The Winston Churchill Rant

Recently the BBC aired something they called "Great Britons", a series of shows featuring a contest in which viewers could vote for their own "Greatest Briton of All Time". The winner, as you might have guessed: Winston Churchill. I suppose it all comes down to how you define "great", because he certainly could be called a great big this and that, but the BBC couldn't really come right out and use language like that, now could they? Personally, I just want to know for which reasons exactly he was chosen.

I wonder if it was for planning the attack on Gallipoli that lead to the needless and meaningless deaths of tens of thousands of British, Australian and New Zealand troops? He was, after all, the main booster, both politically and militarily, for that campaign during WWI. Being the First Lord of the Admiralty and all, he of course stayed far away from any danger himself. However, as he sipped on his tea, or perhaps Scotch, he sure did a "Great" job of planning and promoting that pointless battle in that pointless war. I wonder if all those young men, as they ran into the oncoming machine gun fire knowing they were about to die as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder, sang "Glory glory what a wonderful way to die" due to the fact they were dying for Winston? And I wonder if they all thought "Wow, that Winston Churchill chap is sure a great bloke. He's definitely got my vote for Greatest Britoaaaaaah"?

Or perhaps he won for advising the British air force (the RAF) to use poison gas against the Kurds in Iraq back in the 1920's when they - the Kurds - were fighting against British occupation. The Kurds were indeed gassed, as Winston had wanted. A very "evil" thing to do if you're, say, Saddam, but a "Great" thing, perhaps, if you happen to be Winston.

Or possibly he won for the war-crime-if-ever-there's-been-a-war-crime known as the firebombing of Dresden. It's quite well-documented that he ordered the bombing and the deliberate and intentional slaughter of tens of thousands of German civilians as revenge for Hitler's bombing of London earlier in the war. Killing all those civilians in Dresden served absolutely no military purpose! A "Great" act of vengeance... if you're into that sort of thing.

So which was it I wonder? The mass slaughter of those young troops in pointless and futile attacks on Turkish trenches back in WWI? The mass slaughter, using poison gas, of Kurds in Iraq in the 1920's? Or the mass slaughter of German civilians in the fire-bombing of Dresden near the end of WWII? So many "Great" acts of slaughter. Which one do you think won it for him?

And for any bleeding heart liberals out there, those of you who simply don't get it and want to whine on about none of these things being worthy of voting for, don't be so concerned, it wasn't just these things alone that made Winston "Great", no, he also made some really good speeches that kept people's spirits up during The Blitz. And, obviously, those speeches were not just really "Great" they were also enough, clearly, to negate all of his war crimes or "Great feats of leadership" or whatever you want to call them. That's self-evident, right? Or else he couldn't have won. (Does that work for Hitler too? Because he also made some really big speeches in his time).

Anyhow, stop your worrying and just accept it, Winston is The Greatest Briton Of All Time. Or was that The Greatest British War Criminal Of All Time? I forget, but, either way, there's no denying he sure was "Great"!

Mike Cowie (Oredakedo)
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003