Mac Aurthur and the War on Terroism

[Lord Shrike]

I thought this was interesting

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97510,00.html

[Oxford]

LS...didn't see anything in the post. I believe something's missing there.

[Lord Shrike]

You got to click on the the link to get the story OX

[Oxford]

That's what I had done so I tried again.

Still...nothing but a web page for Fox News. Nothing about "MacAurthur and the war on terrorism".

[Lord Shrike]

Odd everytime I click on the link it takes me to a story about Mac Aurthur and how his policies are applicable to the whole war on terror. Wonder if its because I am a fox freind.

[Lord Shrike]

Gen. Douglas MacArthur (search) (1880-1964) was one of the greatest -- and arguably the greatest -- military leaders ever produced by the United States.






He graduated first in his West Point class of 1903, rose to the rank of brigadier general in World War I, and served as Army chief of staff in the 1930s. During World War II, he was the top commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific (search), masterminding the liberation of the Philippines (search) and the island-leaping strategy that outmaneuvered Japanese forces. He became a five-star general, the highest rank in the U.S. army (and one not held by anyone alive today).

After Japan’s surrender, MacArthur oversaw the occupation and the creation of a Japanese constitutional democracy. In the Korean War (search), MacArthur commanded the U.S.-led United Nations forces, repelling the communist invasion of South Korea but then falling back as China entered the war. MacArthur’s desire for air attacks on enemy sanctuaries in China brought him into conflict with the Truman administration, and he was relieved of command. MacArthur was less adept at domestic politics than in war and statesmanship, failing in efforts to become the Republican nominee for U.S. president.

MacArthur will long merit study by those interested in military and geopolitical strategy. Consider the following of MacArthur’s statements and ideas, and their relevance to the crises and conflicts facing the U.S. today:

“I shall return.”

These, the most famous words of the Pacific war, were spoken by MacArthur after he arrived in Australia in 1942, having been ordered by President Roosevelt to leave the Philippines, then under Japanese invasion. Officials in Washington were disturbed at the personal nature and egotism of MacArthur’s promise to liberate the Philippines, and pressed him to revise it to “We shall return.”

But these critics were wrong. For many Filipinos, the U.S. government’s determination to rescue the Philippines was in doubt; the U.S. in fact was giving top priority to the war in Europe. But the Filipinos trusted MacArthur, and the first-person singular underscored that help really would be coming.

MacArthur’s statement demonstrates the importance of personal commitment in giving credibility to national policies. U.S. national power counts for little unless the president and senior officials display clarity in their goals and determination to meet those objectives. The use of a phrase that is memorable, optimistic and clear-cut helps as well.

“Hit ‘em where they ain’t -- let ‘em die on the vine.”

This is how MacArthur described his strategy of bypassing the most strongly held of imperial Japan’s island conquests and leapfrogging to more weakly defended islands. Japanese soldiers, indoctrinated to fight to the death, often found themselves waiting indefinitely or perishing without supplies. One result was that MacArthur’s forces often had lower casualty rates than did Allied forces in Europe or elsewhere in the Pacific.

In the current war on terror, there are many options as to where and when to strike, and it is best to engage at times and places chosen by the U.S. rather than by its enemies. The swift collapse of the Iraqi military earlier this year is sometimes presented as evidence that the threat from Iraq did not merit a U.S.-led invasion. But actually, Iraq’s military weakness is one factor, among others, that argues in favor of the war. Fighting weaker parts of enemy forces or coalitions is better than directly assaulting strongholds.

“War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war, there is no substitute for victory.”

MacArthur said the above in his 1951 address to a joint session of Congress, after he had been relieved of command by President Truman (search). The Truman administration, in fact, had shown prolonged indecision in its Korea policy, vacillating over how to fight North Korea (search) and hindered by worries about broadening the war. MacArthur ultimately exceeded his instructions, but his instructions were often unclear and self-contradictory.

