Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Monday that the United States will “have to keep up the fight” against terrorism, describing this as “a reality we're going to face for our time."
Mattis said in an interview with NPR’s “Morning Edition,” that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria have suffered from a “misaligned” U.S. strategy.
"Sometimes we've gone in in order to stop terrorist attacks on America, and then we've shifted to 'We're going to bring democracy' and more or less impose democracy on certain countries that may or may not have all of the underpinnings necessary to be successful," he said.
Although the secretary declined to speak about Trump specifically, saying, “I don’t discuss sitting presidents. I believe that you owe a period of quiet,” he did address the desire to pull troops out of the Middle East, which Trump has called for.
"You may want a war over. You may declare it over. You may even try to walk away from it,” Mattis said. “But the bottom line is the enemy gets a vote, as we say in the military, and we simply have got to understand that terrorism is going to be an ambient threat. We're going to have to work with allies against ISIS and we're going to have to keep up the fight. I'd like to have a more positive message. But the fact is that's a reality we're going to face for our time."
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