Currently reading Persepolis Rising book seven of The Expanse. The following caught my attention,
“she’s saying we should kill them. Only she’s phrasing it so it sounds like it’s just the natural consequence of their choices and not also ours.”
“I’m working for a bureaucratic system that’s willing to kill people as a matter of policy. I don’t feel like I’m enforcing rules, I feel like an executioner”
These blurbs bothered me as recently I had also recently read a Nick Kristof piece,
“We need a Churchill to lead our nation against a deadly challenge; instead, we have a president who helps an enemy virus infiltrate our churches and homes.”
and “dove too deep into the internet” as a buddy would say by reading the comments section too. An initial comment correctly noted that perhaps Churchill shouldn’t be an example of a leader we should wistfully reminisce about having instead of Trump. A Churchill would be much preferred to Trump but we could admire and emulate far better than Winston with regards to our current plights. We could even choose from the living for a more ideal leader model with one who has conquered Sars-Cov-2 and has dealt with sectarian and racial tensions including gun violence reasonably well by looking to another of the FVEYs. Churchill, while correctly seeing Hitler for what he was, for correctly understanding the threat of Stalin, and proving a studious and profligate author, though he was himself a butcher from the South Asia subcontinent and not a great strategic mastermind when considering Gallipoli. Here’s the comment thread that bothered me:
Commenter A:
“Not sure Churchill is the leader of choice when dumping Trump’s lack of initiative and refusal to accept problems considering his role in the Asian subcontinent and our recent awakenings with BLM pointing to criminal racial institutions like Britain in India. Further, choosing Winston is an allusion to Chamberlain apparently not recognizing the threat though it was under Chamberlain, despite his being recipient of the appeasement label, under whom the RAF rapidly modernized and expanded and the RAF saved Britain. Perhaps instead we need more of a Kennedy “ask what you can do for your country” type leader who recognized hard truths and led counter to “conventional” wisdom.”
So far so good but being deep in the internet look at the denizen retort:
Commenter B:
“Churchill’s place in history as a great leader and the saviour of Britain is assured. As to imperialism, although peoples from the old colonies will never admit it, in the long run their countries were better off for Britain’s involvement. They were hardly idyllic societies before the British arrived. Compare them now to third world countries that weren’t colonised. Finally the idea that BLM should be a political or philosophical touchstone for others is frankly ridiculous. Where is their introspection? What about the massive level of black on black crime that warrants absolutely no mention on their part?”
Wow. Just wow. You’d think technology and ideas wouldn’t have flowed - they always do and did previously the other way - while glossing over the theft, pillaging, mass torture and death.
Commenter A:
“India was better off nor the benefits of Britain? Are you kidding me? The people starved in multiple famines while the Brits were hoarding wheat grown from Indian labor on Indian lands because the Brits claimed it was their “private property” and their “ownership rights” trumped the masses. The Indians starved by the hundreds of thousands on multiple occasions because the Brits bought into a racially charged Malthusian mindset. They most certainly were not better off. One of those starvation periods came in 1943 completely because of Churchill withholding food despite neither Britain nor the war effort needing it.”
Yes, India was better off through mass starvation in which Churchill put blood on his hands for failure to act. Let us compare what happens when a parent leaves an infant or toddler in a car. Or leaves a gun unlocked such that the kids play with it. The parent didn’t actually take direct lethal action but the parent is guilty of negligent homicide. The same is true for “leaders” acting as had Churchill and has Trump. Direct murder also applies for Churchill who bragged of shooting “savages” in Sudan and complained leadership powers wouldn’t gas civil populations in Afghanistan.
Commenter A:
““On 3 September, 1939, there were some 400 Spitfires already in service, and over 2,000 on order. A very different state of affairs from a year earlier.”
“By September 1938 – the time of the Munich Crisis – five R.A.F. squadrons had received Hurricane fighters. Deliveries of the Spitfire were only just starting. Perhaps it was as well for our future that the war did not break out then, instead of 1939 – from the point of view of Britain’s air power, the extra respite given by Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich was vital. The intervening year enabled the Royal Air Force to double the Fighter Command strength. From the total of nearly 500 Hurricanes actually delivered to squadrons and to the reserve, about three-quarters had been built in that vital year. When war started on 3 September 1939, eighteen squadrons of R.A.F. Fighter Command were equipped with Hurricanes.”
Fight for the Sky - Douglas Bader”
That’s interesting. We see here that the RAF grew during the time of “appeasement” (and rearmament) and we know that the RAF saved Britain. Hence one could conclude Chamberlain not Churchill saved Britain. This could further be supported by radar’s infancy and criticality to British early warning developed in this time as well as increased naval acquisition so as to be able to defend the homeland as well as stick it to Italy. One could argue Chamberlain blocked himself into needing time to rearm by in the early thirties not having rearmed though that was more due to “belt tightening” fallacies regarding depression macro economics and not yet having accepted Keynes while having an appeasement attitude recognizing the harms of Versailles in the mid thirties but for the given 37-39 timeframe this was correctly modified to appease and rearm with appease being code for delay to grow. For doubters, realize Germany had fewer tanks and troops relative to France and Britain yet smashed western Europe in 1939. Why? Because they had already adapted their tactics and doctrine to the improved technologies. France and Britain tried to fight statically; Germany was dynamic and integrated. Had war started in 1938 as Churchill wanted, Britain would have been trounced. “Peace in our time” is seen as mollifying and misleading the populace but it could be interpreted as an action of diplomatic stalling much like NFL time outs used in two minute drives.
