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.

CONTINUED:

CONTINUED:

(ed - sadly the passage above from Picknett's book is slightly misleading - Churchill bribed the leader of Labour, Clement Atlee, with the Deputy Prime Ministership. Labour also got the Ministry of Labour and the Home Office and "other key ministries". As the BBC adds, this political bargaining was enormously valuable to Labour, giving it "a wealth of experience in office which was to prove invaluable when the party went to the country" in 1945 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/special/politics97/ background/pastelec/ ge45.shtml)

"Friendly Fire" by Picknett continues:

By instigating the Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence, FDR had effectively given Churchill his blessing, handing him an ace. The President was announcing the identity of his favoured candidate as British leader. Having brought up the subject of Churchill as Prime Minister - then a remote possibility - with a horrified George VI in June 1939, clearly FDR had his eye on his man even then. Then there was his curious statement to Kennedy that he had instigated the correspondence because Churchill might soon be Prime Minister.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Roosevelt made it dear through private intermediaries that aid would only be forthcoming if the British government took a tough line with Hitler: any further attempts at appeasement would jeopardise assistance. Halifax favoured peace negotiations: therefore only Churchill could bring American support to the table.

(Curiously, just a week after war broke out, during a discussion on the neutrality of Egypt - if it remained neutral it could be used as a 'back door' for American supplies - Churchill confidently declared. 'we certainly have no need to keep her neutral for the purpose of war purchases from the United States who will very soon give us all we want direct.'[78. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. VI, p.22, Churchill on 10 September 1939] How could he be so sure, when at that stage there was no certainty that Congress would repeal the embargo?)

Sure looks as if Churchill was forced on us by the US. As the US has since done to so many other nations under various forms of military threat.

The "Friendly Fire" book by Picknett also claims/implies that Churchill (out of power since 1929, remember) was an alcoholic extremist:

p.141 ... In the early months of the conflict, there were essentially three views in British political and industrial/financial circles: businessmen like Lord Beaverbrook and many Tories believed that as the war threatened to destroy Britain's interests so comprehensively, peace talks should begin immediately.

Others, such as Chamberlain and Halifax, who wanted a deal with a Hitler-free Germany - although his regime could remain - made overtures to Goering.

The third group believed the whole Nazi regime must go before attempting any settlement, favouring close cooperation with the anti-Hitlerites on the General Staff.

At that stage, not even Churchill advocated the fourth option - that *any* compromise with Germany under *any* leadership was out of the question."

One can go much further, since Churchill was not particularly popular in government. The British (Cabinet and people) would very likely have ended the British part in WW2 in May 1941 ... if they'd only been allowed to know what Rudolf Hess was offering.

In which case, there'd have been no WW2 as we know it - and the Holocaust (started only on 12th Dec 1941) would very possibly not have happened. Only one man, bribed by FD Roosevelt, brought about all the chaos and suffering we know of. In 1945, Churchill apparently wanted the war to go on and nuke Russia - had Roosevelt not just died, he might very well have had his way. Not that that would have saved the British Empire, which had been comprehensively bankrupted by one man recognised by all the world as "Greatest Briton". http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/11_november/25/greatbritons_final.shtml

Berry go bore somebody else to death with your ceaseless myopic lies about everything - Halifax wanted to negiotiate with Hitler he was a loser like you , Churchill knew you dont negoiate with the crocodile whilst your head is in its mouth .

Some of us stand and fight , we are not all yellow bellied liars with no honor

BM

bml00 said: Try the British and New Zealand can you go further than that for colonizing and do you need any more examples of countries in Africa the British colonized ?

Yes, the British that you hate have indeed attacked nations that could not retaliate.

bml00 said:

You are such an idiot when you try to revise history The British always used maximum force to ensure the Empire never retreated

No, the British that you hate have never used the kind of disproportionate force that Israel is using right now, today.

How about prosecuting people who fire rockets at civilians, BM - is that what you're calling for?

Or is there some reason you get very angry when people suggest that - you block anyone neutral from investigating - and even howl down a Zionist judge (with a daughter in the IDF) who dares to document the evils that Israel commits?