Well I doubt that Trump is reading this blogpost because he doesn't read anything but if I am mistaken Mr T, I have got news for you. You are no Abraham Lincoln! In fact you are no Barack Obama, no Martin Luther King Jr, no Franklin D, Roosevelt, no George S. Patton! In fact you are no James Buchanan, no Andrew Johnson and what is more you are no Warner Brothers' Porky Pig! Apologies to Porky.
It is exceedingly difficult for any other political leaders in the western world to manage healthy relationships with Trump because he is a playground bully without discretion or a recognisable moral compass. Thus far, other leaders have been obliged to kowtow to Trump because of America's economic and military power. However, it is obvious that they all detest him and privately mock him.
You have to draw the line somewhere and that is what Sir Keir Starmer did. After all, the joint Israeli and American onslaught upon Iran was not agreed with other nations and it is in clear breach of international law. Why should other western leaders be expected to just tag along like obedient puppies?
Many commentators believe that the lead puppeteer is Netanyahu here and he is looking to devastate and degrade Iran with zero concern for the Iranian people. Is that the way to a lasting peace? More likely Netanyahu and Orange Blob are creating a legacy of death and destruction that will return to haunt their countries in the decades ahead. Bullets and bombs are not the way. Discussions, economic sanctions, patience, intelligence and persistence - that's always the way you do it in the end.
And anyway, let's get back to this Winston Churchill fellow. He was by no means perfect either. There were views he held and things he did that were really quite appalling and ironically rather Trumpian.
He was a racist and an Islamaphobe. He called Indians "beastly" and opposed Indian independence in the late 1940s. He used troops to crush legitimate strike action by coal miners and in 1915 he championed the disastrous World War I Gallipoli campaign that resulted in huge casualty numbers. There are many other mistakes and character failings I could highlight including his dependence upon alcohol, his sexism and his upper class arrogance.
Although he proved himself to be a good wartime leader, he was decisively voted out of office by the British people as soon as World War II ended.
I agree that Churchill was an appalling man of his time, but he was indeed the wartime leader that Britain needed.
ReplyDeleteTrump can't hold a candle to Joe Biden either. Biden may have had his faults, but he was a kind and intelligent person who did what he felt best for this country and its citizens. He had a lovely and personable wife, and I wasn't worried sick about the future with him in charge.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about Joe Biden and Jill.
DeleteChurchill read Mein Kampf and grasped Hitler's peculiar psychology.
ReplyDeleteHitler believed (wrongly) Germany lost the war in 1918 because the country
had been betrayed by Jewish bankers and communists.
Churchill was in Munich in 1932 touring German battlefields.
Ernst Hanfstaengl wanted to promote the Nazi cause by setting up a meeting.
One version says that Hitler declined. Another that Churchill declined.
There's a legend of a secret meeting on 11 June 1940, the subject of a thriller by
Len Deighton, XPD (Expedient Demise).
Deighton said he did not believe Churchill would have agreed to any negotiation
with Hitler. But there are two missing days in Churchill's engagement diary.
Sir Basil Liddell Hart thought Hitler possessed genius as a battle strategist,
but that he relied wholly on instinct. When instinct failed him Hitler was lost.
The Other Side of the Hill (published 1948).
Liddell Hart interviewed high ranking German generals for his book.
Sir Keir did the right thing by drawing a line. True the Iranian leader was no angel. But there were a hundred other ways to deal with him. If the world's problems could be solved by killing leaders and innocent people, our world have been a far better place by now! Many battles have been won, but in the process the wars have been lost.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, it was most appalling that all this started while the talks were on, which were making slow progress, and surely they hadn't broken down to justify launching strikes. Worse, the US constantly shifted the goal post. And, now they are giving new reasons each day to justify the attack.
This war is not about democracy or Iranian people. It's about ego and about exclusivity.
You may be interested in reading my latest post:
https://bpradeepnair.blogspot.com/2026/03/usisrael-iran-peace-was-within-reach-so.html
"in clear breach of International Law", so why is nobody arresting him? Why are his minions allowed to keep kowtowing to the slimy slob?
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea how much ordinary, decent people want someone to arrest him, River. We are helpless until the midterm elections because the Republicans control everything at the moment and they refuse to get their orange god in line. It's a cult.
DeleteWe need a Churchill or two to put Trump in ha place.
ReplyDeleteAustralia lost so many soldiers in WWI under English command, who sent them to be instantly slaughtered. Then in WWII he cut Australia adrift without any concerns, though our troops had been fighting alongside British troops.
