> On Sat, 26 Jul 2003, Brad DeLong wrote:
>
>> Yes. It is a truth too often forgotten that only three leaders chose to
>> put and keep their countries in harm's way: everybody else ran for cover
>> until Hitler attacked them.
>>
>> Great praise and honor are due to Edouard Daladier, Winston Churchill,
>> and Neville Chamberlain.
>
> I'm a little confused here. Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier are
> generally considered the icons of appeasement for being the only signers
> of the Munich Agreement besides Hitler and Mussolini.
>
> To grant them highest honors would seem to require a revisionist defense
> of appeasement. Which can be done -- but seems the opposite of the
> position you're espousing.
I never understood the praise for Churchill either. He was the broken clock that eventually showed the right time: a British imperialist, anti-German bigot who was eventually met with a situation where those views were useful.
I don't see how that makes up for his numerous other flaws. He was a military diletante of incompetence matched only by his criminality. The guy was an enthusiast for chemical warfare, areal bombing and the targeting of civilians to break their morale, otherwise known as terrorism. He a raving racist, disliked the thought of Jewish migration to England and was a strike buster to boot. A real friend of the people that one. Just about the only thing going for him are his speeches, most of which I personally find pretty cynical. Put him next to a truly great orator, someone like King, for some perspective. Oh, yes, and he wrote that appalling insult to historiography, The History of the English Speaking Peoples... that really was the cherry on the Sunday.
With heroes like that, you're doomed.
Thiago Oppermann