Trump Pickings Retired General John Kelly To Leading Homeland Security, Reports Say
Former leader of US Southern Command has warned of vulnerabilities along Mexico border and is third general sought for high-level job in administration
Donald Trump has chosen former Marine Corps Gen John Kelly to be his homeland security secretary, according to multiple reports.
Several news organizations reported on Wednesday that the president-elect is to nominate the former four-star general to run the cabinet department responsible for enforcing US immigration laws, as well as a number of important bureaux including the coast guard, the Secret Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency( Fema ). They quoth unnamed sources familiar with the Trump transition process.
Kelly, who stepped down in 2016 as commander of the US Southern Command, is the most senior US officer to have lost a child in the war on terror. His son Robert, a first lieutenant in the marines, was killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2010.
Kelly, 66, is the third general sought for a high-level undertaking in the new administration.
Trump, who has no military experience, also plans to nominate retired Gen James Mattis to lead the Department of Defense and picked retired Lt Gen Michael Flynn to be his national security adviser.
Kelly differed with Barack Obama on key issues and has warned of vulnerabilities along the United States southern border with Mexico.
As head of the Southern Command, his final leadership post in a 45 -year military career, Kelly was responsible for US military activities and relationships in Latin american states and the Caribbean, including the controversial detention facility at Guantnamo Bay. He retired in January.
Even before Trump formally announced Kellys nomination, the top Democrat on the Senate homeland security committee indicated his approval.
General Kelly is a man of steady leadership who has years of experience working with our neighbors in Latin american states as commander of US Southern Command. Having worked with General Kelly personally on efforts to address the root causes of the surge in migration of children and families to our southern border, I am encouraged by his ability to build relationships with our partners in individual regions, Senator Tom Carper of Delaware said in a statement.
Some at the Department of Homeland Security ensure Kelly, with his military background, as a blank slate on a host of issues government departments are dealing here with, from immigration to airport security to addressing natural disasters. But there is a sense of relief that Kelly is not as hardline as some of Trumps other potential selections, like Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, or Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor.
The consensus is hes someone people can work with, but hes an unknown entity, said a knowledgeable US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kelly is a renowned marine with extensive experience in western Iraq during the darkest days of the US occupation, first as assistant commander of the 1st marine division in 2004 and later in 2008, as commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force. His leadership experience inspired defense secretary Robert Gates to construct him Gates senior military deputy, a perch from which Kelly became the heads of state of US Southern Command in 2013. .
Kelly is personally close to his fellow marine and president of the joint chiefs of staff, General Joe Dunford, whose tenure as the senior US military officer runs through 2017. Dunford reportedly delivered Kelly the news of his son 1st Lt Robert Kellys death.
At Southcom, Kelly quickly developed a reputation for opposition to Obamas intended closure of Guantnamo Bay. Kelly confronted a widespread hunger strike by the detainees, protesting the limbo of their treatment and the physical pain of being forcibly tube fed, which had inspired international attention.
Kellys response was a press blackout. Guantnamo and Southcom officials stopped providing updates to reporters on the detainees participating in the protest, either on the number of striking detainees or their conditions. To avoid discussing the hunger strike and its rationale, they introduced a euphemism when asked about it: long-term non-religious fasting.
The official military guidance document on the subject, the Miami Herald reported, was titled Medical Management of Detainees With Weight Loss, replacing an earlier version titled Medical Management of Detainees on Hunger Strike.
Several US officials involved in Guantnamo issues saw Kellys hand in Pentagon stubbornnes toward Obamas plan to close the detention facility. Asked in 2015 whether Guantanamo would in fact close, Kelly said: If youre talking about Guantnamo in terms of detention ops, I dont know. Surely, the president wants to close it. And until that happens, I will take care of those prisoners in a dignified way that insures to their every need.
Kellys Guantnamo experience has created a deep well of distrust among human rights campaigners, who are now nervously watching DHS in the Trump era for discrimination against Muslims and a new wave of forcible expulsions for undocumented immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security was created to work to keep the US safe. But Kellys support of policies and practices at Guantnamo have done nothing of the sort, they have attained the US less safe. Senators definitely need ask him questions and challenge his record on that as part of the confirmation process, said Human Rights Watchs Laura Pitter.
In 2010, weeks after his sons death, Kelly delivered a caustic speech in St Louis that hit many notes Trump would afterward use to successful political effect.
Kelly savaged the media elite for situate[ ting] up the know it all chattering class to offer their endless criticism of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He questioned the patriotism of unnamed upper-class and rejected the support of anyone who did not back the wars themselves, saying veterans hold in disdain those who claim to support them but not the cause that takes their innocence, their limbs, and even their own lives.
He continued: Yes, we are at war, and we are winning, but you wouldnt know it because success go unreported.
Kelly has not always been consistent on that rating. In the foreword to a 2009 marine history document, Kelly wrote: Terms like won or victory really do not apply when speaking about counterinsurgency operations. In Iraq, Kelly wrote, to a large degree, we the US military and civilians were the source of the rebellion. Honest men and women can argue the whys, what-ifs, and what-might-have-beens, but ultimately, it was mostly about unfulfilled promises and the heavy-handed military approach taken by some that caused events to spiral out of control.
While Kellys 2010 speech did not blame Islam for terrorism, a conflation built by Trump national security adviser-designate Mike Flynn, it took an expansive opinion of the terrorist threat, one Obama repudiatedin his final national security speech on Wednesday.
Our enemy is savage, offers perfectly no quarter and has a single focus and that is either kill every one of us here at home, or enslave us with a sick kind of extremism that serves no God or purpose that decent men and women could ever comprehend, Kelly said in 2010.
In the context of remarking upon the bonds between marines, Kelly belittled adoring at the altar of diversity and an America as an unruly gaggle of hyphenated or multi-cultural someones, in lieu of a melting pot that stitches and strengthens by a sense of shared history, values, customs, hopes and dreams.
Reuters contributed to this report
Read more: www.theguardian.com
Trump Pickings Retired General John Kelly To Leading Homeland Security, Reports Say
Trump Pickings Retired General John Kelly To Leading Homeland Security, Reports Say
Trump Pickings Retired General John Kelly To Leading Homeland Security, Reports Say
Trump Pickings Retired General John Kelly To Leading Homeland Security, Reports Say
Trump Pickings Retired General John Kelly To Leading Homeland Security, Reports Say