The Problem With Trumps Admiration of General Patton

[bigtree]

Michael Kruse ‏@michaelkruse 53m53 minutes ago
Patton, @ArthurAllen202 writes for @POLITICOMag, considered Holocaust victims “locusts,” “a subhuman species.”


“He is the closest thing we have to General George Patton,” Mr Trump said at a rally in Ohio, when he revealed Gen. 'Mad Dog' Mattis’s nomination. “It’s about time.”

____ Disturbingly, Patton had zero sympathy for the Holocaust victims living in wretched, overcrowded collection camps under his command. He was unable to imagine that people living in such misery were not there because of their own flaws. The displaced Jews were “locusts,” “lower than animals,” “lost to all decency.” They were “a subhuman species without any of the cultural or social refinements of our times,” Patton wrote in his diary. A United Nations aid worker tried to explain that they were traumatized, but “personally I doubt it. I have never looked at a group of people who seem to be more lacking in intelligence and spirit.” (Patton was no friend to Arabs, either; in a 1943 letter, he called them “the mixture of all the bad races on earth.”)

The orders from above—Eisenhower wanted him to confiscate the houses of wealthy Germans so Jewish survivors could live in them—embittered Patton. His beloved Third Army was decaying as troops decamped for home, discipline vanished, and meanwhile, “the displaced sons-of-bitches in the various camps are blooming like green trees,” he wrote a friend.

He saw journalists’ criticism of his handling of the Jews and the return of Nazis to high official positions as a result of Jewish and Communist plots. The New York Times and other publications were “trying to do two things,” he wrote, “First, implement Communism, and second, see that all business men of German ancestry and non-Jewish antecedents are thrown out of their jobs.”

As reports on the conditions in Bavaria began to alarm Truman, Eisenhower came down from Frankfurt on September 17 to join Patton on a tour of the camps where Jewish refugees were housed. He was horrified to find that some of the guards were former SS men. During the tour, Patton remarked that the camps had been clean and decent before the arrival of the Jewish “DPs” (displaced persons), who were “pissing and crapping all over the place.” Eisenhower told Patton to shut up, but he continued his diatribe, telling Eisenhower he planned to make a nearby German village “a concentration camp for some of these goddam Jews.”

While Eisenhower ordered him to stop “mollycoddling Nazis,” Patton lashed out at journalists and others he viewed as enemies. “The noise against me is only the means by which the Jews and Communist are attempting and with good success to implement a further dismemberment of Germany,” he said.

read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/trump-general-patton-admiration-214545

[MountCleaners]

1. Trump fancies himself a student of history

How could this escape him? My guess he knows it, like he knows that a lot of the stuff he says is obnoxious, offensive, and incorrect. He knows his followers will accept him anyway. Only thing we can do is keep confronting him about this stuff.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Trump probably watched the movie...

although I'm not sure he has the attention span to sit through something so long.

Patton definitely had his problems, not the least of which were inflated ego and a bit of a tenuous grip on reality. He apparently believed in reincarnation and channeling great generals from the past. He had no empathy for his soldiers, and no patience for the more human emotions.

[Turbineguy]

3. He no doubt meant the Movie Patton.

Not the real one. He would have had to read a book.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Racist... with some fascist traits too.

Patton commanded an attack in 1932 on WW1 veterans over bonus pay too.

https://zinnedproject.org/materials/the-bonus-army/

While they may have fought in Europe as a segregated army, the men of the BEF did not invite Jim Crow to this battle. Arriving from all over the country, alone or with wives and children, both black and white veterans of huddled together, mostly across the Potomac River from the Capitol, in what were called “Hoovervilles,” in honor of the president who adamantly refused to hear their pleas.

The House of Representatives passed the Patman Bill for veterans’ relief on June 15, 1932, but the bill met defeat in the Senate just two days later. More vets swarmed into the nation’s capital. Shacks, tents, and lean-tos continued to spring up everywhere, and the government and newspapers decided to play the communist trump card for the umpteenth time. Despite the fact that the BEF was made up of 95 percent veterans, the entire group were labeled “Red agitators”—tantamount to declaring open season on an oppressed group of U.S. citizens. Right on cue, Hoover called out the troops. . . led by three soon-to-be textbook heroes.

Bonus Marchers face police and army, 1932. Photo from National Archives.

The commander of the operation was Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, who branded the BEF traitors bent on overthrowing the government. . . declaring, “Pacifism and its bedfellow communism are all around us.” MacArthur’s young aide was none other than Dwight D. Eisenhower, while Patton led the Third Cavalry-which spearheaded the eventual eviction of the Bonus Army. Patton shared MacArthur’s hatred of “reds” and lectured his troops on how to deal with the BEF: “If you must fire do a good job-a few casualties become martyrs, a large number an object lesson. . . . When a mob starts to move keep it on the run. . . . Use a bayonet to encourage its retreat. If they are running, a few good wounds in the buttocks will encourage them. If they resist, they must be killed.”

The three military icons got their chance on July 28, 1932 when a scuffle by the BEF and D.C. police resulted in two fatally wounded veterans. The U.S. Army assault integrated four troops of cavalry, four companies of infantry, a machine gun squadron, and six tanks. When asked by BEF leader Walter Waters if the Hoovervilles campers would be “given the opportunity to form in columns, salvage their belongings, and retreat in an orderly fashion,” MacArthur replied: “Yes, my friend, of course.” But, after marching up Pennsylvania Avenue, MacArthur’s soldiers lobbed tear gas and brandished bayonets as they set fire to some of the tents. In a flash, the whole BEF encampment was ablaze.

[Trenzalore]

5. Generals like Patton

Are the reason there is civilian control over the military.

Great general. Wouldn't be good at governing.