On Sep 5, 6:40 pm, Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
On Sep 5, 4:07 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote :
Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Is there anyone left that still thinks any part of this was a good
idea?
Nope; it is never a good idea to quote the "late Prof. Revilo
Oliver" and expect anyone on Usenet to "overlook the political
specifics."
:-)
Very true,
I did mean di anyone think the invasion if Iraq was a good idea at
this juncture?
I knew what you meant - sorry, was just playing games with your post.
All I remember is that when the Iraq invasion was started I thought
our military would have no problem winning (but worried a great deal
about a good friend who was serving in the military at the time) - but
I had this gut feel that what was planned to happen afterword was
clear as mud.
I believed they'd find WMD. My thinking was: "No way would this
administration launch a war without absolute certainty they would turn
up WMD. I mean really - if they didn't they'd be absolute toast,
finished, and kaput politically."
But no WMD were found and yet they weren't fried politically. There's
a lesson in there somewhere.
I suppose it's "make your lie big enough and popular enough and it won't
matter"
I too thought they'd find weapons of mass destruction, but even if they
found chemical weapons, it'd be in a fine old traditon. Winston
Churchill authorised thier use in Iraq in the thirties.
His rationale? (i'm too lazy to look it up so I'll paraphrase) It#s not
like we're gassing people who matter.....
actually, IIRC what he actually said is evn more shocking.
IIRC he advocated using mustard gas against 'savages' in Africa.
His rationale was that it was less lethal, but caused more suffering
than other weapons so that the population could be subjugated
with fewer casualties. Dunno about WMD elsewhere in the world.
I'm not inclined to defend his argument.
Hw could anyone? Well, Winnie excepted. The man was an absolute
****heel, and by today´s standards would be in the dock in the
Hague..
anyhow, here´s the document I mentioned in it's entirety. In the
second half, the uncivilised tribes part, he´s talking about the Kurds
Enjoy.
Winston Churchill's Secret Poison Gas Memo
[stamp] PRIME MINISTER'S PERSONAL MINUTE
[stamp, pen] Serial No. D. 217/4
[Seal of Prime Minister]
10 Downing Street, Whitehall [gothic script]
GENERAL ISMAY FOR C.O.S. COMMITTEE [underlined]
1. I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison
gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it
was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a
year.
2. It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody
used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists
or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open
cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of
course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does
between long and short skirts for women.
3. I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay us
to use poison gas, by which I mean principally mustard. We will want
to gain more ground in Normandy so as not to be cooped up in a small
area. We could probably deliver 20 tons to their 1 and for the sake of
the 1 they would bring their bomber aircraft into the area against our
superiority, thus paying a heavy toll.
4. Why have the Germans not used it? Not certainly out of moral
scruples or affection for us. They have not used it because it does
not pay them. The greatest temptation ever offered to them was the
beaches of Normandy. This they could have drenched with gas greatly to
the hindrance of the troops. That they thought about it is certain and
that they prepared against our use of gas is also certain. But they
only reason they have not used it against us is that they fear the
retaliation. What is to their detriment is to our advantage.
5. Although one sees how unpleasant it is to receive poison gas
attacks, from which nearly everyone recovers, it is useless to protest
that an equal amount of H. E. will not inflict greater casualties and
sufferings on troops and civilians. One really must not be bound
within silly conventions of the mind whether they be those that ruled
in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this.
6. If the bombardment of London became a serious nuisance and great
rockets with far-reaching and devastating effect fell on many centres
of Government and labour, I should be prepared to do [underline]
anything [stop underline] that would hit the enemy in a murderous
place. I may certainly have to ask you to support me in using poison
gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in
Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring
constant medical attention. We could stop all work at the flying bomb
starting points. I do not see why we should have the disadvantages of
being the gentleman while they have all the advantages of being the
cad. There are times when this may be so but not now.
7. I quite agree that it may be several weeks or even months before
I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it,
let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meanwhile, I want the matter
studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that particular
set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now
here now there. Pray address yourself to this. It is a big thing and
can only be discarded for a big reason. I shall of course have to
square Uncle Joe and the President; but you need not bring this into
your calculations at the present time. Just try to find out what it is
like on its merits.
[signed] Winston Churchill [initials]
6.7.44 [underlined]
Source: photographic copy of original 4 page memo, in Guenther W.
Gellermann, "Der Krieg, der nicht stattfand", Bernard & Graefe Verlag,
1986, pp. 249-251
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winston S. Churchill: departmental minute (Churchill papers: 16/16) 12
May 1919 War Office
I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have
definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in
favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is
sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a
bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of
lachrymatory gas.
I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised
tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life
should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the
most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience
and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious
permanent effects on most of those affected.
from Companion Volume 4, Part 1 of the official biography, WINSTON S.
