I was NOT comparing our standards to theirs , there is a limit which they can absorb and accept and with every crop failure every draught so the situation worsens .

BM

Yes, brought to his knees by our standard, but, but when people have the feeling of nothing to loose, their reaction is often no reaction, because any act has two possibilities, improvement of their condition, or worsening of it. when people are that down, they usually jus suck their thumb.

The US (and in another place they've told me this) seeks to take to North Korea the benefits they took to Iraq and Libya.

Government collaps, millions of refugees, chaos and suffering.

I was thinking of the Russians under the Tsar, as miserable as they were it took WWI to get them to rise up.

RGoss99 said:

I was thinking of the Russians under the Tsar, as miserable as they were it took WWI to get them to rise up.

I'm coming to think the 1919 Peace Conference did terrible harm.

It saw the breakup of the Austria-Hungary Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

We tried to complete the demolition of the Russian Empire - but they pulled themselves back together again at terrible cost.

Why was it a bad thing to do? Because Empires, although they're brutal to outlying areas they're actually quite tolerant of multi-culturalism and minorities. 

And Empires are necessary to have reasonable levels of stability - smaller countries can't control immigrant crime, gangs etc.

Actually that is the back story behind the Basque and Catalan problems in Spain. England and France so the Ausrian hegemony as a threat to their colonial ambiions, In fact that Empire and Spain was a collection of autonomous cultures sharing the same monarch, who basicly left them along. So the War of Austrian succession limited the Austrians to central Europe nd imported e Bobons with quite a different attitud towardscentralized governmnt. As a esult all he non spanish speakig regions of Spain have strong independence movents and are deanding a refied Constitution. with more local autonomy.

I seem to be getting problems in here - my answers appearing under the wrong postings!

No idea what that's about.

This thread is about North Korea's Nuclear threat.

ABC News

Message to Donald Trump seen in North Korean projectile launch

North Korea fires several projectiles from its east coast, as analysts say the country is stepping up pressure against the US after February's failed nuclear summit in Hanoi.

Read more from ABC News

Jenifer (Zarknorph) said:

This thread is about North Korea's Nuclear threat.

What threat?

North Korea, already subject to a vast genocide, still labours under an existential threat. 

Speak to any Brit about the privations we suffered during the war - then multiply the deaths 50 times and its gone on for 10 times as long.

If you were North Korean and had to choose between being plunged into the hell-hole of Iraq and Libya or the safety of being able to retaliate against the US - which would you choose?

Britain elected its leaders for the 2nd World War there was little call if any for capitulation , the average Brit in the 2nd World War did not face starvation maybe they could have only 2 eggs a week instead of 6 etc , there is absolutely no comparison between the UK and the depraved leadership of NK

berry seems to imagine this is all about retaliating , NK does not want war it is very last thing it wants .

BM

bml00 said:

Britain elected its leaders for the 2nd World War there was little call if any for capitulation

Churchill wasn't elected by anyone except as an MP.

Nothing he'd done before the age of 65 was commendable other than "... four speeches, all of which were derivative of Shakespeare and Macaulay" - http://powerbase.info/index.php/Winston_Churchill

Churchill had been kept out of the government for over 10 years, he was saved from bankruptcy (and losing his beloved house where his reputation rested on his entertainment) by American agents.

I'm impressed by the book "Friendly Fire, the Secret War between the Allies" 2005 Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince, Stephen Prior with additional research by Robert Brydon (d. 2003).

p.146 ... In his memoirs. Churchill acknowledged that Halifax was given first refusal.[72. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I, pp.522-4]

Yet his details are suspect - he even misdates this meeting, giving it as 10 May (when he was summoned by the King and took office).

One of his researchers, Sir William Deacon, said he was 'hamming [it] up ... he's being amusing, it's not to be taken seriously'.[73. Quoted in Roberts, 'The Holy Fox, p.204]

Halifax's biographer Andrew Roberts suggests that Churchill's account 'ought to be read as literature, rather than a factual account'.[74. Quoted in Roberts, 'The Holy Fox, p.204]

While admitting that Halifax's peerage was not the real problem, Roberts argues that he refused the job because he modestly felt he lacked the qualities to be a successful wartime Prime Minister. This seems unlikely because Halifax continued his efforts to find a compromise peace behind Churchill's back - and becoming head of government would have enabled him to make this official policy.

Halifax's own account makes it clear that he was uncertain that he would be able to exert due control over the war from the House of Lords, and so would become 'more or less an honorary Prime Minister'.[75. Halifax's account is reproduced in Ibid., p.205] But rather than doubting his own abilities, he seems rather to have been afraid that he would not be *allowed* that control: he told Sir Alexander Cadogan immediately after the meeting, 'If I was not in charge of the war (operations) and if I didn't lead in the house. I should be a cipher.'[76. Cadogan, p.280]

So who was to be in charge of the war? Regardless of who became Prime Minister, the answer most certainly was Winston Spencer Churchill.

Chamberlain seems to have wanted a compromise with Halifax as Prime Minister but with Churchill actually running the war. If Halifax refused these terms, the alternative was for Churchill to run the whole show: handing everything over to Halifax simply wasn't acceptable to Chamberlain, which is odd, since they shared the same war policies - and most decidedly Churchill did not.

Somehow, Churchill held the balance of power. In his diary, John Colville even refers mysteriously to Churchill's 'powers of blackmail' that swung the decision.[77. Colville, "The Fringes of Power" vol. I, p.141] What blackmail?

What did Churchill have that Halifax hadn't? Halifax had the support of the ruling party, the opposition, the King - and the people. Only one person supported Churchill and not Halifax: President Roosevelt.

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