"They never fired one person. They didn't fire anybody having to do with Afghanistan and the Taliban..."

"They should have fired all those generals, all those top people because that was one of the most incompetently handled situations anybody has ever seen. So when somebody does a bad job I fire them. And you take a guy like Esper. He was no good, I fired him. So he writes a book. Another one writes a book. Because with me they can write books. With nobody else can they. But they have done such a poor job. And they never fire anybody. Look at the economy. Look at the inflation. They didn't fire any of their economists. They have the same people. That's a good way not to have books written about you."

From Tuesday night's debate, that's Donald Trump, accepting the consequences of firing people. They write books and get back at you. In that structure of cause and effect, not firing people is a subtle form of censorship, and we the voters ought to notice the silence and think about what we are not hearing.

Esper is Mark Esper, who wrote "A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times." Wikipedia says:

"Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that under current plans all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group to prevent its resurgence...."

"The developments made clear that one of President Donald Trump's rationales for withdrawing troops from Syria was not going to come to pass any time soon. 'It's time to bring our soldiers back home,' he said Wednesday. But they are not coming home.... While [Esper] acknowledged reports of intermittent fighting despite the cease-fire agreement, he said that overall it 'generally seems to be holding. We see a stability of the lines, if you will, on the ground.' He also said that, so far, the Syrian Democratic Forces that partnered with the U.S. to fight IS have maintained control of the prisons in Syria where they are still present. The Turks, he said, have indicated they have control of the IS prisons in their areas. 'I can't assess whether that's true or not without having people on the ground,' said Esper."

ABC News reports.

ADDED: Here's the full transcript of Esper's remarks.