After the Pentagon received marching orders from President Trump to develop a strategy to fight ISIS, you would expect some small public disclosure of unclassified highlights of the plan to gain the confidence of the American people.  But you would be wrong.

Instead, Bloomberg reports that retired flag officers, including the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Sam J. Locklear, are urging SecDef Mattis and SecState Tillerson to continue U.S. support for combating global climate change.

The ex-officers are the latest to call for the U.S. to uphold its environmental commitments as President Donald Trump's senior advisers were preparing to meet Tuesday to debate whether to exit the Paris accord.  Tillerson and Mattis are among those pushing the president to stick with the agreement, brokered in 2015 by almost 200 nations.

Given that Europe doesn't even abide by the rules of the Paris accord according to Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the focus of DoD on the climate change scam seems way out of its lane.  This raises the question: is Mattis truly on board with this boondoggle?

During Senate testimony, it seems that Mattis may have hedged his bets by commenting only on potential effects on military operations.  Nevertheless, it is still troubling that he accepts some of the false premises of climate change:

I agree that the effects of a changing climate – such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others – impact our security situation.  I will ensure that the department continues to be prepared to conduct operations today and in the future, and that we are prepared to address the effects of a changing climate on our threat assessments, resources, and readiness.

The other troubling aspect of this is the number of retired flag officers who have signed the letter.  (Full text of the letter can be found here.)  Written as members of the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, one wonders what they were doing – or not – on active duty to actually fight and win wars.  Perhaps this is an indicator of why we are still having trouble destroying what's essentially a drug cartel and oil smuggling ring on steroids.

Maybe these "climate advisers" could roll up their sleeves and contribute to something useful like fighting a real enemy, but I doubt they would have a clue about that.

John Smith is the pen name of a former U.S. intelligence officer.