Dave RobinsonMar 20
In 1919 someone famous said this:

“I cannot understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes”

He was the government minister for war, and he was talking about the Middle East (Kurds and Afghans).

It was Winston Churchill. Not much has changed. The disregard for human life continues.

#IranWar
Show threadCharlie StrossMar 20

@dave @quixoticgeek

Yeah, what many anglophones today don't seem to realize is that Winston was a monstrous asshole.

For perspective, consider that it took fricken' HITLER to make him look good.

(In his defense: he was born in 1874 and as an officer in the British Army rode in cavalry charges against Pashtuns in what is now Pakistan: classic Victorian imperial soldiering. By the 20th century he was already a living fossil.)

Show threadcatchMar 20
@cstross @dave @quixoticgeek
Don't think you needed to be born in the 20th century to know that concentration camps and fascism are bad. He approved of concentration camps during the boer war. Then put ones in place in Kenya and Malaya in the 1950s. And wrote back to his sister how much he loved Mussolini in the '20s.
Show threadCharlie StrossMar 20
@catch56 @dave @quixoticgeek Yup! Like I said, it took Hitler to make him look good. An absolute monster in any other context.
Show threadRay McCarthyMar 20
@cstross @catch56 @dave @quixoticgeek
He also ordered the bombing of a German city during "the battle of Britain" guessing that Hitler would retaliate and thus take the pressure off the RAF airfields. The decision "won" the Battle of Britain but led to bombing of other UK cities as well as London and V1 & V2 (vengeance) which ironically killed more slaves making them than people in the targets. The V1 was the original Cruise "missile" and V2 the original ballistic missile.
He was a racist.
Show threadGerbrand van DieyenMar 20
@raymaccarthy @cstross @catch56 @dave @quixoticgeek Arguably it didn't shorten the war at at all. Bombing of civilian targets cost a lot, lowered moral authority, and had extended the war according to some historians.
Show threadCharlie Stross
@gerbrandvd @raymaccarthy @catch56 @dave @quixoticgeek It mostly gave the more naive British public the illusion that something was being done, during a 3 year period during which the UK wasn't actually fighting on the ground in the European theatre (commando raids aside). And tied up about a million German soldiers and 30,000 high velocity artillery tubes that would otherwise have been sent to the Russian front. Aside from that it was horribly expensive, cruel, and pointlessly destructive.
Mar 20 at 6:29pmWeb