The MacArthur-Truman head-butt has been mentioned a couple of times up-thread. And aptly so.

Harry Truman got a lot of flak when he relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of command in the Korean war "police action." MacArthur wanted to push on into North Korea and then invade China on the basis of "We're here, now, so let's complete the job!"

And this is the man who counseled, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia!"

MacArthur did a masterful job in WW II against Japan, but he was a megalomaniac, and he would have started World War III if Truman hadn't fired him. Many people gave Truman a lot of crap for that, but Truman was right!

Among other things, Obama said, "I've given McChystall everything he wanted except an open-ended timeline."

This whole "War on Terrorism" has been handled wrong right from the start, and some folks tend to conveniently forget that Obama inherited that f**k-up from the previous administration. Wars are between nation-states. Al Qaeda is a criminal mob and should have been treated as such from the very beginning. If it had been, it would have saved a lot of lives, American soldiers plus an egregious number of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians. Lots of "collateral damage," with damned few genuine terrorists actually being dealt with.

We're running a great recruiting program for anti-American terrorist groups!!

Don Firth