I was a good general and a great traitor.
Benedict Arnold
As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
What passes for enjoyment for me in numerous instances is reading things to see how people's minds work. Awhile back the National Interest published the list of the five worst generals in US history.
NI was what Richard Nixon founded, but was overthrown, and now is a peckish lot of watered down things that Dick Nixon would not want his name associated with.
The writer Michael Peck, provided his list of bad US Generals.
Horatio Gates
George McClellan
Lloyd Frendendall
Douglas MacArthur
Tommy Franks
In reviewing the above list, General Gates in the Revolutionary War was not that incompetent. Like McClellan he was very adept at organizing and building an army. If not for Gates the Continentals would not have stood.
His placement at the Northern Front was sound. He was a defensive general and was not the victor that Benedict Arnold was at Saratoga. He inherited Carolina, and lost there, but would return to join Washington's staff.
George McClellan was not a bad general. He was an American who was for States Rights, and hoped for a peaceful end and not Lincoln's War of genocide. He was not spectacular, but where he commanded as at Antietam, he stopped the Confederates in hard fighting. His non pursuit was the practice of many State's Rights Generals who did not agree with the Lincoln War.
Lloyd Frendenhdall, lost to the Germans in Africa, but then allot of people did. He did not command well, but he built good bunkers. He comes close to being on the bad generals list, but he was in one battle, outgunned by Germans and Americans liked him, gave him command of II Corps and returned a hero.
Calling Douglas MacArthuer a bad general is like calling Jesus a bad Son of God. MacArthur pushed the Korean War to get China involved, as he wanted to nuke the communists. Truman was soft and MacArthur proved right.
Tommy Franks, he won the war. It is not his problem that the peace was lost by inept politicians.
The Five Worst Generals in US history is summed up below. You could probably include about all of the boobs that Abraham Lincoln appointed from Joe Hooker, Burnside and whatever, until he got to the butcher Ulysses Grant, but for this purpose, the following list are the worst.
General Winfield S. Hancock
General Rathvon M. Tompkins
General William W. Momyer
General Creighton Abrams
General Stanley McChrystal
Winfield Hancock commanded the Plains Indian Wars to the point the Indians were winning. He taught them how to fight against American tactics, and finally was removed by General Sheridan, where the best Plains General Scout appeared, George S. Custer.
Rathyou Tomkins, sounds like a real killer, but this Marine build the Marines who fought in Vietnam to disaster. The tactics were bad, the infantry was good, but his pilots could not hit anything. His bad management brought about the big firefights in not running operations to disrupt the enemy.
William Momover, Air Force. His failure was the reality of never keeping experienced pilots in Vietnam, and rotating them out and not passing on successful tactics, to his worthless missiles he kept deploying which would not shoot anything down.
Creighton Abrams, where Westmoreland failed in Vietnam, Abrams expanded the failure to defeat.
Stanley McChrystal, he lost Afghanstan as the Obama fix it man.
So you can see by being informed, the list of failures which were listed in National Interest, are trumped by the list above of real losers, who actually lost wars, not battles.
We have quite a number of fools who are setting up the United States to epic defeat in the next major war.
That is why I enjoy observing how other people's minds work.
Nuff Said
agtG
