Thread: General McChrystal at the Little Bighorn

Interested parties know the details in the General McChrystal flap. The story is still unfolding; so I won’t review the dialogue in act one. I do want to point out that McChrystal has all the best of it in his choice of opponents. Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, Karl Eikenberry, and Hussein.

Cut and run Biden would betray this country to the International community in a heartbeat. Biden and his kind all but sent a telegram to the enemy in Iraq telling them: “Hang in there until we can give you a political victory.” It worked in Vietnam. Thank God that it did not work in Iraq.

There is no record of McChrystal badmouthing Biden. In a just world he would get another star on his shoulder if he did.

Richard Holbrooke was a co-conspirator of that disaster known as Madeleine Albright in Clinton’s Balkan Adventures. Holbrooke would sell his soul to the Devil to be secretary of state. I can only wish that McChrystal holds, and finally expresses, views on Holbrooke that will get rid of him once and for all.

I don’t know much about Eikenberry, but I suspect that he has the same view of our military as does every top Democrat; i.e., if the US military is not under the UN’s control it is no good. I can’ be sure of this, but I think that that view is the cause of the divide between Hussein’s regime and the military. Soldiers put their lives on the line for their country not for the UN, and certainly not for Hussein’s worldview.

The commander in chief’s authority is unique; more so in the McChrystal flap. The rest of the civilians in the piece have no constitutional authority over the military. Even the secretary of defense is subject to Hussein’s final decisions where the military is concerned. In one sense that is a good thing. Secretary Gates can’t fire General McChrystal. Hussein has to do it himself. The broader topic of civilian control over the military is for another day.

Naturally, the media jumped to support Hussein’s constitutional authority. That strikes me as odd since Hussein has no use for the rest of the Constitution. The template: Generals must obey the commander in chief, blah, blah, blah. Never mind that this commander in chief is a traitor who hates this country.

Just to be clear, General McChrystal did not disobey an order, although he might have let his subordinates embarrass the commander in chief.

Finally, in order to strengthen the case for civilian control over the military, the media is rehashing Truman firing General MacArthur. Insofar as media goes, I think McChrystal is closer to General Custer than he is to MacArthur. When General McChrystal saw the media rush to defend Hussein’s position he had to feel like Custer at the Little BigHorn “Where the hell did all of those Indians come from?”

your anology of " all those indians " is so far off, its funny to the extreme. theyve been able to determine there were 440 lodges. as only one warrior was allowed to fight from each dwelling, that puts Custers command as having a slight edge in manpower. its true. Custer divided his command into three parts. but the evidence shows that the longknives has way more ammo then the redman. i cant chaulk it entirely up to bad ammo conservation on the white mans part. for they knew how to count , and they knew the natives tactics. these were seasoned cav. they had been riding the plains for 6 years on ave. they all knew that this ville was large. nobody shots off 39 shots without using aimed fire. whered all these indians come from? you historical perspective is very lacking.

Originally Posted by jebe

your anology of " all those indians " is so far off, its funny to the extreme. theyve been able to determine there were 440 lodges. as only one warrior was allowed to fight from each dwelling, that puts Custers command as having a slight edge in manpower. its true. Custer divided his command into three parts. but the evidence shows that the longknives has way more ammo then the redman. i cant chaulk it entirely up to bad ammo conservation on the white mans part. for they knew how to count , and they knew the natives tactics. these were seasoned cav. they had been riding the plains for 6 years on ave. they all knew that this ville was large. nobody shots off 39 shots without using aimed fire. whered all these indians come from? you historical perspective is very lacking.

To jebe: Tell that to Errol Flynn.

As usual, your history of an event leaves a lot to be desired:

In fact, other tribes had joined Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull in their stand against the government, including young warriors from Red Cloud's supporters. Over 12,000 Native Americans gathered at the Big Horn River. Many warriors had come to the conclusion that this would be the last time that they would have to make a stand against the government. Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors joined the Sioux.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk...e_big_horn.htm

Custer’s command consisted of 268 men. No one knows how many of those 12,000 Indians took part in the battle. By all accounts it was a hell of a lot more than 268.

