Winston Churchill

It was the rigth move.

Churchill understood that war is hell, and you can't fight it without some seriously hard decisions.

I think Bush has that same instinct in him.

DD

 

That's a wild story about Churchhill's decision to bomb the French fleet, I had never heard about that before.

This is an interesting article from Newsweek about the two leaders----

Franklin and Winston: An Epic Friendship

Forged in the fire of war, their friendship rescued the world. Their story—and its lessons for today. The light was fading. Late on the afternoon of Sunday, February 4, 1945, in the Crimean coastal town of Yalta, the three most powerful men in the world—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin—were meeting in a former summer house of the Russian Czars.

There were huge questions to be decided about World War II’s final act and its aftermath—questions which required American leadership—but Churchill’s circle was horrified at the 63-year-old Roosevelt’s condition. “He is very thin & his face is drawn & deeply lined & he looks weary all the time and as if he might be in bad pain,” British Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal wrote home to Pamela Churchill, then the prime minister’s daughter-in-law. “Also, his brain is obviously not what it was. Altogether he looks as if Truman might be in for a job of work...”

PORTAL HAD IT RIGHT;
though it was a closely held secret, FDR was suffering from congestive heart failure and high blood pressure. Churchill, however, could not quite contemplate life after Roosevelt. “Our friendship,” Churchill wrote the president in the early months of 1945, “is the rock on which I build for the future of the world so long as I am one of the builders.” Given the times in which they lived—an era of war, attacks on civilian populations, and ideological conflict—I believe (and my new book, “Franklin and Winston,” argues) that Roosevelt and Churchill repay close attention, for their times are like our times, and together they managed to bring order out of chaos.

http://msnbc.com/news/978286.asp

 

Good God I hope that killing 3000 allies isn't an instinct Bush has.

 

You are way off-base on Churchill.
But see what you're leaving out is that they were given four choices:

British actions at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir

http://users.bigpond.net.au/john_candy/Battle%20of%20Oran.htm

Do your research before you tar and feather the great Winston Churchill. That is simply not true that Churchill was responsible for the deaths of over 5,000 sailors. Perhaps a little over a thousand died, but it was war!

All the stupid Frogs had to do was to join the Allies, but they elected to stay on the fence and if those warships swelled the ranks of inferior Kriegsmarine or the Italians, who already possessed a large and capable fleet, the Royal Navy would have been massively outnumbered. They had to do it.

 

I'm in no position to 2nd guess either, but if there were 3000 French sailors on those boats, no matter what people think of the French, they weren't just gonna hand them over.

I was just quickly lashing out though, DaDa's thing about Bush being similar to Churchill set me off. I mean, I'm sure Bush does understand that war is hell, that's why he avoided participating in one and went AWOL from his National Guard duty. But that's in the past, youthful indescretions, yadda yadda, he's a different person now. . .

 

Ok, bama's research changes my first paragraph.

 

All right, I'm not.

 

I must agree, Those ships could have easily joined the Kriegsmarine as Vichy French colaborators--better to have them on the bottom than aiding Wolf Packs in destroying freedom ship convoys...

 

I honestly didn't know wthat this was that unknown...it is widely discussed by the British, and often used as an example of 'making the tough call'...

The comparison to Bush is idiotic, obviously. Churchill, descended as he was from one of England's greatest war hereos, and growing up in his house, spent virually his entire life studying military tactics, theory, and history. As a child his favorite pass time was replaying famous battles, particularly Blenheim, obviously. He was a decorated and celebrated war hero as a young man, and served at several levels of the military throughout most of his life, most famously as R.A. of the R.N. He saw action in several wars, was captured and famously escaped in South Africa..,There is virtually no comparison, other than for the sake of trying to cast Bush in a more positive light, for political gain. It would be hard to think of two men in public life who have walked more divergent paths.

Because Churchill made a cold hearted-decision...based as his was on a lifetime of experience, expertise, and calculation...to compare him to Bush merely because Bush seems to make decisions which are cold-hearted...it's insulting to Churchill, and shows how far up their own rectums some people are when trying to prop up thier own heroes. Many people make cold-hearted decisions, for a wide variety of reasons...most of them less valid than Churchill's, and more than Bush, in military terms. Saddam Hussein made cold-hearted decisions, and actually had more actual combat experience than Bush to back them up, although miles less than Bush.

Churchill, having been with men, seen men, known men and caused men to die in war made his decision with the gravity and realsm of the man who knows the hell he has condemmed others to. That is what makes his decision, if not right, at least valid.

Bush, having been with men, seen men, known men, and caused men to yell 'shotgun' at frat parties, made his decision that as the closest he has ever been to active duty, let alone understanding the combat deaths of thousands. That is what makes his decisions, if not wrong, atl east made in igmnorance.