Fighting to achieve stalemate rather than victory is morally and strategically debilitating. In the war on terror, stalemate could occur even while defeating terrorist elements in the field, if the terrorists’ state sponsors and financial backers are allowed to go unharmed.

There is a great deal more about MacArthur that is relevant to the current world situation. As the ruler of Japan, he wielded vast power but also conveyed to the Japanese a sense of benevolence; his methods should be studied closely by U.S. officials in Iraq. In both world wars and Korea, he showed remarkable physical courage, a quality crucial not only to soldiers today but also to civilians who find themselves on terrorism’s front lines.

Similar to Winston Churchill (search), MacArthur often seemed to the public to be a figure from the past, embodying virtues and habits from the 19th century. Yet both proved adept at the warfare and statecraft of the mid-20th century. MacArthur, like Churchill, was a quick study and early adopter of new military technologies. In the Pacific war, MacArthur worked with the Army Air Force’s Gen. George Kenney (search) to use air power to devastating effect.

In a speech at West Point in 1962, MacArthur, then 82, showed himself a keen observer of science and technology. The speech, remembered for its evocation of “Duty, Honor, Country,” also includes a noteworthy passage about both scientific change and enduring principles, quoted at length below. MacArthur described the advent of satellites and missiles as the start of a new epoch. He went on to tell the cadets:

“We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier.

“We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundreds of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.

“And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.”

Kenneth Silber is a writer living in New York and a contributing editor to

[dhermesc]

Long also, but I thought Ann Coulter had a few good words to say about the differance in the way MacArthur ran the Japanese occupation and the way the "Allies" ran the German occupation and comparing it to Iraq.

Inconsolable that their pleas to "work through" the U.N. did not stop Bush from invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, now all the Democrats are eager for the U.N. to get involved so it can wreck the rebuilding process. Since we didn't let the U.N. lose the war for us, the least we can do is let them screw up the peace.
After World War II, the United States ran the Japanese occupation unilaterally. Without the meddling of other nations, the Japanese occupation went off without a hitch. Within five years, Gen. Douglas MacArthur had imposed a constitutional democracy on Japan with a bicameral legislature, a bill of rights and an independent judiciary. Now the only trouble Japan causes is its insistence on selling good products to Americans at cheap prices.

By contrast, the German occupation was run as liberals would like to run postwar Iraq – a joint affair among "the Allies," the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. It took 45 years to clean up the mess that created.
The Soviets bickered with the French, refusing to treat them as "allies" (on the admittedly sensible grounds that they didn't fight). While plundering their zone, the Soviets refused to relinquish any territory to France.

And the disastrous German occupation is the best-case scenario for "international peacekeeping." The less rosy picture involves the defaced corpses of American servicemen being dragged through the streets by dancing, cheering savages, as happened under "international peacekeeping" forces in Somalia in 1993. Showing that America is not a country to be toyed with, our draft-dodging, pot-smoking commander in chief responded by withdrawing our troops

[Oxford]

LS...thanks for posting the text. My computer still only opens up to the Fox Web page. No links there are shown to get to the article on MacAuthur text. But anyway, thanks for taking time to copy and paste to g&g.

I browsed the article. Mostly I read things that I've previously seen.

The following quote from the article seems totally relevant in today's situation in Iraq.

"Fighting to achieve stalemate rather than victory is morally and strategically debilitating. In the war on terror, stalemate could occur even while defeating terrorist elements in the field, if the terrorists’ state sponsors and financial backers are allowed to go unharmed."

This statement makes a lot of sense to me.
Ox

[Klaus]

The MacArthur story is BS. The guy was a lousy strategist, couldn't follow simple orders, abandoned 1000s of US servicemen and allies, and ordered the National Guard to fire on unarmed US VETS!

[Lord Shrike]

Huh Klaus lousy strategist? He singlehandedly defeated the Japaneese. He proly would have been able to topple both N Korea and China if Truman wasn't such a puzzy.