And where did you get 39 shots from? Nobody counted the Indians; so who counted the shots that were actually fired?

I realize that English is not your language, but please work on your communication skills if you insist on responding to my threads. Your responses are extremely difficult to decipher. They make little sense after they are unscrambled. You never provide reputable links in support of your “historical facts.” Your historical facts never stand up to scrutiny. As bad as your previous excursions into American history have been, you’ve outdone yourself with your take on Custer’s Last Stand.

okay. now you are just wanting me to laugh. but its sickening youd post such outlandish trash. you need to read the book, " killing Custer ". there has been more studying done since it was published, but it does go into why they feel only 440 warriors actualy fought. you 12k number is in relationship to your on the one hand, " we are mighty before our god ", mode, and then you turn around when the real shit flies and cowar under your womens dresses. next you will be telling us all that the spread of SP was all just a horrible accident.

Hussein’s decision to fire General McChrystal tells the country more about Hussein’s regime than it tells us about McChrystal. In time, the firing will fade away, but the country will still be stuck with Hussein and his anti-America regime. Those people do not want America to win in Afghanistan anymore than they wanted to win in Iraq and Vietnam.

Younger Americans may not understand this, but Hussein and the Communists that came before him always implemented policies designed to erode America’s will to win. Repeatedly justifying defeat for whatever reason sells is the way they succeed. Their success is what counts the most not the country’s.

From the enclosed article by George Neumayr:

Imagine what Patton would have said about the cravenly half-baked Afghanistan policies of a wimpy faker like Barack Obama and an open buffoon like Joe Biden.

Traitors like Hussein and Biden are only one part of the problem. The press in Patton’s day was nowhere near as liberal as it is today. Admittedly, the press had a field day with the slapping incidents, but Patton stayed on. Today’s press wanted McChrystal's head and Hussein gave it to them. The primary cover story was civilian control over the military. Phoney FOX was right there with the rest of them.

Parenthetically, Hussein is once again calling for the country to come together. I suggest he ask Biden and the rest of that scum from the Vietnam War era how it’s done? Those people not only tore this country apart to protect communist expansion in Asia, they did their best to further divide this country over Iraq. Now, they expect Americans to unite behind a communist president.

Bottom line: The Vietnam War will never be over for American Socialists until America goes communist. Unfortunately, too many Americans do not realize they are still fighting the Vietnam War.

Obama's 'Strict Code of Conduct'
By George Neumayr on 6.24.10 @ 6:08AM

General Stanley McChrystal's derisive comments about pols look mild compared to General George S. Patton's assessment of them. Patton called the "tin soldier" politicians of his day "lily-livered bastards."

"You just wait and see," Patton said at the conclusion of World War II. "The lily-livered bastards in Washington will demobilize. They'll say they've made the world safe for democracy again. The Russians are not such damned fools. They'll rebuild, and with modern weapons."

Imagine what Patton would have said about the cravenly half-baked Afghanistan policies of a wimpy faker like Barack Obama and an open buffoon like Joe Biden.

The hysterical harrumphing about McChrystal's remarks (or more like his aides' remarks) by the laughably sanctimonious Inside-the-Beltway crowd captures the nothingness of America's 24/7 political culture. An ill-advised, but in the grand scheme of things minor, McChrystal-assisted article in a rock magazine somehow became an oh-so-crucial "test" of Barack Obama's leadership, and he duly obliged the chattering class with a touchy firing.

Why, they gasped, one of McChrystal's aides dismissed a dinner with a French minister as "gay." Oh my. CNN's Rick Sanchez, with his usual self-important huffing and puffing, spoke about the remark as if the aide had committed treason. And maybe in Obama's America he has; such comments clearly have no place in Barack's new LGBT military.