Silly.

 

When I saw "Winston Churchill", I immediately thought "No Sports!"...anyway...carry on...

 

at the very beginning:

 

1. Sad? no...I enjoy the added texture of new historical information, and understanding how that threads weaves with the others ti from the tapestry of human experience...forgive the overliterization, I've been reading poetry all morning...

But, no, even people in the filed find there are things, often somewhat major things that they overlooked, or simply missed. Just last night, the new girl who is moving in here told me that told me that the neighborhood she lived in in Kyoto is famous for it's Geisha, and that businessmen come from all over to be entertained by them. I honestly thought Geisha would have gone out a long time ago, let alone that there are entire districts of them...blew my mind.

2. Yeah, I didn't really want to go off on a tangent, particularly as I hate the kind of " To even compare the United States with ________ is insulting" posts that mine had some things in common with, but the comment was so biased, so uninformed, and so completely obvious in it's intent that it really got to me. The entire point about Churchill's decision was that it was informed by his life experience...otherwise making that kind of decision is easy, it's men you will never know, and an experience that means nothing, in a real sense, to you. That is why peole in the military have to go through personal experience to rise to the level of making decisions like that; except the President, or if you are some sort of monarch. But even the vast majority of monarchs, saving women, have seen a lot more combat experience than Bush ever has. To me, going into the election wherein I supported him, that was his among his, if not his most prominent glaring weakness; his lack of experience, and in fact, poor record, when it came to personal experience in areas he would soom be making decisions...and then for a supporter of his to compare him to a repeated war hero who got a country through hell...wow. Still pisses me off.

 

Wow, so much venom.

I was only trying to compare Bush's ability to do what he thinks is right regardless of the consequences to Churchills similar makeup.

I hardly think they are equal in terms of leadership, though you do know that before Churchill took office he was marginalized and thought of as a far right wing nutcase.

And then history proved otherwise.....I guess we will have to afford Bush the same luxury.

See how history records this great play to stabilize the middle east. Will it work? Will it last? Was it a mistake?

Only time will tell.

MacBeth....get off your high horse.....your opinions are no more important than anyone elses...they are just opinions.

And if you don't like what someone else says, refute it, but please have the decency to not call names etc.....

I would think that you would be above that......I guess not....

As for the rectum comment....that was pretty low dude.....and hardly appropriate.

DD

 

1) I explained how inappropriate the comparison was, in terms of qualification for making tought choices which involves the lives of others, both in my origian post, and in my follqo up to Max.

2) Churchill was not marginalized as a right-wing anything. In fact, his constant vascilation between England's version of right and left wing political parties had him labelled as a political opportunist more than anything else. That was the underlying suspicion of what was thought to be his constant harping on about Germany; not that he was right wing, but that he was only doing it for his own sake...a famous quote about Churchill at the time was that he would make a drum of his own mother's skin so long as he could beat it for himself. It had nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative, sorry to dissapoint you. Neither side trusted him. He was seen as a howk, based on his military background, but unlike here haws are not necessarily identified with conservatism in England.

3) That luxery would excuse anything, then. Anything. By that reasoning any leader should be allowed to do anything, and wait for posterity's judgement.

4) Oh, please...my high horse? This is the first time I have gotten ticked off enough to make a post with vague similarities to the " To even compare..." yadda yadda that you guys make all the time. And mine was based on a specific qualification, not that the idea that the US has something in common with the USSR is offensive. ANd my opinions may not matter more than anyone else's, true, but my graps of historical fact, in this area, at least, is somewhat obviously more informed than yours.

5) I didn't call anyone a name. I made a physiological analogy whose meaning...not that the person IS something but that the person is DOING something...and that is done in here all the time.

 

Dude,

You made an inference, and basically made some rude comments, if you are not man enough to own up to them, fine.

Be that way......I find your tone as arrogant and nonssensical as Trader Jorge is at times.

What qualifies you to know anything more about history than anyone else on this BBS?

What? Exactly?

Ever live in England? Ever study there? No? Well, guess what....I have.....and was taught that Churchill was on his way out until the country got into a crisis when Neville Chamberlain made a deal with Hitler.

Of course, that would be ok with you, as you are all in favor of trying to overanalyze stuff and shoe horn it into some obscure military history to make yourself feel important.

The fact is that George had the courage to act, whereas people like you would sit back on the sidelines and whine about all the horror in the world and not have the sack to do anything about it.

DD

 

Do you honestly not know the answer to this? Not more than anyone else, but more than most.


And Churchill wasn't on his way out...he was out...Gallipoli...doesn't that ring a bell?