Shannon’s departure means Tillerson has another high-level opening at the department, which has been hobbled by delays in White House approval of proposed appointees, efforts to cut its budget as much as 30 percent and Tillerson’s slow-moving reorganization plan.
Without Shannon, only two out of nine positions listed on the State Department’s webpage of "senior officials" would be filled. Vacancies listed by the department include the under secretary for arms control, under secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, and under secretary for management.
For Tillerson, who came to the State Department without diplomatic experience after serving as chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shannon was a critical link to the career foreign service uneasy over his intentions and President Donald Trump’s “America First” outlook.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-top-career-diplomat-as-tom-shannon-retires
The adults are leaving,one by one.
And the Pentagon is reluctantly gearing up for a Trump war in Korea:
WASHINGTON — Across the military, officers and troops are quietly preparing for a war they hope will not come.
At Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month, a mix of 48 Apache gunships and Chinook cargo helicopters took off in an exercise that practiced moving troops and equipment under live artillery fire to assault targets. Two days later, in the skies above Nevada, 119 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division parachuted out of C-17 military cargo planes under cover of darkness in an exercise that simulated a foreign invasion.
Next month, at Army posts across the United States, more than 1,000 reserve soldiers will practice how to set up so-called mobilization centers that move military forces overseas in a hurry. And beginning next month with the Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang, the Pentagon plans to send more Special Operations troops to the Korean Peninsula, an initial step toward what some officials said ultimately could be the formation of a Korea-based task force similar to the types that are fighting in Iraq and Syria.
...
In perhaps the most incendiary exchange, in a September speech at the United Nations, Mr. Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if it threatened the United States, and derided the rogue nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as “Rocket Man.” In response, Mr. Kim said he would deploy the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States, and described Mr. Trump as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has since cooled, following a fresh attempt at détente between Pyongyang and Seoul. In an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump was quoted as saying, “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un,” despite their mutual public insults.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/military-exercises-north-korea-pentagon.html
Why would Trump have a good relationship with a narcissistic, unstable, lying dictator who surrounds himself with people who constantly tell him how wonderful he is?
Without Shannon, only two out of nine positions listed on the State Department’s webpage of "senior officials" would be filled. Vacancies listed by the department include the under secretary for arms control, under secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, and under secretary for management.
For Tillerson, who came to the State Department without diplomatic experience after serving as chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shannon was a critical link to the career foreign service uneasy over his intentions and President Donald Trump’s “America First” outlook.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-top-career-diplomat-as-tom-shannon-retires
The adults are leaving,one by one.
And the Pentagon is reluctantly gearing up for a Trump war in Korea:
WASHINGTON — Across the military, officers and troops are quietly preparing for a war they hope will not come.
At Fort Bragg in North Carolina last month, a mix of 48 Apache gunships and Chinook cargo helicopters took off in an exercise that practiced moving troops and equipment under live artillery fire to assault targets. Two days later, in the skies above Nevada, 119 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division parachuted out of C-17 military cargo planes under cover of darkness in an exercise that simulated a foreign invasion.
Next month, at Army posts across the United States, more than 1,000 reserve soldiers will practice how to set up so-called mobilization centers that move military forces overseas in a hurry. And beginning next month with the Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang, the Pentagon plans to send more Special Operations troops to the Korean Peninsula, an initial step toward what some officials said ultimately could be the formation of a Korea-based task force similar to the types that are fighting in Iraq and Syria.
...
In perhaps the most incendiary exchange, in a September speech at the United Nations, Mr. Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if it threatened the United States, and derided the rogue nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as “Rocket Man.” In response, Mr. Kim said he would deploy the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States, and described Mr. Trump as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has since cooled, following a fresh attempt at détente between Pyongyang and Seoul. In an interview last week with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump was quoted as saying, “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un,” despite their mutual public insults.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/14/us/politics/military-exercises-north-korea-pentagon.html
Why would Trump have a good relationship with a narcissistic, unstable, lying dictator who surrounds himself with people who constantly tell him how wonderful he is?