The suddenly prim New Yorker found the general's behavior and language in the article "crude." His resentment at having to attend the aforementioned dinner with the French -- "I’d rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner," he said -- "shows contempt for political and diplomatic processes," sniffed New Yorker senior editor Amy Davidson.
So Obama has finally found someone to fire and confront: not the CEO of BP or the hack bureaucrats who contributed to the Gulf mess, but a general who has risked his life to defend America. The same superficial gabbers who egged Obama into firing McChrystal hailed it afterwards as a "brilliant" decision. This is one for the history books, they burbled. Right. Only a president as shallow and easily rattled as Obama and an equally glib press corps could treat a Rolling Stone interview like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In his statement announcing the firing, Obama couldn't resist some self-pitying narration about the weighty demands his job places on him, saying that "it was a difficult decision to come to the conclusion that I've made today," and that it didn't stem from a "sense of personal insult." But that's all it comes down to. In order to appear "tough" after the Gulf fiasco exposed his fecklessness, he had to can McChrystal, thereby depriving America of a talented and brave general at the very moment it can least afford to lose him.

An administration of immature twerps like Rahm Emanuel had the gall to fire McChrystal on the grounds that he lacked the requisite "maturity" to lead. Or as Obama put it in his rooster-like Rose Garden performance, he had violated the military's "strict code of conduct." Since when has Obama cared about the military's strict code of conduct? He campaigned on abolishing it.

The reason he wants respect restored for "civilian control of the military" is not to maintain its strict code of conduct but to eliminate it through political correctness. Cowing generals into accepting laxity -- from gays in the military to women on submarines -- is now the name of the game for civilian leaders.

The Rolling Stone article, White House officials intoned gravely, called McChrystal's "judgment" into question. Actually, the few quoted remarks in it confirmed the accuracy of his judgment: he appears to understand conditions on the ground in D.C. as clearly as those in Kabul. Moreover, when has insufficient respect for Joe Biden ever constituted evidence of dangerous judgment?

George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/0...ode-of-conduct

LOLOLOL.. WHEN YOU FIND OUT WHAT THE WAR ON AFGHANISTAN IS ALL ABOUT, LET ME KNOW. EVIDENTLY MCCHRYSTAL DIDN'T KNOW OR FORGOT.

Quote from #5 permalink:

“Parenthetically, Hussein is once again calling for the country to come together. I suggest he ask Biden and the rest of that scum from the Vietnam War era how it’s done? Those people not only tore this country apart to protect communist expansion in Asia, they did their best to further divide this country over Iraq. Now, they expect Americans to unite behind a communist president.

Bottom line: The Vietnam War will never be over for American Socialists until America goes communist. Unfortunately, too many Americans do not realize they are still fighting the Vietnam War.”

The enclosed article contains the best comparison to the Vietnam War that I’ve seen in a long time. The title asks:

Have the Democrats Learned Anything From Vietnam?

That’s a tough question. The author, Michael Filozof, offers reasons to answer yes. I do not disagree with his answer, but I won’t say they learned anything they didn’t know 45 years ago. I will say that they can now bring defeat to America from within the halls of power rather than through violent anti-war demonstrations as they did during the Vietnam War era. They have the political power today that they only dreamed about in the sixties.

One important difference between Vietnam and the war against Islam’s aggression is that Iraq showed the country that the media is the same as it was in the sixties. Fortunately, the media failed to engineer defeat in Iraq using the same methods it used during the Vietnam War. The only thing the media accomplished was to prolong the fighting by giving the enemy hope for a Vietnam-type victory. Cut and run Democrats like Joe Biden provided the copy. And, of course, there was no Walter Cronkite to announce defeat over national television while the US military was winning every battle.

Loss of media credibility is a significant factor in relation to Afghanistan. Hussein’s regime is clearly determined to see that American forces do not win every battle in Afghanistan as they did in Vietnam:

In Afghanistan, Obama has micromanaged the war with restrictive rules of engagement that prevent the U.S. forces from going all-out.