Back to the lunacy too deep in the internet, my friend “Tugboat” would say I should simply back away.
Commenter A:
“Correct my typo: nor = for
Just to be clear, this isn’t ant-property or some endorsement of socialism (though there is a balance of appropriate level of socialism and capitalism and capitalists have and should be held accountable to social responsibilities and made to pay for the social risks and costs they impose on others). The Brits didn’t own anything in the subcontinent because what they claimed they owned, they stole. Stolen property isn’t owned by the thief and isn’t owned by whomever the thief sold it to. As to your notion of in the long run, places became better off, I believe you mean places literally not people as often people were displaced or eliminated. See Americas and Australia. Churchill was a mass murderer of brown people in the same way Trump is a mass murderer of his fellow citizens and of brown people. Actively refusing to act while in a position of leadership and responsibility while the consequences of failure to act are easily known to result in mass death is orders of magnitude worse than being an active trigger puller at a mass shooting. As to Chamberlain, he was acting by building war capacity.”
Commenter B:
“Sorry [Commenter A]. You're completely lacking historical perspective. How can someone who says "Trump is a mass murderer of his fellow citizens and of brown people" be trusted with interpreting the the past and putting it into context? I've no time for Trump. Like most western leaders he underestimated the speed and effect of the pandemic but that doesn't make him a mass murderer. And how exactly has he mass-killed brown people? Is this another bit of BLM hysteria? From a purely factual point of view Trump has been the most war-wary president certainly since WWII. People of color in America don't need presidents or cops to kill them.They're busy enough killing themselves”
I wanted to enter the fray with comments countering Commenter B but both the commenting section closed and these two last comments got pulled. Hence this writing here now. The second comment being pulled makes sense as it is racist in the extreme. I suspect someone flagged the first for seeing mass shooters in better light than Trump and somehow finding that offensive. I can’t accept that. No mass shooter has ever obtained a four figure kill count, most don’t break three. Trump has a six digits with a rapidly rising slope. He is worse than and more evil than mass shooters. That doesn’t praise shooters, instead it should condemn Trump. I believe it was also an intended point of the original Kristof piece - the evil of Trump via a combination of lacking compassion and empathy plus willful negligence. I believe Arendt would agree.
As to the latter comment, I’ll let the overt racism speak for itself while knocking down the other questions. Trump failed in disaster relief in Puerto Rico. That’s killing not only brown people but those who are fellow citizens. It is also, as The Expanse suggests, giving the perpetrators mental relief in “letting them die” as opposed to directly killing them. Trump further kills brown people by detaining children in squalid conditions while also blocking those just a bit further south from entering leaving them in hostile environment despite legal and moral obligations regarding asylum seekers and refugees. He’s killed brown people failing to support tribes in Covid relief and in allowing Covid to develop and run rampant in predominantly brown and black communities.
As to Trump being the most war averse president, we should consider Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. Jimmy Carter had the least military causalities under his administration and proved that he truly viewed military action as a last resort. (For others, arms is the last resort not because all other options have been exhausted but because no other option can be exercised after arms.) America’s involvement in Vietnam ended under Ford while the Helsinki Accords were reached. Eisenhower wasn’t pure as actions in Iran and preparations towards Cuba proved, yet he negotiated armistice for Korea and blunted French and British imperialist views towards Egypt. Bush Sr. would not allow conflict to expand beyond initial goals and kept to achievable ambitions. While Kennedy is guilty of Bay of Pigs and for some building towards Vietnam, though ultimately Johnson bears that guilt, he went for blockade not bombing and invasion to counter missiles in Cuba and pulled missiles from Turkey. Clinton did shoot cruise missiles in response to and to deter future terrorism. He sent troops into Somalia and acted in the Balkans. He did these, however, to prevent mass atrocity. He was actually righteous in his military actions matched to legitimate need of circumstance. Compare this to Trump who authorized the Mother of All Bombs be employed and pulled troops out of Syria enabling Turkey to bomb Kurds (thus killing more brown people), sent troops to beat his own fellow citizens engaged in peaceful and patriotic protest, and inflaming violent seditionist white power militias in his words with instructions to take down Democratic governors. Trump blustered about fire and fury at Kim Jong Un. Trump launched the Suleimani strike then bragged about it boxing Iran into no choice but to respond; Trump was seeking a war to bolster his re-election. Trump sells Saudis weapons thus killing large numbers of Brown people both kinetically and through denial of means to life. Trump, the most peaceful president, sure, perhaps in his person only as bone spurs Trump, he’s too much a coward to directly fight himself though his policy and aspirations are violence.
Churchill was no savant seeing how it actually is and inspiring an ignorant population to act selflessly; he was a vainglorious pig seeking to be perceived as possessing of a misguided concept of valor. Churchill was a shit and Trump should be prosecuted. I say that as someone who once had a Boston Terrier named Winston and a French Bull Clementine. (Had Clementine’s aunt Dumpling too, though that seems less relevant to the discussion) I realize writing this also deep in the internet is of little consequence. Perhaps I’m a little like Churchill, In this moment I’m choosing an absolutist righteous indignation either over influence or because a lack of capacity thereof. As was Churchill in the interwar years and after the wars.