Secretary of defense Jim Mattis seems to always be on the wrong side of every issue.

1. He believes that global warming is a national security threat.

Mattis has long espoused the position that the armed forces, for a host of reasons, need to cut dependence on fossil fuels and explore renewable energy where it makes sense.  He had also, as commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command in 2010, signed off on the Joint Operating Environment, which lists climate change as one of the security threats the military expected to confront over the next 25 years.

Shouldn't we have a secretary of defense more focused on real national security threats and less on imaginary ones?

2. Mattis believes that the so-called "settlements" in Israel's Judea and Samaria are an "obstacle to peace" and that Israel could become an "apartheid state."  He shows zero understanding of the fundamental causes or the true nature of the dispute.  For the so-called Palestinians, the existence of Israel is an "obstacle to peace."

3. Mattis resisted a broader air strike on Syria when it was found to be using chemical weapons.  Instead, we struck a few empty buildings at night.  How do I know they were empty?  Did anyone hear reports of a single casualty after the attack?  No.  Did anyone hear reports of plumes of chemical weapons dispersed by the explosions?  No.  It was a token effort, designed to do the minimum.  You can argue whether or not we should have bombed Syria at all for employing chemical weapons (most of the victims of the Syrian regime have been killed by conventional weapons), but the pinprick kind of attack that Mattis recommended was simply ineffectual.

4. Mattis wants to keep the mentally ill so-called "transgendered" in the military.  How's that for military readiness?

5. Mattis is flatly against water boarding, presumably even for terrorists in "ticking timebomb" cases.

6. And most recently, Mattis wanted the administration to stay in the Iran deal, whose many loopholes allow Iran to continue enriching uranium in sites that cannot be inspected and also permits the regime to develop ballistic missiles.  Perhaps Mattis, so consumed by the national security threat posed by global warming, didn't have time to study this issue in depth.

Questions for discussion:

1. Why did President Trump hire this bozo?

2. Why doesn't President Trump fire this bozo?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.