“Restrictive rules of engagement” is nothing more than an application of Woodrow Wilson’s Peace Without Victory nonsense. Unfortunately for America’s military there is an evolutionary step at work in Afghanistan.

There is clearly a preemptive motive behind Hussein’s handcuffs. After he pulls out of Afghanistan he does not want to answer the question: Why did you cut and run when the military was winning every battle? American Communists did not have enough political power during the Vietnam War to bring about battlefield defeats. Hussein & Company have that power and they are using it.

Hussein’s major public relations problem is that non-communist Americans do not want American soldiers killed on some foreign battlefield while the Democrats in Washington are angling toward another Vietnam.

June 25, 2010
Have the Democrats Learned Anything From Vietnam?
By Michael Filozof

The Vietnam War was the defining event for the modern Democratic Party. Nearly four decades after the war ended, we ought to ask if the Democrats learned anything from Vietnam that is applicable to Afghanistan.
In Vietnam, the U.S. fought an insurgency in a remote, forbidding jungle that neutralized our tactical advantage. In Afghanistan, we are fighting an insurgency in remote, forbidding mountains that neutralize our tactical advantage.

In Vietnam, the insurgents had no armor and no air power. They attacked American patrols with jury-rigged explosives called "booby traps." In Afghanistan, the insurgents have no armor and no air power. They attack American patrols with jury-rigged explosives called "IEDs."

In Vietnam, a socialist country tried to defeat the insurgents before the U.S. became involved. It failed. It was called "France." In Afghanistan, a socialist country also tried to defeat the insurgents before the U.S. became involved. It also failed. It was called the "Soviet Union."

In Vietnam, American involvement began by sending advisers, Special Forces, and CIA operatives. Nine years later we had hundreds of thousands of troops in combat brigades stationed there. In Afghanistan, American involvement began by sending in advisers, Special Forces, and CIA operatives. Nine years later, we have combat brigades and over 100,000 troops stationed there.

In Vietnam, the insurgents routinely obtained assistance and sanctuary in a foreign nation where U.S. forces were forbidden to go. It was called "Cambodia." In Afghanistan, insurgents routinely obtain assistance and sanctuary in a foreign nation where U.S. troops are forbidden to go. It is called "Pakistan."

In Vietnam, the U.S. sought to protect the population from insurgents through a program called "Strategic Hamlets." It didn't work. In Afghanistan, the U.S. is seeking to protect the population from the insurgents with a program called "Clear, Build, and Hold." It isn't working either.

In Vietnam, the U.S. supported a corrupt ruler who rigged elections in an attempt to give his regime a veneer of legitimacy. His name was "Diem." In Afghanistan, the U.S. is supporting a corrupt ruler who rigged elections to give himself a veneer of legitimacy. His name is "Karzai."

In Vietnam, the U.S. declared that its goal was to train and equip an indigenous force to hold off the insurgents by themselves. They were called the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam). The ARVN turned out to be incompetent and corrupt. In Afghanistan, our strategy is to train and equip indigenous forces called the ANA (Afghan National Army). The ANA is also incompetent and corrupt.

We fought in Vietnam for over a decade, but Congress never declared war on Vietnam. We have fought in Afghanistan for nine years with no end in sight, and Congress has not declared war on Afghanistan either.

The Vietnam War was escalated by a Democratic president named "Johnson." Johnson could not afford to look soft on communism in the 1964 campaign, because his Republican opponent was a hawkish fighter pilot from Arizona named "Goldwater." The Afghanistan war was escalated by a Democratic president named "Obama." Obama could not afford to look soft on terrorism in the 2008 campaign, because his Republican opponent was a hawkish fighter pilot from Arizona named "McCain."

Although Johnson was responsible for escalating the Vietnam War, his real interest was in domestic politics, where he presided over a massive expansion of the welfare state and created expensive Federal health care programs called "Medicare" and "Medicaid." While Obama is responsible for escalating the Afghan war, his real interest is in domestic politics, where he has massively expanded the welfare state and created an expensive Federal health care program called "Obamacare."

