Commander Who Said “It’s Fun To Shoot” People Named To Replace Petraeus At Centcom

Marine Corps General James Mattis has been named to lead military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the Middle East. Mattis is best known for telling a crowd in 2005 how  much fun it is to shoot people.

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, then a lieutenant general, told a crowd in San Diego that it was “fun to shoot some people” and said that some Afghans deserved to die.

“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years, because they didn’t wear a veil,” Mattis said. “You know guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot ’em.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates seems assured the 2005 incident has been handled.

His boss at the time, Gen. Mike Hagee, said that the comments reflected the “unfortunate and harsh realities of war” but that Mattis had been asked to watch his words in public.

Gates said Thursday that appropriate action was taken at the time. He also said he raised the issue with Mattis when interviewing him for the job and was confident that such statements would not be made in the future.

“I think the subsequent five years have demonstrated that the lesson was learned,” he said.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.