ReplyDeleteI watched Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart fall out over Starmer's decisions last weekend but Starmer has a difficult job steering us through an unprecedented time with not much arsenal in the cupboard. Trump and Netanyahu are the tyrants for now. Once power is taken from them we might see light. Those innocent, naive days when old films about how we won in the second world war and Churchill's stirring words are a thing of the past.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I heard Trump's comment about Starmer being no Churchill I screamed at the television 'and Trump is no Roosevelt either'. He wipes his hands of Europe and NATO ,was nasty to us over the tariffs and then expects us to fall at his feet and help him when he needs help.
ReplyDeleteChurchill is on record as saying that he was "strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," (in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan). So perhaps Starmer is on the right side when he is not being Churchill.
ReplyDeleteI've also just learned that Churchill was Prime Minister in 1953 and pushed Eisenhower for the coup to topple the democratically elected Iranian government to be replaced with Shan dictatorship - to protect the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, now known as BP.
DeleteCankles is stupid and stupidity is power is dangerous.
ReplyDeleteWould someone please arrest a couple of war criminals?
ReplyDeletetrump is a child with the understanding of a child. He's dying but he doesn't even know it, or is terrified of it. I'm glad the Keir Starmer stood up to him, as has our own Prime Minister. As for Iran, it makes me sick but it's also not the first, or last time, that the US has interfered in another country's politics.
ReplyDeleteIt is IMPOSSIBLE for any world leaders to manage a healthy relationship with Trump because he is screamingly insane. There is no health there. Just thought I'd add that to the conversation.
ReplyDeleteChurchill as an Islamophobe ?
ReplyDeleteWhy are the Left so stupidly sympathetic to Islam ?
Alan Sillitoe was an early critic of Islam following the fatwah on Salman Rushdie.
Salman was butchered and half blinded by an Islamic immigrant.
David Amess an English MP was stabbed to death by an Islamic immigrant.
A Yorkshire teacher is in hiding with his wife and children because he gave
a lesson on the history of Islam. He can never go home again because of
Islamic thugs in his home town. Yes, thugs.
Blackburn, Burnley, Dewsbury ... English people don't recognise their towns
anymore. They can't speak up or Lefties shout No Islamophobia !
EUROPE IS GONE. Lionel Shriver. YouTube. The Daily Heretic.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on why the Iranian regime needs to be brought down.
ReplyDeleteYouTube.
Why feminists support Islam / Ayaan Hirsi Ali. YouTube.
Europe is gone? What a load of rubbish. Next you will be telling us it is all part of a big plot, that THEY have planned.
ReplyDeleteAs I have said before you and I YP seem to live in a different UK to some other bloggers. I live deep in the countryside, the back of beyond. My tiny village is friendly, the country lanes quiet and beautiful.
Having said that I quite enjoyed Lionel Shriver’s last book.
Not a plot. Incompetence. The Balkanisation of Europe.
DeleteAyaan Hirsi Ali is of the same opinion as Lionel Shriver.
You are fortunate not to be living in one of the urban hell holes,
where young people are getting wasted on a cocktail of drugs,
and drug dealers are roaming like rats on the prowl.
"Why are the Left so stupidly sympathetic to Islam ?"
DeleteThey are not. They are intelligently sympathetic - respecting the vast majority of Muslims and abhorring the extremist fringe folk whose ignorance is matched only by their wicked arrogance.
A schoolgirl in our public library to her friend - * Be a good Muslim.*
DeleteShe spoke gently. She wore the uniform of a Catholic comprehensive.
If that was the true face of Islam I would not be worried.
Islam is super patriarchal. Men are in control. Not the girl in the library.
The imam in a mosque near me said, * In 40 years, Scotland will be
Muslim. We will outbreed you. *
Islam is a political as well as a religious movement.
Read Hadith literature about Greater vs Lesser Jihad.
Muslims express their disdain for Western secular values.
Unbelievers are kafir, infidel.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali said Europe is starting to resemble the Islamist
countries she fled. Feminists give Ayaan little or no support.
*Muslim Women in Europe featuring Ayaan Hirsi Ali.* YouTube.
*Ayaan Hirsi Ali's comments on Europe completely true. Douglas
Murray.* YouTube.
It is so easy to criticise from a distance of eighty years or so. Different times, different values.
ReplyDeleteThe Welsh miners of Tonypandy did not require eighty years to see the true character of Winston Churchill before he achieved legendary status in wartime. And after WWII the majority of the British electorate only required a few months.
DeleteJabblog is right. Each generation has different values. Europe hasn't gone - it was still there when I took the dog out for a walk earlier!
ReplyDelete