Rather than leave the battlefield tactics in Vietnam up to his field commanders, Johnson was known for micromanaging the war and manipulating bombing strategies and other rules of engagement that prevented the U.S. forces from going all-out. In Afghanistan, Obama has micromanaged the war with restrictive rules of engagement that prevent the U.S. forces from going all-out.

In Vietnam, the United States lost. In Afghanistan... we're not winning.

Have the Democrats learned anything from Vietnam? Actually, they have learned many important lessons.

First, they have learned that anti-war riots and protests should only be conducted against Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents. (Isn't it amazing how Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan disappeared after George W. Bush left office?)

Second, they have learned to not send Jane Fonda to enemy territory and pose for enemy propaganda photos. Unlike the warm reception she received in Hanoi, the Taliban would probably behead her live on the Internet for failing to wear a burqa.

Third, they have learned that if a Democratic presidential candidate plans to conduct a foreign policy of national self-abasement and groveling before our enemies, it is probably better to not announce it during the campaign. George McGovern promised that he'd "crawl on his hands and knees to Hanoi and beg for peace" in 1972 and lost 49 states. Obama did not apologize to the Muslim world and bow before foreign monarchs until after he was elected.

Finally, the most important lesson the Democrats have learned is that they should not draft longhaired, stoned hippies and America-hating radicals on college campuses and send them to war. They'll only riot and try to bomb the Pentagon (like Bill Ayers did). And it makes no sense to offend the voters who are virtually guaranteed to support the Democratic Party anyway.

It's far better to prosecute a war with patriotic, America-loving volunteers from Red States who probably voted Republican in the first place, and to play them for suckers by sending them on a mission about which you've said you're "uncomfortable" using the term "victory."

The Democrats have indeed learned a lot from Vietnam, haven't they?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...arned_any.html

If he plays his cards right, McChrystal could make a very lucrative living as an author, analyst and speaker in his post-service years.

Ultimately, though, he left Obama no choice whatsoever.

It's an abrupt and disappointing end to what appears to be an otherwise exemplary military career. I do, though, believe there are a number of lessons that can be gleaned from this unfortunate turn of events.

1) Once a star appears on your shoulders, everything you do and say will be subjected to the harsh and unforgiving light of bureaucratic and public scrutiny.

That scrutiny exponentially increases with each additional star.

This multiplies astronomically when one becomes the field commander of a lingering, multi-year war that many regard as a hopeless, festering wound.

Act accordingly, 24/7/365.

2) Soldiers are human, too.

Off-duty, they drink, use course language, act sophomoric and immature, have issues with authority, believe they're smarter than their superiors, are disdainful of self-important politicians, have strong political views and share them with their peers and friends in discussions that often include the aforementioned course language.

3) The President's perception problem permeates the military as thoroughly as it does the international arena.

4) Loose lips sink ships. And decades-long military careers. Take the Go-Go's admonition to heart and keep your lips sealed.

5) Unlike Dr. Hook, generals should never, ever long to appear on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

Before General McChrystal ‘s dismissal disappears from the roster of news stories, I want to add this lengthy, but fascinating, take on General MacArthur and President Truman:

MacArthur Defeats Truman: The Real McChrystal Message
By Jeffrey Lord on 6.24.10 @ 6:08AM

Harry Truman was no dove.

But Douglas MacArthur made him look like one.

And the political consequences for Democrats of Truman's legendary dismissal of the iconic hero of World War II -- at the height of the Korean War -- were both dramatic and long-lasting. In fact, those consequences are part of the political baggage of the American left -- and the Obama administration -- to this day. It is a history that stirs yet again with the decision of President Obama to fire General Stanley McChrystal in the wake of the now infamous Rolling Stone interview with the General and his aides.

First, the history.

World War II was over, and the world celebrated. Within a month of Truman's decision to drop two atomic bombs -- the brand new weapon of the day -- on Japan, the Japanese had finally yielded. General Douglas MacArthur, the hero of the Pacific Theater, had accepted the Japanese surrender onboard the battleship USS Missouri.