[Dennis]

Klaus be gentle

[Klaus]

LS, I do not know if you are serious with your warped post or just trying to be provocative to stimulate conversation. If you want, I would be happy to document his huge failings. His notoriety started with the Bonus March. Try looking that up yourself, before I post it here. He was in charge of the National Guard in DC at the time.You really don't want to get me started on what he did in the Phillipines. The Navy and Air Force won the Pacific War in SPITE of his bungling.

[Lord Shrike]

I am aware of what happened at the bonus march and will remind you he was carrying out orders from the president. As for his bungleings please educate away I love military history and have read nothing but good things about Mac Aurthur in the past.

[Klaus]

He was DISOBEYING orders from the president, you mean. A pattern he followed for 20 years. And if you are such a student of history and fan of MacArthur, why can't you even spell his name?

[lefty o]

i'll agree with klaus. macarthurs arrogance is the reason we still have a dmz separating N., and S. korea.

[Klaus]

Here is an excerpt from the history book used in History 151 in UMASS:

"One battalion from the 12th Infantry Regiment and two squadrons of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment (under the command of Major George S. Patton, who had taken over as second in command of the Regiment less than three weeks earlier) concentrated at the Ellipse just west of the White House. At 4:00 p.m. the infantrymen donned gas masks and fixed bayonets, the cavalry drew sabres, and the whole force (followed by several light tanks) moved down Pennsylvania Avenue to clear it of people.

Against the advice of his assistant, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, Macarthur had taken personal command of the operation. President Hoover had ordered Macarthur to clear Pennsylvania Avenue only, but Macarthur immediately began to clear all of downtown Washington, herding the Marchers out and torching their huts and tents. Tear gas was used liberally and many bricks were thrown, but no shots were fired during the entire operation. By 8:00 p.m. the downtown area had been cleared and the bridge across the Anacostia River, leading to the Hooverville where most of the Marchers lived, was blocked by several tanks.

That evening Hoover sent duplicate orders via two officers to Macarthur forbidding him to cross the Anacostia to clear the Marchers' camp, but Macarthur flatly ignored the President's orders, saying that he was 'too busy' and could not be bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders.' Macarthur crossed the Anacostia at 11:00 p.m., routed the marchers along with 600 of their wives and children out of the camp, and burned it to the ground. Then, incredibly, he called a press conference at midnight where he praised Hoover for taking the responsibility for giving the order to clear the camp. He said, 'Had the President not acted within 24 hours, he would have been faced with a very grave situation, which would have caused a real battle.... Had he waited another week, I believe the institutions of our government would have been threatened.' Ralph Furley, the Secretary of War, was present at this conference and praised Macarthur for his action in clearing the camp, even though he too was aware that Hoover had given directly contrary orders. It was this sort of insubordination and manipulation that would lead to Macarthur being summarily relieved of his command of the UN forces in Korea in 1951. "

[Klaus]

Well, anyway, now that the bonus march is covered, what do you want to discuss next? MacArthur's racism? His betrayal of servicemen when he FLED PI? How he always ran to the press when he disagreed with his superiors, often leaking classified information? The many occasions when other generals and admirals had to go behind his back to get men and supplies in place for battles? How about his illegal transfer of technology to Japan after the war and his SUBSIDY of the Japanese Electronics industry? Or how about Korea where he kept disobeying orders and kept shooting his mouth off in a very delicate geopolitical situation? Oh, I know, how about his protecting war criminals in Japan if the atrocities were primarily commited against Chinese and Korean civilians?

[Oxford]

Klaus...you're on a roll. Good posts!:nod:

[tommy]

keep it coming Klause!! just goe's to show you that ain't not one person on this planet perfect. and also to check out you'er man's background realy good before you go patting him on the back and say atta boy !!!

[Lord Shrike]

Please continue I actually find this interesting.