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?
The person who really helped devise the strategy and won the war was Admiral William Leahy, among other things he was Chairman of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. look it up.
One of Marshall’s pick’s was General Lloyd Fredenhall, look him up.
Inchon, yes. However, one has to take into account the overall picture and the overall picture is not beautiful.
Maybe. But how many American and Philippine lives were needlessly sacrificed to retake the Philippines when the Japs there were cut off from resupply, trapped and of no further use to our enemy?
How much spilled blood and pain were incurred solely to satisfy his vane and self-serving vow of "I shall return"?
Yep he did a terrible job reforming Japan.
MacArthur and Patton, two of the greatest leaders this country has ever seen. Coincidentally, they didn’t get along with the media or presidents.
MacArthur would have finished off Red China once and for all, but his hands were tied.
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IMHO he was probably the greatest allied General in WW-II. And the fact that a good number of powerful people here and abroad have disliked him intensely doesn’t persuade me otherwise.
Donald Trump’s main weakness is being too forgiving of those who surrounded him only to stab him in the back at every opportunity,
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Yes exactly. That can be a very dangerous personality defect when one is dealing with treacherous people who have the power to undermine one’s goals. And it rendered President Trump extremely vulnerable, so it was astonishing that he still managed to accomplish so much that was beneficial to our country, and to the world.
How?? With nukes? And Stalin would have said “okay”? Just what the world needed in 1952. An Atomic War.
I’ve been to the beach on Leyte where he returned. There’s a park there. MacArthur Park (where’s that music coming from?)
MacArthur was a narcissist general and would have made a bad president unlike Eisenhower who was a humble man.
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Yeah right. If humility makes for a good president perhaps we should all rally around Mr. Pence in 2024!
Maybe so, but the single Battle of the Bulge lost more men, then was lost in the entire island-hopping campaign of the Pacific Theater.
Macarthur was DAMN lucky at Inchon.
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Yep, a hell of a lot luckier than Ike was at Normandy!
Yeah “known fact”. Meanwhile, the results of following Truman’s way are manifest in the “woke” weeds choking the society.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s democrats controlled both house and senate…President was really only involved in foreign affairs…Ike golfed all the time because democrats controlled congress…
MacArthur was a narcissist general and would have made a bad president
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Where can I purchase one of those crystal balls?
Wrong.
Invading Formosa would have cost casualties on the order of invading Japan. Formosa was essentially Japan proper having committed several hundred thousand troops to the Emperor. Formosa is also significantly larger than Okinawa.
Truman fired MacArthur to remind him who was boss. He nuked the Japs to end the war, and save American lives. That is what real leaders do..
Truman was a great and decisive President. We sure could use men of his ilk today, instead of this clown show.
Yes he was a hero of more wars than you listed and you have been brainwashed by Leftist historians for believing what you wrote about him.
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