MacArthur was quickly installed as, in effect, the American Shogun of Japan in the aftermath of the war. Working effectively to keep the Japanese tradition of the Emperor yet melding it with a solid constitutional underpinning of democracy, the General played no small role in helping the Japanese people recover and thrive as the Asian democracy they have been ever since.

Yet while MacArthur was busy reconstructing Japan, Truman was coming to the recognition that the Soviet Union was turning from an American ally against Hitler to its central dream of imposing a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship on the world. The Cold War had begun.

Americans, still celebrating and trying to resume the joys of a normal civilian life, were finding themselves increasingly caught up in a bewildering if not frightening new world they simply hadn't seen coming. It wasn't the peace they thought they had won.

Startling accusations flew along with a host of new names.

Gone were FDR and the bulk of the household names that had filled the newspapers, radio newscasts and newsreels since 1932. In their place were tumultuous allegations of Communist spies in the government, secretly salted throughout the Roosevelt and now Truman administrations. A young California Congressman named Richard Nixon burst on the scene helping a Time magazine editor named Whittaker Chambers expose an ex-FDR aide named Alger Hiss as a Communist spy. A Wisconsin veteran styling himself "Tail-Gunner Joe" McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate in the 1946 elections and soon was making accusations of communists in government. Abroad, the United States was finding itself in one crisis after another with Communism. Berlin was blockaded, Greece was under assault, Mao Tse-tung toppled the Chinese government. Winston Churchill pronounced the reality of what he called "The Iron Curtain." The Russians -- with the help of American spies -- had gotten their hands on The Bomb.

And inside the Democratic Party an at-first almost invisible fissure began to widen and show itself, separating Truman from self-described left-wing "progressives" as represented by his predecessor as FDR's vice president, Henry Wallace. The dividing line? How to deal with the Soviet Union and its increasingly relentless drive to remake the world -- by murderous force -- in the Communist image of Marx and Lenin.

In this new era, on June 25, 1950, Communist North Korea invaded South Korea, stunning both Truman and the world. No slouch in taking action, Truman quickly arranged for the new United Nations -- a decision from which the Soviets had deliberately absented themselves -- to call for a police action and send member country troops to South Korea. MacArthur, the hero of World War II who had spent much of his career in Asia, was called from Japan to take command.

Which, in his usual and famously imperious fashion, he did. In MacArthur's world Truman, while president, was little more than the failed haberdasher and crass World War I artillery captain that was the caricature of Truman's political enemies. The notion that fate would have Truman giving orders to MacArthur simultaneously amused and infuriated.

There were increasing clashes between the two. Most behind the scenes, but increasingly some leaking into the media of the day. Even more irritatingly to Truman -- and, in retrospect a sign of the historic division to come -- MacArthur was picking up allies among prominent Republican conservatives in Congress.

In particular, the once isolationist-leaning GOP of the 1930s was now focusing on the new Communist threat. And what it perceived as the growing problem internal to the Democrats, as exemplified by Henry Wallace and his "progressives." The problem? Weakness towards Communism, a philosophy that was, with increasing clarity, seen as a sworn enemy of America, freedom and democracy. A re-start of the war just ended by other means. In the vernacular of a day that was belatedly yet correctly sensitive to the rise of Hitler -- Republicans saw this as appeasement. Appeasement of Communism. And this time, the GOP had no intention of sitting on the sidelines as many felt it had during Hitler's rise to power and war.

So there was strong support for MacArthur's sentiments as he expressed them in a January 1951 interview with the New York Times, an interview that had this headline:

M'Arthur, Near 71, Bitter Over Reds:
Says He is ready to Fight Them the Rest of His Life.

Read a MacArthur quote at the beginning of the story:

"Democracy -- the American way of life -- is the most wonderful thing we have and it is worth fighting for when it is threatened."

