Had quite an intense with a mate of mine today about one of the great celebrated figures of this nation's political history.

I think I may have brought this up on here before but I've always held the view that Churchill is viewed as a great leader because he won. Had he lost, I believe a lot of questionable stuff the British did would have come out, but instead it's wiped under the carpet and we continue to moan about those nasty Germans with their concentration camps (an idea they knicked off us) and anti-Semitism (which was thriving in Britain in the 30s).

The clearest example of this for me is the Bengal Famine. Churchill, fearful that the Japs might invade northern India, decided rather than evacuate the natives, he would just stop sending them food and shelter (in the middle of a famine) leading to millions of deaths, some claim on a similar scale as the number of Jews killed in concentration camps. When asked about this, Churchill blamed them for 'breeding like rabbits'.

He also supported a Bill to sterilise the mentally disabled (I'm not making this up! [Link] a form of, err, eugenics.

So let's look at the evidence: a mass-murderer, who supported racial purification, but won a lot of people over because he was a good public speaker and adopted the role as figurehead of a nation.

Now who does that remind me of...

Anyone willing to defend him?

Edited by serial thriller (22 May 2013 8.18pm)

Partially true, Al-Qaeda had key members based there, but it hadn't really function in any way along real territorial lines. Even back in 2001, it definitely had people in Afghanistan, but its questionable how much influence or knowledge the regime had over them or of the attacks. Its likely that Al-Qaeda served more as a means of financing Jyhadist groups, rather than really directing them, and those active groups tended to move around a lot.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was only a member of Al-Qaeda from 1999 onwards, and had already an extensive history in terrorism and Jyhad, including having been involved in the 1993 WTC bombing (his nephew carried it out), Chechnya, Bali, Bosnia, pakistan and the Philippines.

Bin Laden certainly became very involved in the plot, but the role of Afghanistan in the scheme was fairly limited to a geographical convenience.

churcllill was a prick i bet this thread has gone down well , i really loved whinny er whinny the poo

Thank god Churchill rallied the population in 1940 otherwise many of us would not be here today, he was no more a prick than some that have slated him on this site.