John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO THE GUARDIAN ON AN ARTICLE SUGGESTING WHAT
GALLIPOLI TEACHES US ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR
Gallipoli was a terrible blunder, a pet project of the same
Winston Churchill who gave the world more than his fair share of arrogant ideas
and barbarities, including, later, the first mass bombings of German cities,
well before Hitler's bombings.
Churchill was always an advocate of imperialism and plenty
of "backbone in war" stuff, and he was fond of referring to Germans as
“Huns.”
Yet his is a seemingly benign and heroic figure in history.
You can't help emotionally responding to some of his eloquent speeches and old
news photos even now.
Chamberlain, a genuinely decent man in many respects who
wanted to avoid a repeat of the Western Front’s unbelievable horror just 20
years later, comes down to us as a somewhat disreputable figure, in no small
measure because of the contempt heaped upon him by Churchill.
The word appeasement
was used and has since become a favorite insult from the ignorant Right Wing
which virtually always wants war and more war.
Of course the entire set of horrors and issues around the
Second World War wouldn’t exist had not Britain entered the completely
pointless First World War, one its chief cheerleaders for doing so being
Churchill. The only outcome of a German victory in 1914 would have been a European
Continent dominated by Germany, which is exactly what we have anyway today. But
Churchill’s love of British imperialism could not stand the thought of that.
I shouldn’t say “the only outcome” because the other result,
an even larger one, of Germany’s success in 1914 would have been no Hitler, no
World War II, no invasion of Russia with 27 million killed, and no Holocaust.
People are so easily swayed by emotional words and appealing
faces, and they lose the rational aspect of their minds to the rhetoric and
backstage lever-pulling of men like Churchill. Democratic politics frequently
yields to the superficial charm and secret deadliness of psychopathic
personalities. Witness the recent examples of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and
Tony Blair – all with their smiles and murders and plots possessing varying
degrees of psychopathy, to a certainty.
The smarmy Tony Blair years later dedicated all his talents
to making an illegal and unnecessary invasion, which we now know killed a
million people, seem reasonable and morally right.
He was rewarded afterwards by immense wealth, having served
the interests of immensely wealthy people, while the poor people of Iraq were
left a disgusting mess of broken infrastructure, no reliable water and power,
poisons and explosives everywhere, millions of refugees, no jobs, no hopes, and
constant ripples of violence.
Large parts of our people still respond like murderous
chimps thumping their chests at the right words put in their ears by the
establishment through figures like Churchill and Blair.
I don't see the author’s suggestions as helpful, and I don’t
see any corrective for the foreseeable future. The ugly system we have works
for those with power and influence, and it will keep right on working. Only the
most fundamental changes in our political institutions offer any hope, and that
only far into the future, if ever.
