There's something about the US having these Scot-Irish American generals who basically talk the talk but cannot seem to be able to complete the task without failing to attack, wishing to nuke East Asia or talking to a crappy contemporary music magazine about which member of the Obama White House rankles him the most. Pathetic.
Out of all of these, I think McClellan is the worst, MacArthur the craziest and McChrystal the dumbest. Let's take a walk in memory lane all the way back to 1862. The battle of Antietam in mid-September of the year 1862 was the single bloodiest day in American history. In all the campaigns McClellan was in charge of Union forces like the Peninsula Campaign he refrained from attacking the enemy because he constantly thought he was outnumbered by the Confederacy. Of course he wasn't but he was foolish. The only positive thing he provided to the Union troops besides saving their lives from frontal assaults up hill in the Mid-Atlantic states was improve their drilling.
Antietam was the worst though, he was far from outnumbered and his reserve forces he held in check outnumbered the Confederate forces that day. Lincoln was pissed though. McClellan held a draw against an outnumbered enemy who had it's back to a river which McClellan could've struck hard and crushed the Army of Northern Virginia that day. Instead, General Lee slinked away to fight another day and Lincoln had suffered enough from a figure who likened himself to Napoleon. He was removed from his command after the battle. Though the battle allowed the Emancipation Proclamation to be delivered, and made any attempts of Britain or France giving support to the Confederacy impossible he was still fired. The Civil war lasted 3 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of more Americans.
Like McClellan, MacArthur was a General with a big ego but at least he had guts. He wished to fight on against the Japanese in the Philippines but President Roosevelt ordered him to retreat to Australia to conduct the Pacific War from there with the issuing the famous quote "I shall return". He did return after Admiral Nimitz was able to rid the Japanese from the Central Pacific by 1944. Recaputring the Philippines from hardened Japanese resistance was his major triumph during the war, and after the Second World War creating democratic institutions in Japan was his major social high-water mark. Then, just 5 years later the United States was at war in the Pacific again.
This time, it was over the Korean peninsula because as you probably already know - the North Koreans invaded South Korea with the objective of unifying the peninsula. With the US leading the UN mission in defense of South Korea, all seemed loss until - MacArthur led an amphibious landing at Inchon, then captured Seoul deep behind enemy lines and advanced north. This is the beginning of the first act of batshit crazy MacArthur created. Zhou Enlai, Mao's foreign minister and political savante indirectly told the Americans that an advance towards the Yalu river would mean China would have to intervene. Now, if your potential enemy was telling you that if you come close to this river - we will invade and destroy all the gains you made thus far the rational person would try and reason with the Chinese or perhapse not reach the Yalu river. MacArthur just dismissed it. The People's Liberation Army invaded Korea on November 5th 1950 and UN forces were fleeing towards the South once more.
By early 1951, he called on the Chinese to admit they've been defeated after recapturing Seoul again. Also, he started create orders for possible nuclear strikes on China if the Chinese airforce was utilized against the Americans. Furthermore, he openly criticized President Truman's limited war aims. He was fired April 10th 1951, the war lasted 2 more years and probably a million more Koreans were killed as a result.
McChrystal is just stupid however. If you had a grievance about the President's Afghan War advisors, why not take it up with Obama? But no. He takes it up with Rolling Stone magazine. He just help them win another Pullitzer. He also weakens the US and make the Taliban seem even stronger as the US is conducting a strange offensive in Kandahar province against Taliban fighters. Petraeus is taking over but soon he'll realize Afghanistan is a strange country. He'll take a whiff of the Afghan mountainous air and go crazy like McChrystal and Karzai - the man who would be king. If history is anything to go by, the war will go on for another 2-3 years before the US wins a costly victory or draw. A draw seems more likely. If only MacArthur was in Afghanistan today - would he recommend nuking the Pashtun tribal areas in both Afghanistan AND Pakistan? Would McClellan refuse US forces from launching offensives against the Taliban and concentrate solely on training Afghan forces and posturing around Afghan valleys talking about his military greatness? Either way, the US has kinda let itself get fucked over by another Scots-Irish American general.
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