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

[Vordeo]

Everyone sucks, get over it.

Thread should've ended on the first page, really.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Sigh. We have already had discussions on this issue and in spite of what you believe, it just simply is not true.

I'm going to go with the opinions of the majority of senior US military leaders at the time, instead of the civilian politicians who were trying to rationalize their war crimes.

 

[Communisto]

Cool dude, you keep saying that. It wont change the fact that the Japanese military governance almost unilaterally rejected the Potsdam Declaration or that "senior us military leaders" were mistaken. Or the fact that the Japanese were told of the impending nuclear attack (they had their own nuclear programs at the time as well, they knew what an atomic bomb was) and still refused to surrender. And then there was the whole attempted military coup in August '45 to stop the surrender, even after being accepted by the Emperor....

But, you shouldnt have even brought it up here. If youre game, we can start a thread in the history forum.

 

[Formaldehyde]

There have already been numerous threads on this very topic where I provided ample evidence to support my opinions. If you happen to personally disagree with them as well as me, oh well.

And I certainly didn't bring it up in this particular context:

Sometimes it is the lesser of two evils. We do not live in an ideal world, so we do have to take tough decisions that under normal situations are wrong, but if you don't make those decisions, an even worse one is made. A case in point is the nuclear bombings of Japan. Those acts are terrible, but the option of not dropping the bombs was an even worse decision to be made. Japan only surrendered one they knew they could be defeated without causing any casualties to their enemy.

Perhaps you should read the thread before making such false accusations.

 

[Communisto]

Well, if youre not going to discuss it, then as I said, dont bring it up.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I have discussed it numerous times in the past, not that it usually changes the minds of those who are already convinced of what must have happened.

I am merely disagreeing with someone else who actually brought it up first. If you don't like it because it happens to disagree with your own personal opinion as well, too bad.

 

[Communisto]

I am merely disagreeing with someone else who actually brought it up first. If you don't like it because it happens to disagree with your own personal opinion as well, too bad.

Huh, so youre allowed to disagree with people but people arent allowed to disagree with you?

Since when are you the all powerful arbiter of debate on CFC?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Did I claim you couldn't disagree with me, while you are the one who is actually trying to censor what I post in this thread?

 

[Communisto]

Im not trying to censor anything, im trying to debate a point that you brought up, you know, like you did to classical_hero? At least he had the decency to counter your point like an adult instead of saying "you disagree with me? Oh well"

Like I said, if you werent willing to defend your accusations properly then you shouldnt have brought it up. You dont get to start a discussion and then say "too bad" when people counter you. Meh, whatever. No more of this.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You seem to be trying to do no such thing. And instead of simply repeating the same arguments over and over again, I'll refer you to two other threads where this exact topic was discussed in detail. But there have been even more such threads where I presented exactly the same facts to support my own opinion:


Japan, or how they stopped worrying and love the bomb

Ex-IRA Supporter To Lead McCarthy Witchhunt Against Seditious Muslim-Americans

After all, why should we both simply repeat all the same arguments we made last time on this very topic?

 

[Patroklos]

If any of you were born in 19th century Britain, there is a 99% chance you would have wanted Gandi dead too. There isn't a single historical leader past 50 years ago that doesn't have something in his history our sensibilities would balk at. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been leaders of their contemporaries in the first place.

Don't get too high and mighty from your 21st century vantage point.

 

[Hornblower]

If any of you were born in 19th century Britain, there is a 99% chance you would have wanted Gandi dead too. There isn't a single historical leader past 50 years ago that doesn't have something in his history our sensibilities would balk at. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been leaders of their contemporaries in the first place.

Don't get too high and mighty from your 21st century vantage point.

Yeah. What he said!

 

[warpus]

Being from the 23rd century I find all your viewpoints hilarious.

 

[Hornblower]

Being from the 23rd century I find all your viewpoints hilarious.

What do they think of Winston in the 23rd Century? Have they cloned and rebirthed him so that he can run the war to crush the secessionist dissenters in the 12 colonies?

 

[lordsurya08]

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.

Only because Churchill wasn't as stupid as Hitler. Do you have any idea how much money, time, and manpower the Holocaust cost? Churchill never would have gone for that - but he had the desire to do so. At one point, for example, he seriously considered gassing the Kurds. And of course, he starved the Bengals in India because he could.

 

[lordsurya08]

If any of you were born in 19th century Britain, there is a 99% chance you would have wanted Gandi dead too. There isn't a single historical leader past 50 years ago that doesn't have something in his history our sensibilities would balk at. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been leaders of their contemporaries in the first place.

Don't get too high and mighty from your 21st century vantage point.

So just because everyone says it's OK, murder is OK?

Don't get me wrong, Churchill knew very well who had the moral high ground. Unlike Hitler, who was convinced that he was doing a moral thing, Churchill knew that murder is murder. But he did it anyway, because he was evil and had no morals.

And yes, 99% of Englishmen believed that Gandhi should be dead. And that makes them, morally speaking, wrong. The Aztecs believed that it was right to capture POWs and remove their hearts as "sacrifice". Does public support of that ritual make it morally correct?

Morals are not relative. They are absolute.

 

[Flying Pig]

Don't get me wrong, Churchill knew very well who had the moral high ground. Unlike Hitler, who was convinced that he was doing a moral thing, Churchill knew that murder is murder. But he did it anyway, because he was evil and had no morals.

Now THAT is quite a statement. Murder? Where?

Morals are not relative. They are absolute.

So where do morals come from?

And yes, 99% of Englishmen believed that Gandhi should be dead. And that makes them, morally speaking, wrong. The Aztecs believed that it was right to capture POWs and remove their hearts as "sacrifice". Does public support of that ritual make it morally correct?

It does mean that we can't morally condemn them for not following someone else's moral system well enough.

 

[Communisto]

Now THAT is quite a statement. Murder? Where?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

How do you even come close to rationalizing something like that?

In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India Achibald Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of that time responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn’t died yet."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943#cite_note-Ghose1993-21

 

[HannibalBarka]

So just because everyone says it's OK, murder is OK?

Don't get me wrong, Churchill knew very well who had the moral high ground. Unlike Hitler, who was convinced that he was doing a moral thing, Churchill knew that murder is murder. But he did it anyway, because he was evil and had no morals.

And yes, 99% of Englishmen believed that Gandhi should be dead. And that makes them, morally speaking, wrong. The Aztecs believed that it was right to capture POWs and remove their hearts as "sacrifice". Does public support of that ritual make it morally correct?

Morals are not relative. They are absolute.

Churchil thought that murdering Gandhi was OK not for the sake of seeing an indian dead, but because he saw him as a threat against the safety and glory of the British Empire, like when the US killed ObL (it's not for the sake of killing a saudi, but because killing him was "good" for the safety of the US). Churchil had no desire to kill Gandhi's son or daughter as the US has no desire to kill Osama's baby cousins. Hitler however not only did he kill adult jews (he may saw them as a "threat" to the 3rd Reich), but he also killed the kids, womens and the elderly, he killed even the jews who were proud to be Germain !!!!!! I just can't understand how that is "morally" better !!!!

 

[Communisto]

Please dont compare Gandhi to OBL. All enemies of all states are not created equal. By your logic, since Jews were enemies of the Nazi state, every dead undesirable made Hitler just like Obama.