The Dark Side of Winston Churchill (that you've never been told)

[HannibalBarka]

Find me one unequivocally, perfectly innocent person in this world, and maybe I'll tell you.

my one and a half year boy does qualify, doesn't he?

 

[Theige]

Yes, years before.

Racism and bigotry typically doesn't spring up overnight. The hatred and vilification of Asians had been building up ever since they reached the shores of the US. It reached a crescendo with the attack on Pearl Harbor, just as 9/11 triggered so much inherent racism and bigotry towards darker skinned Muslims.

And once again:

So you have a major US military officer advocating ethnic cleansing and possibly even genocide merely because the US government finally pressured Japan enough to attack.

And Great Britain had already interned those of German heritage without any Niihau incident.

It was really old-fashioned racism and bigotry which primarily caused the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII. The incident on Niihau was just another excuse to do so. After all, you can't very well condemn 110,000 loyal Japanese-Americans based on the acts of a Japanese national and 2 Japanese-Americans who were actually fighting against a much larger group of other quite loyal Japanese-Americans. That would be like condemning 1.6 billion Muslims based on the acts of 19 terrorists.

None of the things you listed pre-war were part of the "decision making process" to intern Japanese-Americans.

None of the 19 terrorists were born in the U.S., let alone American citizens, and there was no perceived threat of imminent invasion by a Muslim army capable of conquering half of the continental United States.

Advocating ethnic cleansing and genocide? lol wat?

And the rest of the group on Nihau was native Hawaiians. None of them were Japanese-Americans. The 3 that aided the downed Japanese pilot were the only 3 Japanese people on the island, out of over 100.

People may have been racist towards Japanese-Americans, but there wasn't any strong support for internment till this incident.

 

[NickyJ]

Everyone sucks, get over it.

We have a winner!

 

[Flying Pig]

Tell me something, is there anything in the world that is worth the lives of 10+ million innocent people?

If we're still on the atomic bombs, then bear in mind that the invasion of Japan was forecast to cost quarter of a million allied dead, many times that number of Japanese soldiers killed and many times that Japanese civilians killed. Taking that into account, ten million doesn't seem all that bad as a purely numerical trade-off.

 

[Communisto]

I find it hilarious how you Britons never apply the "dont judge racist warmongers by modern morality" concept to say... Adolf Hitler.

As I understand it there was no way Germany or Italy were a serious threat to the USA: definitely not the case for Japan which came very close to causing some serious trouble

Well, they were no threat to us here either but we rounded them (Italians and Germans) up in Canada anyways because THATS HOW WE ROLL.

Though to be fair, nothing not-evil has ever come out of New Brunswick.

 

[Flying Pig]

I find it hilarious how you Britons never apply the "dont judge racist warmongers by modern morality" concept to say... Adolf Hitler.

Hitler's views weren't considered moral at the time, Churchill's were. That's the difference.

 

[Formaldehyde]

None of the things you listed pre-war were part of the "decision making process" to intern Japanese-Americans.

Of course they were! Why do you think they were included in the internment article?

People may have been racist towards Japanese-Americans, but there wasn't any strong support for internment till this incident.

It occurred the very first day of the war! Of course there was no "strong support" for interment before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. But the government was certainly ready to intern them long before. Why do you think they had already collected all the names?

Niihau was a minor incident compared to the overt racism and bigotry that erupted against Japanese and Japanese-Americans after the attack. It was quite similar to the reaction against Muslims after 9/11, but even more so because they could hate and vilify an entire nation and all its residents.

Just look how much attention Niihau gets in the main wiki article about the internment! One sentence! I don't know where you got the impression this was such a major incident, must less the primary reason why Japanese-Americans were interned.

Even in the main wiki article about the Niihai Incident, the speculation which you think is so important is under the bold headline: Possible repercussions!

Novelist William Hallstead argues that the Ni‘ihau incident had an influence on decisions leading to the Japanese American internment.

A novelist thinks it had an influence! It did! A minor one! it was a talking point of at least some racists to try to rationalize their fear and hatred of hundreds of thousands of quite loyal Japanese-Americans ever since Pearl Harbor. It was the attack itself which polarized the nation against the Japanese and made them even hate Japanese-Americans enough to intern them, not the acts of 3 individuals to help one downed pilot. Most people didn't even know about it at the time and they still don't.

 

[GhostWriter16]

This is the exact same thinking terrorists use to justify their actions.

