My Dearest Friends:
Of the many decades of precious life our Lord has granted me, I have found as true the Ecclesiastes cyclical warning of all things that there indeed is: “A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”—and in knowing this truth, allows me to then see and understand that our world today is in a “time of hate” and “time of war”.
This is a fact even acknowledged as true by the American people, who are saying from within their sharply divided country that next year’s presidential campaign will be a sobering test of the fundamental values of the United States—and whose majority on both sides are calling this election the most important of their lifetimes—all of whom are awaiting it with dread.
oining the American people in dread about what is soon to befall their nation is one of their greatest military leaders of the past half century, United States Marine General James Mattis—who, in his soon to be released book “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead”, warned his nation’s citizens:
What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries; it is our internal divisiveness.
We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions.
All Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment—and one that can be reversed. We all know that we’re better than our current politics. Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.
There are those, you should know, that don’t want the American people to hear the warnings General Mattis is trying to convey, and are doing everything they can to obscure and distort them—and is why today you’ll see such headlines as “Mattis Takes Swipe At Trump In New Book: "I Did As Well As I Could For As Long As I Could”—a headline deceptively excerpted from his actual full sentence: "I did as well as I could for as long as I could, but when my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign."
For anyone to maintain that General Mattis “took a swipe at Trump” by using the words “when my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign”, they fail to note to whom he was exactly referencing—but that Mattis himself makes clear in his own words that he wrote in a Wall Street Journal essay titled “Duty, Democracy And The Threat Of Tribalism”—an essay, however, that’s trapped behind an expensive (bare minimum $234 a year) and sophisticated artificial intelligence paywall the vast majority of the American people can’t afford to penetrate.
As most of YOU know, though, your aid allows us to penetrate all such paywalls, and is why I can tell you in Mattis’s own words exactly what he meant—and that begins by his stating:
Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither.
Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy.
At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering.
A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader.
A leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed.
Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together.
Absent this, we will occupy an increasingly lonely position, one that puts us at increasing risk in the world.
LOT MORE,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com
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