CHURCHILL, by Martin Gilbert (London: Heinemann, 1976)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henry Gonzalez, US Congressman, referred to this in the House of
Representatives on March 24, 1992:
"But there again, where is the moral right? The first one to use gas
against Arabs was Winston Churchill, the British, in the early 1920's.
They were Iraq Arabs they used them against."
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/cong...2/h920324g.htm
"Moral right" is of course the reason this piece of history has now
been dredged up again - by people who see contradictions in the pious
arguments of Messrs. Bush, Blair et al. And this seems only fair. In
1998 Clinton denounced opponents to his planned attack on Iraq for
"not remembering the past".
I remain unconvinced that the UK used chemical weapons in the middle east in the 1920s.... but I'm open to correction.
Not easy. And if you'd rather not...
Churchill thought of it as poison gas - and so, apparently did
everyone else. The idea of using it was his alone. And he is also is
also to have given the authorization to the RAF. He wanted gas to be
used in addition to regular bombing: "against recalcitrant Arabs as
experiment". According to Simons, gas was not dispensed in bombs.
The intention was to quell a growing rebellion in remote villages. He
met with objections but maintained that "we cannot in any
circumstances acquiesce in the non-utilisation of any weapons which
are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which
prevails on the frontier".
It seems Churchill wanted to cause "disablement", "discomfort or
illness, but not death".
In any case, to Churchill this was not a moral issue. Here is part of
a memo, so you can see it through his eyes. He wrote this during WWII,
when he contemplated using poison gas, but never did:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts below by
www.informationwar.org
BACKGROUND: In 1917, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the
British occupied Iraq and established a colonial government. The Arab
and Kurdish people of Iraq resisted the British occupation, and by
1920 this had developed into a full scale national revolt, which cost
the British dearly. As the Iraqi resistance gained strength, the
British resorted to increasingly repressive measures, including the
use of posion gas.] NB: Because of formatting problems, quotation
marks will appear as stars * All quotes in the excerpt are properly
footnoted in the original book, with full references to British
archives and papers. Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff.
*IRAQ: FROM SUMER TO SUDAN*. London: St. Martins Press, 1994:
Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, was sensitive to the
cost of policing the Empire; and was in consequence keen to exploit
the potential of modern technology. This strategy had particular
relevance to operations in Iraq. On 19 February, 1920, before the
start of the Arab uprising, Churchill (then Secretary for War and Air)
wrote to Sir Hugh Trenchard, the pioneer of air warfare. Would it be
possible for Trenchard to take control of Iraq? This would entail *the
provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause
disablement of some kind but not death...for use in preliminary
operations against turbulent tribes.*
Churchill was in no doubt that gas could be profitably employed
against the Kurds and Iraqis (as well as against other peoples in the
Empire): *I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas.
I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised
tribes.* Henry Wilson shared Churchills enthusiasm for gas as an
instrument of colonial control but the British cabinet was reluctant
to sanction the use of a weapon that had caused such misery and
revulsion in the First World War. Churchill himself was keen to argue
that gas, fired from ground-based guns or dropped from aircraft, would
cause *only discomfort or illness, but not death* to dissident
tribespeople; but his optimistic view of the effects of gas were
mistaken. It was likely that the suggested gas would permanently
damage eyesight and *kill children and sickly persons, more especially
as the people against whom we intend to use it have no medical
knowledge with which to supply antidotes.*
Churchill remained unimpressed by such considerations, arguing
that the use of gas, a *scientific expedient,* should not be prevented
*by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly*. In the event,
gas was used against the Iraqi rebels with excellent moral effect*
though gas shells were not dropped from aircraft because of practical
difficulties [.....]
Today in 1993 there are still Iraqis and Kurds who remember being
bombed and machine-gunned by the RAF in the 1920s. A Kurd from the
Korak mountains commented, seventy years after the event: *They were
bombing here in the Kaniya Khoran...Sometimes they raided three times
a day.* Wing Commander Lewis, then of 30 Squadron (RAF), Iraq, recalls
how quite often *one would get a signal that a certain Kurdish village
would have to be bombed...*, the RAF pilots being ordered to bomb any
Kurd who looked hostile. In the same vein, Squadron-Leader Kendal of
30 Squadron recalls that if the tribespeople were doing something they
ought not be doing then you shot them.*
Similarly, Wing-Commander Gale, also of 30 Squadron: *If the
Kurds hadn't learned by our example to behave themselves in a
civilised way then we had to spank their bottoms. This was done by
bombs and guns.
Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of
wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasise that *The Arab and
Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage.
Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically
wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.* It was
an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they
had no means of defence or retalitation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also
useful laboratories for new weapons; devices specifically developed by
the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages. The ministry drew up
a list of possible weapons, some of them the forerunners of napalm and
air-to-ground missiles:
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock]
man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these
weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. *Iraq: From Sumer to
Saddam*.
London: St. Martins Press, 1994.