Flawed?

This is coolbert:

Please first read this entry from a previous blog entry of mine:

"Two strategic intelligence blunders within six months: yet the civilian and military leaders involved were all products of World War II, when the attack on Pearl Harbor had clearly demonstrated the requirement for intelligence collection and analysis"

Right! Two intelligence blunders within a period of six months. And blunders by persons of experience who SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!

Exactly. The context here is the Korean War. General Mac Arthur and the staff of Far Eastern Command [FEC], AND the American Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], neither unable to predict or react quickly or correctly enough to the North Korean invasion of South Korea OR the later massive, overwhelming intervention of the Chinese Communist Forces [CCF]!!

Operational and intelligence failure of the highest and worst possible magnitude.

NOW, here, from the Australian web site: BATTLE FOR AUSTRALIA WEB-SITE, a very harsh critique of General Douglas Mac Arthur!

The military blunders of Korea were preceded from ten years earlier by similar military blunders of excessive magnitude - - also on the part of General Mac Arthur and his staff!!

Blunders due in large measure to the very strong but flawed personality of Mac Arthur himself? Read it all!

"General Douglas MacArthur possessed a deeply flawed personality. He was vain, aloof, and showed no interest in the welfare of the troops he commanded. His mind was too closed and inflexible for him to readily deduce an enemy's strategic and tactical goals or options. He ignored unpleasant realities when it did not suit him to acknowledge them, and tended to surround himself with servile staff officers who were aware of this dangerous weakness and indulged it. A surprise move by an enemy could produce paralysing indecision at MacArthur's headquarters."

"MacArthur possessed other character flaws that should have excluded him from senior command. He was a cold man who distanced himself from his troops and he showed an indifference to their welfare that at times was callous. He was a conceited man, with a passion for self-glorification, and incapable of admitting serious military errors or learning from them. His dread of removal from command verged on paranoia. These character failings caused him to blame his commanding officers in the field and his troops for his own errors of judgment"

WOW! I can only imagine the reaction if the General was still around to read this critique! Well, so be it.

It is true that when General Mac Arthur escaped ["broke through enemy lines"] from the Philippines, 1942, he did take his major staff officers with him. Men that played an important rule in planning subsequent military operations during the various campaigns of the South West Pacific Area [SWPA]. Men best characterized as sycophants?

"sycophant - - (n.) A servile self-seeker who attempts to win favor by flattering influential people."

Without a doubt, unquestionably so, the person and persona of Douglas Mac Arthur is extraordinarily complex. THE ENTIRE LIFE OF THE MAN, BIGGER-THAN-LIFE EVEN can only best be characterized as "controversial". It seems you either greatly admire the man or greatly hate the man, no in-between.

Those various operational and intelligence blunders of WW2 and the Korean War BOTH do raise serious questions as to the capacity of Mac Arthur and his staff to perform at the highest level of performance needed, especially in times of dire crisis. YES!

coolbert.