Non stop chaos

Now that the last "adult in the room", DOD secretary James Mattis has tendered his resignation, the media is in speculation mode about the meaning of it all.   Even the putative liberals on MSNBC with the possible exception of Chris Hayes were in a tizzy about the pullout of 2000 troops from Syria and the reduction in force in Afghanistan which are the factors generally acknowledged to have precipitated Mattis' resignation.  It seems to me the US military rarely if ever agrees to pull out of a situation once it has expended any effort, no matter how ineffectual in the area.  As one senator put it, we all knew our deployment would not have any significant effect on Russian and Iranian plans for Assad's country.   The only negative is the probable slaughter of pro US Kurdish forces by Turkey.  As far as Afghanistan, we have been loosing that war for the last 10 years.  As every great power in the world has found out, the country is a quagmire for whoever is trying to pacify the locals going back to Alexander the Great.  So, withdrawal from both of these areas is not problematic from a utilitarian perspective.   Of course, the deeper problem is The Donald's increasingly unhinged behavior as the walls continue to close in on him.  In an effort to bolster the support of his equally crazy base, he is also demanding $5 billion for his "steel slats" on the southern border.  This will not end well, and the first casualties are the hundreds of thousands of federal employees who are being furloughed as today ends.   I doubt many of them will be singing joyful Christmas carols today.