Four months later, with Truman fed up over the increasingly public nature of MacArthur's comments, the condescension he felt his general was showing the presidency and the general's tendency to freelance diplomacy that went against White House policy, Truman astonished the world.

He fired MacArthur.

At that moment -- and more importantly for the rest of the almost half-century duration of the Cold War and now extending into the War on Terror -- the template of a central conflict between the Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives began to harden.

The Left was perceived as favoring appeasement or negotiation or acceptance of enemies sworn to destroy America. The Progressive Party, Henry Wallace's soapbox, quickly issued a statement saying that firing MacArthur "makes a profound re-direction to peace possible." Within days the party that symbolized the ideas that would come to dominate the American Left over the next seven decades -- right up until today -- was calling a meeting "to chart a course" for "peace" -- a peace that was widely interpreted by millions of Americans as appeasement, pacifism, or worse. The Right, on the other hand -- anticipating Ronald Reagan by four decades -- favored outright victory over the Soviet Union and Communism itself. Period.

The impact of MacArthur's firing was immediate, a political earthquake.

In California Truman was hung in effigy. The Los Angeles City Council adjourned, furious at it what it called "the political assassination" of General MacArthur. Cars suddenly appeared on city streets carrying homemade banners demanding "Oust President Truman." Newspapers across the country were flooded with calls of protest. The American Legion, in post-World War II America some four million members strong, was outraged.

Incongruously, the Chicago Board of Trade reported that prices for wheat, corn, rye and oats were plunging as a result of the firing. The President's poll numbers tumbled, finally bottoming on the eve of the 1952 election at 22%.

MacArthur returned, fired, as the conquering hero. Half a million people cheered him on his arrival in San Francisco. Over a million New Yorkers turned out just to see MacArthur ride from Idlewild (now JFK) Airport to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. Five million turned out for New York's ticker-tape parade honoring MacArthur, with a record 2,850 tons of paper littering the city afterwards. There was a famous address to a cheering Congress and the memorable line that "Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away."

That is, effectively, what did happen -- to MacArthur. History records that MacArthur's potential presidential candidacy fizzled. It is commonly held today that Truman did the correct thing in asserting his rights as commander-in-chief.

The remainder of the article is in part two.

PART TWO

BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING ELSE, a very big political something else, that the media and historians of today always miss about that famous showdown between MacArthur and Truman.

It was a something else so politically potent it would eventually explode the image of Democrats as fearless opponents of American enemies. The once seemingly invincible image created by FDR's wartime leadership in the greatest war of all time -- the fight against Hitler and the Japanese that was World War II -- was eviscerated.
MacArthur's refusal to bend the knee to Communism drew a vividly bright line between the American Left and Right that exists to this day. Damaged in the moment was the perception of Truman's own adamant opposition to Communism, and his emergence as America's first hard-as-nails anti-Communist Cold War president.

Truman's appointment of another heroic World War II general, Mark Clark -- the David Petraeus of his day -- to take MacArthur's place in Korea ,did nothing to halt the sea-change in American politics that the MacArthur removal signaled.

The steady decades-long decline of the once immutable idea of Democrats as the party of national security had begun. Drop-by-drop, like an acid eating away at metal, the MacArthur firing in retrospect was a turning point, putting the American Left constantly on the political defensive when it came to national security issues.

The first political blow came almost immediately. In November of 1952, Americans rejected Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, the Democrats' nominee to replace the by now highly unpopular Truman. In a sign of things to come, they elected retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower -- MacArthur's one-time aide and the commander of D-Day -- as president, along with a GOP House and Senate. Eisenhower ran as the anti-Communist's anti-Communist, selecting the by now famously anti-Communist Senator Richard Nixon as his running mate.

