Posted on 01/26/2023 9:56:03 AM PST by Ozguy1945
Its is Douglas MacArthurs 143rd birthday.
Was he the 1950's equivalent of Donald Trump?
The times when he showed great leadership were many.
He modernised Wrest Point, asking when he had recently begun the task post World War One, "Why are we still preparing for the War Of 1812?"
He resisted Australians who wanted to betray their own country in WW2 and surrender half the continent to Japan above the Brisbane line because he knew the all conquering Japanese were over extended and could be beaten.
He did that aged in his 60s with island hopping strategic brilliance.
In his 70's he was again strategically brilliant with calculated risk at Incheon.
He defied Truman and the chain of command by publicly pushing for victory against a North Korean government whose continued existence still bedevils the world.
At his worst he was bombastic and arrogant alienating many but not all of those around and inder him.
My late friend Lt Rob Iskov, from Australia's 2nd 14th battalion in which my dad served in WW2, said of MacArthur's often maligned arrogance, that at that time, "We had to have a figurehead."
In 1952 MacArthur was keynote speaker at the RNC but was annihilated by Ike in going for the presidency.
Was MacArthur at all Trumpian in publicly taking on Truman?
To what extent are Donald Trump's weaknesses (compared with DeSantis) like those of MacArthur compared with Ike?
One is: Douglas MacArthurs, should be Douglas MacArthur's
Two, I assume, is: modernised
Am I correct, Responsibility2nd, or did I miss another error and didn't notice it myself?
Modernize or modernise? Which one is correct? Modernize or modernise?? Similar with urbanization and urbanisation ?
Both spellings are correct. Speakers of US English only use the 'ize' version. British/Commonwealth English speakers use both 'ise' and 'ize'. The same goes for many verbs, such as realise/realize, recognise/recognize, and many others. It doesn't matter which convention you use, providing you are consistent.
So you stopped reading because of a missing ', along with his spelling of modernised due to his being an Australian.
MacArthur was a narcissist general and would have made a bad president unlike Eisenhower who was a humble man.
Extended the war in the Pacific by 6 to 9 months. Was incompetent but well connected politically. His one success was ruling post war Japan.
But as a General they wanted him nowhere near Europe. They wanted Nimitz to run the Pacific war but politically had to do something with him.
Peleliu and Tarawa were both launched to support MacArthur’s efforts plan for the Philippines.
But I still stand strongly behind Trump because I know he is sincere about his love for this country, and he is a fighter. If he gets reelected, he should hire me to assist him him in weeding out his enemies pretending to be allies. 🤣
I'll bring you aboard too. 🙂
My feelings exactly. Trump was more like Patton in my estimation.
> My gut reaction is that Trump is more like Patton than MacArthur... <
Agreed. What saved Patton was that he (Patton) had someone to run interference for him, that someone being Eisenhower. Trump however does not have an Ike.
Moral of the story: Trump has to be more careful and more diplomatic than Patton had to be. I don’t think Trump has quite realized that yet.
He did that aged in his 60s with island hopping strategic brilliance.
(That was Nimitz...Mac was in his way)
In his 70’s he was again strategically brilliant with calculated risk at Incheon.
(That was the US Navy and Marines... though the pop culture iconography was that they were not behind it and it was the genius of MacArthur alone who taught the USMC and Navy about amphibious attack)
And he was openly insubordinate to President Truman.
Last, that lunatic also defied the direct orders of President Hoover and attacked and burned the WWI bonus marchers camp. He had cavalry attack them and beat them with the backs of their swords.
MacArthur should have been left for capture on Corregidor.
And his defense of the Philippines was utterly incompetent. he surrendered to a Jap force a third his size after that incompetent defense.
Yet you do not point to what those errors are. Why is that?
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My apologies Robert. I assumed anyone with better than elementary school reading levels know you do not start an article out by saying; “Its is…”
And then “Wrest Point”. Is that also how it’s spelled in Australia? I think not.
… (T)here are five essentials for victory:Obviously MacArthur wanted to win; however, Truman evidently wanted to keep the communist Second World going with all its evil, deadly depredations.— The Art of War, III:17
- He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
- He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
- He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
- He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
- He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign. …
There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not attacked, towns which must be besieged, positions which must not be contested, (and) commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed. …
— IBID., VIII:3
And defeating Japan quicker would have slowed the Soviets advance in Manchuria and likely would have impeded Mao. MacArthur’s incompetence likely was a cause of the Korean war by dragging it out long enough for the USSR to grab half of Korea!
He was wrong on December 7th when he didn’t prepare the Army Air Force in the Philippines for a possible attack, and wrong about taking the Korean War so far north that China intervened, but he was a great general and a great American. He was incredibly right about Vietnam when the Best and the Brightest were so terribly wrong.
Mac never did much for anyone but Mac.
He was a good general who thought he was an emperor.
He considered Ike a good clerk. That kind of sums up his arrogance.
You left out the time he led the troops against the bonus camps. That was cool.
Macarthur was DAMN lucky at Inchon.
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Luck is the residue of design!
That “saved” Patton? Not the other way around?
Speculation.
You mean imposing abortion on them?
We should have nuked China when he wanted to.
He was a traitor and hated veterans.
How do you know he’s forgiving. Please apply Occam’s Razor.
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