On Wednesday, addressing the media that has focused on the four U.S. special forces soldiers killed in Niger, Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis had a blunt response for journalists who leaped to judgment before all evidence had been gathered, asserting, “We at the Department of Defense like to know what we are talking about before we talk. We do not have all the accurate information yet. We will release it as rapidly as we get it.”
Referring to suggestions from some that Sergeant La David Johnson, who was separated from his 12-man Green Beret team, had been abandoned during the ambush before he was killed by terrorists thought to be linked to ISIS, Mattis said curtly:
One point I would make having seen some of the news reports, the U.S. military does not leave its troops behind. I would just ask that you would not question the actions of the troops who were caught in the firefight and question whether or not they did everything they could in order to bring everyone out at once.
Mattis added, “At the same time, war is war, and these terrorists are conducting war on innocent people of all religions. They’re conducting war on innocent people that have no way to defend themselves. I would just tell you that in this specific case, contact was considered unlikely, but there’s a reason we have U.S. Army soldiers there and not the Peace Corps, because we carry guns.”
Read more at the Daily Wire.