Over and over and over again in the succeeding years, the question of how to deal with America's Cold War enemies -- the Soviet Union, the Communist Chinese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, Eastern Europe, Berlin, Cuba and Communists in Latin America repeatedly surfaced the idea first writ large by the MacArthur firing: that Democrats could not be trusted with national security. Over time, the Truman Democrats -- and their hardline successors JFK and Lyndon Johnson -- would lose control of their party to the forces supporting Truman's old intra-party foe, the pacifist-leaning ex-Vice President Henry Wallace. Their leader: South Dakota Senator George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee who lost a 49-state blowout to Nixon but in the process began the finalizing of the party's image as one of appeasement and military weakness.

WHY IS ALL OF THIS important politically today? Because the Rolling Stone article shows in vivid detail that the sentiments that first surfaced in the MacArthur firing are still alive, well and exceptionally powerful today in America's fight against Islamic fascism. The banning of the latter phrase by an Obama administration that deems it politically incorrect is in itself a symbol of the politics launched by the MacArthur firing. Doubtless that kind of political correctness is one source of the derision that was carelessly expressed by McChrystal's aides to Rolling Stone.

General Stanley McChrystal was wrong to be giving time to discuss his views with Rolling Stone, his aides unimaginably stupid to be so free with a reporter for a magazine with a considerable anti-war reputation. Ironically, the politics of Rolling Stone itself -- indeed the magazine's very existence -- are a legacy of the anti-war sentiments that were first bubbling with progressives during the time of MacArthur's firing.

Without doubt, the essence of what McChrystal so obviously believes -- that the answer to al Qaeda is victory, not appeasement or negotiation -- is what was once believed by those millions who thronged the streets of San Francisco and New York to cheer Douglas MacArthur. This is the political view that propelled the electoral careers of presidents who sided with MacArthur's views in one form or another throughout the Cold War, from Eisenhower to George H.W. Bush. It has elected literally hundreds of senators and congressman.

From 1952 on through to the last Cold War election in 1988, the victorious candidate for the presidency was always the one perceived as the more MacArthur-like, which is to say an unrelenting foe of the Soviet Union and its various Communist allies. At a minimum the candidate had to be at least as tough as the other guy.
Anything less and the candidate was simply un-electable. Even Jimmy Carter passed that test in 1976, campaigning as a tough ex-Navy officer with scorn for Gerald Ford's supposed soft views on the Communist domination of Eastern Europe. When events proved otherwise after his election, Carter was out in an Eisenhower-esque landslide for Ronald Reagan. In addition to Carter's failure in 1980 the MacArthur test was failed successively by Democrats Stevenson (twice), Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis.

Make no mistake.

The firing of General McChrystal -- all constitutionally correct -- will be hailed in some quarters for that reason.
But what is being missed is the real political message that came through loud and clear in the Rolling Stone McCrystal article.

The message?

That the American military thinks the Obama team is not up to the job of defeating Al Qaeda and winning a war which it is even terrified of calling by name. That those on the front line in a life-and-death struggle with a serious enemy think the President a wimp, the Vice President a blowhard, the national security adviser a "clown," Ambassador Richard Holbrooke a man consumed by the need for relevance, and that the French act like…well…the French.

The spirit of Douglas MacArthur and his fury at what he perceived as a weakness in fighting Communism resonates through every last word of McChrystal and his impolitic aides. In fact, McCrystal himself, if you read the actual article, is extraordinarily reticent. But combined with the blunt, caustic sentiments of his aides, there is no doubt of what the troops think of the commander-in-chief and his team.

Yes, the history books give Truman high marks for firing MacArthur.

But ever after that dismissal Americans, beginning with the very next election, awarded the vast majority of political prizes of power and influence to those who echoed the heart of MacArthur's message. Elections were won by those who, in word if not in deed, reminded them of the 71-year-old general's headline vow: "to spend the rest of his life fighting communism."

Yesterday, Barack Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal. Obama acolytes will hail him as another Harry Truman. Forgetting one very, very important political point at Obama's peril. For decades to come after that fateful day in April of 1951, as winning and losing candidates came and went, there was always one very significant constant in the political results.

MacArthur always defeated Truman.

Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/0...s-truman-the-r