In the end, the President is COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
Not the Secretary of Defense, not the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, etc., etc.
The liberals loved it when Truman fired McArthur. In hind sight, I think McArthur was correct, Korea was a stalemate, either destroy the enemy or stop the war, but Truman was the boss.
Only the President has the ultimate authority, but even that is tempered, rejected or accepted by the voters every four years.
I do believe Syria is a sovereign nation and they did not invite us in. Now, as long as ISIS had de facto control over Syrian territory could we “almost” make the case to be there anyway, in fighting them, but that is over—ISIS lost.
So what legal justification actually keeps us in Syria, is what I’d ask Mattis?
The President has a DUTY to make the overall policy decisions.
The WSJ is simply off base here.
Korea was never the enemy, it was international communism, with both China and Russia supporting Norks.
The Norks, on their own in the early 50s, couldn't have beaten a kindergarten class.
We were so superior to both China and Russia at that time, but the timing was just 5-6 years removed from WWII, and the communist/demonRATS had no will to defeat the communists from the other side of the world.
The country was war weary and got no push from the pubbies who were doing their usual hiding in the tall grass routine.
You wrote ... “The liberals loved it when Truman fired McArthur. In hind sight, ... McArthur was correct, Korea was a stalemate, either destroy the enemy or stop the war, but Truman was the boss.”
I have been reading a lot lately on FDR, WW2, Truman ... which of course links one back to WW1, Wilson et al. The GOP then could be described as the anti-war party, not because the democraps were for war, but rather the American sentiment (their constituents) were against sending men to far away places to fight someone else’s battle with no US interests at stake. The democraps believed the US could not afford to sit out but needed to take a bigger role in the world in order to avoid future wars (hence the League of nations / UN). It is interesting that some of the key democraps back then would not fit in their own party today. For example, in the internal debates ... Japan attacked US, so why are we going to go and fight a war in Europe? .... about is whether our “good friends” the Brits who needed financial and material support were more interested in restoring their empire.
I give some of this as backdrop because I used to share your view of McCarthur, but I am going to be validating my opinion with further study. He was a very political general, a media general. With the debacle in North Korea, it is fair to say that he was given ambiguous orders by the Truman administration which he interpreted as to continue the attack northward to China instead of stopping at the previous boundary between north and south. At the end of the day, the President is the boss, not the Secretary of Defense. Truman also had some issues with the 1st Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, who was not kept on after Trumans election in ‘48. Forrestal, like George Marshall (also in the Truman administration) did not endorse the creation of a Jewish state. While they both were attacked publicly by certain political groups as being anti-Semitic, their reasons were not such, but rather what was best for the US given US strategic interest with Arab nations (e.g. oil for the navy). Our “good friends” the Brits made a decision that they were leaving Palestine without caring what would happen afterwards. Truman, playing chess with the Soviets and political lobbies in the US, made the decision contrary to two well-respected cabinet members.
Today, the 2-party system has morphed into “if-the-other-side-is-for-it-then-we-are-against-it” and more recently. “if-Trump-is-for-it-we-won’t-support-it-even-if-we-used-to-support-such-ideas”. Trump is the only one who speaks about doing things for the American people, not doing things for a political party. He grew up at a time when such a mind set existed - when parties pulled together on key American beliefs.
Three strikes and you are out. MacArthur (note the 'a') got caught flatfooted and was beaten 3 times - Luzon by the Japs, the Korean invasion by the Norks, and the Korean invasion by the Chicoms.
He got promoted for the same actions that got Kimmel and Short pilloried.
McArthur lived far beyond his expiry date. His negligence in commanding his subordinates resulted in thousands of US Army troops being overwhelmed by Chinese forces that he would not admit existed. Even during the annilation of his troops, McArthur would not admit he was being defeated by a superior, overwhelmning Chinese force.
It can be argued that the total McArthur effort in World War II had no significant effect. The US Navy and the US Marines defeated the Japs until the Air Force operating out of the Marianas could bomb Japan into ashes.
“The liberals loved it when Truman fired McArthur. In hind sight, I think McArthur was correct, Korea was a stalemate, either destroy the enemy or stop the war, but Truman was the boss.”
In that case, the CiC was an idiot, who left Korea as a festering problem for 70 years for Trump to attempt to fix. My father used to say “Truman was like an automatic transmission, shiftless!”