Well, is war wrong inherently? Was it wrong to be involved in World War II?

If your answer is yes, you are a total pacifist, since we were attacked first.

If your answer is "No" than you have to fight. At that point, it comes down to, what is sound war strategy? If we had invaded, more lives would have been lost. And besides, we dropped leaflets and warnings. Japan did not surrender. It was justified.

 

[Communisto]

Hitler's views weren't considered moral at the time,

In allied countries. And even then, it was more the immediate threat of war against themselves. It had already been proven that they didnt really care when it happened to non-white nations.

 

[GinandTonic]

my one and a half year boy does qualify, doesn't he?

God let us hope so.

 

[civplayah]

I knew there was a reason I didn't like Winston Churchill. I never have liked him.

 

[Dachs]

Hitler's views weren't considered moral at the time, Churchill's were. That's the difference.

No, they weren't.

 

[Flying Pig]

No, they weren't.

Er, could you expand on that? I mean, we don't generally elect people believed to be dishonourable into public office.

 

[Dachs]

Er, could you expand on that? I mean, we don't generally elect people believed to be dishonourable into public office.

That implies an awfully rosy view of the electorate. Regardless, the fact that the views were held did not make them universal, or majoritarian.

 

[Flying Pig]

That implies an awfully rosy view of the electorate.

I didn't say we can't be tricked - we voted in Tony B Liar, I mean!

Regardless, the fact that the views were held did not make them universal, or majoritarian.

No, but I think it is a fair comment that Churchill couldn't claim to 'know' that his views were 'wrong' by asking around. Hitler could; people just went along with his ideological views as a trade-off for the prosperity he brought, as well as the fact that they did touch something of a chord with the general public's much less intense views against the Jews.

 

[Dachs]

No, but I think it is a fair comment that Churchill couldn't claim to 'know' that his views were 'wrong' by asking around.

I don't.

Hitler could; people just went along with his ideological views as a trade-off for the prosperity he brought, as well as the fact that they did touch something of a chord with the general public's much less intense views against the Jews.

Leaving the mischaracterization of the prevalence of antisemitism in Germany aside, you could say the exact same thing about Churchill; people just went along with his ideological views as a trade-off for the victories he brought. (Oh wow I just explained the 1945 general election. Go me.)

 

[Tee Kay]

Er, could you expand on that? I mean, we don't generally elect people believed to be dishonourable into public office.

Actually, for his first term Churchill was appointed.

 

[Quackers]

Like every PM is, you vote for an MP and the party decides the Shadow PM or PM.

 

[classical_hero]

How does the cold-blooded and unnecessary murder of over 10 million innocent people (one's own people, not the enemies') classify as the 'lesser of two evils'? What can be worst than that?

Where did this come from? It certainly is not from the discussions in this thread.

Japan "only" surrendered after having two completely unnecessary atomic bombs dropped on heavy civilian population centers. But they would have surrendered anyway with no invasion whatsoever, at least if you believe the opinions of most of the top US military at the time instead of those who were trying to rationalize these despicable acts.

This is actually a perfect example of why the ends never justify the means in a free and open society.

Sigh. We have already had discussions on this issue and in spite of what you believe, it just simply is not true. The Japanese would not have surrendered without a full scale invasion, so the dropping of the bombs showed there destruction could happen to them without any defeat to them, in act before the A bombs were dropped the allies were fire bombing cities of Japan into submission and yet there was no surrender by the Japanese. Also the cities were important military cities, which is why they were targeted and they were minor cities as far as population were concerned, so they choose their targets to cause great fear, but also to limit the civilian death to smaller than if they had attacked a larger city, in fact the fire bombing caused more deaths than the two bombs. It is only after the bombing they signed a declaration that had been brought to them in July. So the Japanese had chances before the bombing to stop the war, but they chose not to.

 

[HannibalBarka]

Hitler's views weren't considered moral at the time, Churchill's were. That's the difference.

I am not really so sure to be honest. Hitler's view on Jews, gay, gypsies etc were common back than and not only in Germany. Common in the sense that a very large minority, when not a majority, did share his views. Churchil views were as "common". But both views were also already considered immoral by many. What Hitler did, and what he thought, was the immoral thing: gasing the Jews just for the sake of it, the Holocaust was considered immoral back than, and that's what makes Hitler uncomparably more immoral than Churchil. Churchil would have been as bad if he for example did order the mass murder of Indians, Boers or Irish civilians just for the sake of killing them. He did not do that.