan

Foreign policy is being conducted by the Pentagon?

Can you show me some evidence that when the leaders of nations wish to talk to the person in charge, they are referred to the Pentagon? Can you show me some evidence that the Pentagon is responsible for dealing with diplomatic functions pertaining to relations with the political leadership and administrations of other nations? Can you show me evidence, for example, that the Pentagon is now the sole organiser of Trumps foreign diplomatic trips, dealing with the Chinese on his behalf, operating in his place when it comes to negotiations with international players at meetings like the G7, or with regard to the UN, or any such thing?

Show me Aazadan. Do not just tell me this and that, show it to me. Throw me a bone here.

Most of it is rumors going around, I would link them but people here are too dismissive of anonymous sources, or any actual mainstream news websites.

Anyways, as I said before, perhaps coup is the wrong word. Of course, that's also why I was asking for other peoples opinions on that point rather than outright stating it. It seems most don't think that's happening yet.

None the less, the generals in power have huge influence on Trump right now.

My opinion is being shaped by a lot of little things, not large events that are getting their own stories. The biggest thing is that Mattis and Kelly are disagreeing with Trump a lot, and they're doing so vocally and publicly. And they seem to be getting their way while Trump backs down.

Just today another piece of news leaked about Afghanistan. Troop numbers are higher than Trump claimed they would be... all while the generals were wanting a bigger surge.

a reply to: Aazadan

I see.

Well, as you stated yourself, rumours and anonymous sources are distrusted generally. There is a very good reason for that, which is that they cannot be substantiated, because the source cannot be checked in the case of anonymous persons, and because rumour, by definition, is often either totally incorrect, or worse, issues from a Chinese whisper scenario, where an utterly innocuous statement, is muddled and conflated with something else. Someone mishears something, passes on the version they think they heard, or just straight up embellishes the message. Before long, you get a novel out of something the length of a Tweet, people act on false narratives and no one ends up being able to access the truth.

I can totally appreciate that this is your opinion and that you have a right to have one and voice it, but it is vital that when you do so, you make clear at every possible stage, that what you are saying is an opinion based on your feelings or intuition, rather than a hypothesis or a prediction based on observation and calculation. I know it may seem pedantic to say so, but its actually vital to make that clear. The reason I say this is as follows.

Predictions based on solid data, have a high degree of probability of being proven accurate. For example, many moons ago, before Snowden, before any of the leaks about mass surveillance in the digital age were made, a great number of people were concerned about it. Why? Because they had noted small details about how the internet was running, weird coincidences,and so on, all of which added up, to an understanding that someone MUST have an unprecedented access to the private information of citizens, in violation of the Constitution, among other articles of law and trust between the people and the powers which are wielded over them. That observation of tangible phenomena, allowed people to form reasonable hypotheses about what would be necessary to make those phenomena possible, and because they went about their ruminations in a near scientific manner, the predictions they made about what was at the root of what they were seeing, were accurate.

Predictions based on rumour and supposition however, are rarely proven accurate. You can look to the idea that FEMA was preparing for an extermination doctrine to be enacted, just because it had a number of body bags and low cost coffins on hand. Never mind the fact that proper containment of bodies during a disaster, can prevent the spread of lethal diseases, which in turn prevents unnecessary death amongst survivors. Never mind the fact that FEMA as an organisation has EVERY reason to have these things on hand, bearing in mind their mission profile. There were hundreds of better explanations for FEMA having these things on hand, than the ones people seemed to prefer to believe, but none the less, people distrusted the hell out of FEMA because someones opinion traveled further and faster than the reality of the situation.

We need to keep misunderstandings to a minimum in the post truth age, because if there is one thing this site needs to be a bastion of, its the truth. While I accept that it is true that your opinion is that Trump is under the control of forces outside of himself, unless that opinion is based on a large amount of solid information, keep people abreast of where it falls on the spectrum, between information backed hypothesis, and speculation based on questionable data!

Trump stated, Senior military officials will decide whether or not to remove transgender personnel already in military. Mathis has decided to not remove transgenders already in the military. So it looks like premise of the article is wrong to me.

a reply to: Aazadan

Im sick of this nutjob president. Anybody who supports him is a traitorous idiot. Thank god for these generals who truly take seriously their oath to uphold and defend the constitution, NOT THE PRESIDENT. The US is under seige by this conman clown.

You guys have your panties/jocks whatever you are in a bind.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a directive reinstating a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military, although it defers to the Pentagon on whether to remove those now in uniform and leaves open the door for it to seek changes.

It just bans future recruits and stops taxpayer funding of operations unless life threatening.

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