Churchill has done exactly the same thing as Hitchens. If anybody's thinking in irrational racial categories, it's the people who suggest Churchill's Indian associations should shield him from taking the blows Hitchens has taken from us. A plague on both their houses.
I am trying very hard not to think of this attack on Churchill as racist but I cannot help but feel there is some element of that in the distain for him. Why is it so hard to support the man? I think his essay was poorly written and I think Ward is a hothead. So what? He has done good serious work in the recent past and does not deserve the treatment he is being subjected to. He is not hate filled but he is angry. He has more than every right to be angry. Is it because this Indian hasn't shown sufficient gratitude for all the white man has done for him that makes it difficult to support him? Perhaps it is because Ward still has a chip on his shoulder about the deliberate and systematic extermination of 90% of the people with whom he shares a common heritage. He identifies the ruling class as the recipients of that legacy and as continuing some of the same policies although frequently in altered or disguised forms. It isn't that hard to see why he thinks of the US as the moral equivalent of the German Nazi party who were victorious and get to write their own version of history.
Whare was all this anger when Ann Coulter said we should kill all Middle Eastern leaders and force all the population to convert to Christianity? Where were the demands to have her column removed from newspapers? Far more controversial statements have been ignored.
John Thornton