General Douglas MacArthur

© MMXIV V.1.0.4
by Morley Evans

Manila cica 1945

General of the Army

The memory of General Douglas MacArthur  has been taken over by people who have recast his image into a form that suits their war-mongering. MacArthur was on the outs before WW II. That's why he was a "military advisor" in the Philippines and why Washington ignored his requests for support before the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941 — and also throughout the war. The reason MacArthur was ignored is that Washington knew all about what was going to happen. FDR was engineering it. MacArthur was critical of the unnecessary loss of life that typified the campaign waged by the Navy and Marines and was appalled by the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the Japanese were looking for a way to surrender with some honour. Like most top dogs, MacArthur may have been an egomaniac, but he had a gift for accurate pithy statements too:

Our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. 

- General Douglas MacArthur

The reconstruction of Japan was the high point of MacArthur's career — not the successful landing at Inchon. MacArthur understood and respected the Japanese and he was wise enough to know that no one is smart enough to design a human society from scratch.

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