Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was a British aristocrat and politician who served as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911-1917 and Prime Minister in 1940-45 and 1951-55. Today he is remembered for his performance in the role of "courageous leader of beleaguered Britain" during World War II. That, most would argue, deserves praise.
==And the not-so-praiseworthy stuff==
Churchill remains a controversial figure because of incompetent or brutal decisions made during the two world wars. He played a central role in planning the disastrous military campaign at during WWI, leading to a quarter-million Allied casualties. Worse, his decisions during the Second World War led to the fire-bombing of German cities by the Royal Air Force (the bombing of Dresden is one of the rare examples in which the US Army Air Corps joined the RAF in the purposeful incineration of an entire city.) To be fair, however, Churchill later realized how horrific it was and expressed deep regret over this strategy, likening it to "mutual annihilation," and lamenting a lost age of chivalry in warfare.
Churchill's attitude towards Indian affairs arises over what some historians claim about the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, which has sought to place significant blame on Churchill's wartime government for the starvation and deaths up to four million people. In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India, Wavell, demanded to release food stocks for India, Churchill allegedly responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn't died yet?", although some have disputed if he really said this.“Why hasn’t Gandhi died yet?” Another Remark Churchill Never Said He is remembered in India not only for that little famine in Bengal, but also for calling Mahatma Gandhi a "half naked seditious fakir."
And then there was the matter of the in South Wales. The Welsh working class has never forgiven Churchill for sending troops to remove pickets by force from the coal mines, although the commonly repeated claim that the soldiers shot strikers dead in the street is a lie.Tonypandy: the miners' strike that blighted Churchill's career, The Times 
Churchill was a racist and bought into eugenics, advocating confinement and sterilization of the "feeble-minded".Churchill and Eugenics, Sir Martin Gilbert CBE, International Churchill Society
In 1937, Churchill told the :
Churchill conspired with Eisenhower and the CIA to depose Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected (if by then increasingly authoritarian) Prime Minister of Iran, and install in his place the Shah. This led to the anti-Western blowback that created the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Churchill's second premiership saw him preside over the suppression of the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya, which became infamous for the British government's use of Nazi-style interment camps which amounted to concentration camps in all but name. These camps, ostensibly intended to intern suspected Mau Mau guerrillas somewhere they could do no harm, in practice saw thousands of random Kikuyu civilians rounded up and imprisoned. Making things worse was the widespread use of torture and rape in the camps in an attempt to extract information about the Mau Mau, including men being castrated and various instruments such as broken bottles being inserted into men's rectums and women's vaginas.Elkins, Caroline (2005). Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (UK ed.). London: Jonathan Cape. Victims included Barack Obama's grandfather, who had metal pins stuck through his fingers and buttocks and his testicles crushed in a vice.Kenya: UK expresses regret over abuse as Mau Mau promised payout, The Guardian
== Victory V ==
He adopted the palm-forward two-fingered (Victory Sign) as a symbol of British defiance towards the Axis powers during World War Two. Unfortunately, he at first used it the wrong way round.Fuck off! As, later, did Margaret Thatcher.And you can fuck off, too!
==Britishness==
Winston Churchill's image is regularly deployed by wingnut funsters such as UKIP,Here, here, here and here the British National PartyBNP claims on Churchill 'absurd', BBC and not unoccasionally by U.S. Republicans. They generally try to associate Churchill with some sort of anti-immigrant, anti-Europe agenda.Churchill was an admirer of Hitler, claims UKIP official, The Times This is just a little bit odd as:
*Winston was himself the son of an immigrant, and was a descendant of French asylum-seekers.
*It was Mr. Churchill who first called for the establishment of "a kind of United States of Europe""If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance, there would be no limit to the happiness, to the prosperity and glory which its three or four hundred million people would enjoy. Yet it is from Europe that have sprung that series of frightful nationalistic quarrels, originated by the Teutonic nations, which we have seen even in this twentieth century and in our own lifetime, wreck the peace and mar the prospects of all mankind.""Winston Churchill: A founder of the European Union" and who supervised the establishment of the Council of Europe on 5 May 1949 by the Treaty of London.Statue of the Council of Europe, University of the Basque Country
*It was Churchill who described the English as a "Bastard Race",Churchill, Winston. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (2011 ed.) meaning, not "bad", but of the mixed-immigrant heritage that gives them strength. Of all people.
*It was Churchill who invented the idea of a European Court of Human Rights.The Council of Europe, The Churchill Centre and Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms
==Mental health==
It has been widely suggested that Churchill suffered from bipolar disorderWinston Churchill and manic depression or ADHD,Winston Churchill and ADHD and thus it is not surprising that he was given to hellish bouts of depression. He referred to it as "the Black Dog" and was able to fend it off by painting, drinking copious quantities of alcohol (approved by his doctor), and consuming voracious quantities of his favourite Stilton cheese, rich desserts and imported cigars which he developed a taste for as a teenager. He suffered ten strokes but still lived to be 90.
Churchill is alleged to have slept only four hours, drunk an entire bottle of port before retiring and three scotch and sodas before lunch alone. Upon the subject of his alcoholism, Churchill remarked with characteristic dryness "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."Gordon Parker. "In High Spirits: Some Links Between Alcohol Use and Bipolar Disorder." Australia-New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. (2008) 42: 1075-1076.
==Inspirational quotes!==
==External links==
*Works of Winston Churchill on Wikisource
*Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill
==References==
Category:Agnostics
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Category:British people
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Category:Eugenics supporters
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Category:Former Members of Parliament (UK)
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Category:Imperialists
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Category:Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom
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Category:World War I
Category:World War II