What Would Churchill Do?
When not trying to be Teddy Roosevelt or Harry Truman, the Shrubbery spends a lot of time fixating on Winston Churchill. It’s too bad he never read anything written by or about Churchill and Iraq. It has a lot of relevance to the current mess in Mesopotamia.
While “Joke Line” mentions some of the history of Iraq in a July 30, 2006 column for Time, he missed the best part: Winston Churchill created Iraq. It was Winnie’s idea to combine the three separate Turkish provinces [one each for Sunnis, Shi’ia, and Kurds] into one nation for administrative purposes and to anoint the Sunnis to rule the new country after World War I.
But, as Dr. Cole points out, Winnie knew a loser when it was staring him in the face: Churchill on When to Throw in the Towel on Iraq.
Winnie also clearly understood what dangerous people the Saudis were, but backed them anyway.
Callimachus at Done With Mirrors [not a left-wing blog] made an interesting catch: Winston’s speech to the House of Commons on June 14, 1921, in which he says:
“A large number of Bin Saud’s followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relation to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of the religious wars.”
Even so, he advocates no assistance to the Hashemite king of Hejaz [where Mecca is located] leaving the holy sites to be taken by the Sauds and their whacko followers.
Given the fact that the current Middle East is pretty much a creation of Winston Churchill, the man who brought us Gallipoli and other suicide missions, the fact that he thought getting out of Iraq was an excellent idea is pretty telling.
9 comments
Bryan, you are not supposed to remind the wingnuttia that Iraq is a modern creation and not some ancient country… it ruins their world view. They most definitely don’t want know any history or gain any understanding about why our attempts to make all the factions play nice is an old fruitless effort.
[Hmm, my response didn’t “stick” yesterday]
Many of the world’s problems are based on problems that go back centuries and you have to pay attention to root causes. The US is still fighting the Civil War in many ways, so people should understand that time does not heal all wounds.
A little more consideration for ethnic and tribal differences, and the majority of 20th century wars and genocides in Asia and Africa wouldn’t have happened. People become countries because of shared relationships over long stretches of time, not because a bureaucrat draws a line on a map.
Mr. Dumka,
We have responded to your post – as well as Dr. Cole’s – on our blog http://www.churchillsparrot.com. (Attempted a trackback but can never be sure the bloody thing took!)
Cheers,
Charlie
http://www.churchillsparrot.com
Caution: Lefty Logic May Prove Fatal…
The fatal flaw in all Lefty “thinking” regarding the War on Terror – Iraq in particular – is the failure to appreciate the true nature and degree of the threat faced. Generally speaking, this flawed logic has characterized the three Lefty schoo…
I have no idea why you believe you have license to the “we”, but you need to re-write you post and correct your errors of fact before there is any reason to discuss logic, or your lack of it.
I would also suggest you do a little reading on intellectual property law before you find yourself in a court room.
If you are unfamiliar with the historical situation surrounding the Churchill quote, you should refrain from making assumptions regarding its applicability.
Your work is unacceptable even as a first draft, and you obviously haven’t been reading this blog long or you wouldn’t display such a total lack of familiarity with my experience and attitudes toward terrorism.
[…] his post, “What Would Churchill Do” (near copyright violation but I suspect we’ll let it slide this once) blogger Bryan L. Dumka […]
Mr. Dumka,
As the blogosphere is an open forum, one as much for education as for entertainiment, by all means please feel free to elucidate for all of us my errors of fact.
Cheers,
Charlie
http://www.churchillsparrot
You aren’t my responsibility, but I will suggest you read an authoritative account on the 9/11 attack, a decent history of the Middle East post World War I, but the hard part will be locating the date of the last unprovoked attack by Iran/Persia on anyone.
Your facile dismissal of facts is rather amazing. You have have nothing but opinion.
Mr. Dumka,
True I am not your responsibility. Few if any would want the task of looking after a cranky 107 year old parrot. But I digress…
Your facts are not the point my essay. Your facts are quite correct regarding Sir Winston and the unmanageable hell hole that is the Middle East. The point of my essay (per the title “Lefty Logic May Prove Fatal”) is the way in which you and Dr. Cole use those facts to suggest the futility of our present efforts in Iraq. History may prove you right. At this juncture, however, to remove ourselves from the central front in the War on Terror – a fight we did not start but must finish – is suicidal.
As for unprovoked attacks, I believe we need go back no further than 1990 to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to trace the roots of our current dillemma. Let’s make a deal, I shall look up the many things you instructed for me if you’ll agree to read UN Resolutions 660, 661,678,686, 687,688, 707,715, 986, 1284, and 1441. Please note all that odd language about Weapons of Mass Destruction, terrorism etc. While you’re at it (to demonstrate to you that I do have more than opinion) I invite you to read my post IRAQ INVASION ANNIVERSAY SPECIAL dated 15 March, 2007 URL: http://churchillsparrot.blogspot.com/2007/03/iraqi-invasion-anniversary-online.html. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Charlie
http://www.churchillsparrot.com