"As a kid in NYC I was taught we didn't start wars, we just finished them."
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Cheney and Bush were NEVER kids in NYC and therefore didn't learn that lesson.
As for MacArthur's walk onto the beach in the Philippines, you do know that it was a 'photo-opt' don't you? After all, if it wasn't, how then did all those really high-quailty photos get taken in what was purported to have been a 'combat zone'? I suspect that he was already contemplating a possible future political career.
After all, a good 'photo-opt' helped another WWII general make it big:
