@Kopstar @cynicaloldgit @redfanman Thanks.
Iām actually more interested about Sky than the news itself. For some reason, I donāt/canāt view them as a serious news channel. I see them primarily invested in sports and the gossip version of sports.
So I was actually puzzled about the authenticity of that article.
The article is similar to what is appearing across the Guardian and elsewhere.
@cynicaloldgit is correct that they are far more reliable than they used to be. Still need to be careful with what they report though as quality can be a little variable sometimes, but itās definitely more reliable than their sports reporting.
If Churchill was unaware of the parlous state of Singaporeās defences, it can only be as a consequence of ignoring, or failing to fully acquaint himself with General William Dobbieās report ca. 1937 (regarding the vulnerability from land assault through Malaya), or the subsequent intelligence reports despatched by his own War Cabinetās Planning Division (to the Commander-in-Chief Far East, Air Marshall Sir Robert Popham-Booke;1940).
Unfortunately, the Japanese were not so lax, and fully absorbed the contents of these, and other āsecretā reports, coming out of Singapore in 1941, on the woeful status of the defences,.
Churchill clearly knew that Singapore/Malaya needed, and was denied vital war materiel, and that that was his responsibility, as was indicated on 27 January 1942, when he told the House of Commons that:
priority in modern aircraft, in tanks, and in anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery was accorded to the Nile Valleyā¦ for this decision in its broad strategic aspects, but also for the diplomatic policy in regard to Russia, I take the fullest personal responsibility. If we have handled our resources wrongly, no one is so much to blame as me. If we have not got large modern air forces and tanks in Burma and Malaya tonight, no one is more accountable than I am.
One final point; soon after the fall of Singapore, Churchill asked the Australian Prime Minister to support him in opposing calls for a full enquiry into the disaster at Singapore. Churchill succeeded in blocking the enquiry.
What did Churchill fear might be revealed by such an enquiry?
(@Arminius, would this discussion be better continued on the History thread?)
I may be wrong.
I have read articles that suggested it was difficult to build fortifications on the northern part of Singapore since that place was thickly forested and swampy. That also gave the idea that the terrain itself will deter any invasion. However, the Japanese employed smaller (mostly company-sized), lightly armed (mortars and light tanks), mobile units which easily maneuvered the terrain.
Probably, yes.
Are you suggesting that should the Nazis have gained power over say Africa that they would have treated the population the same as the colonial powers?
Have you heard of the final solution? Imagine that rolled out on a global scale.
Have you heard about the massacre of Jalianwala Bagh?
Look, debating wouldnāt help either of us, only fill both of us with bitterness.
One thing to always remember whenever we think that British Colonialism was nothing like as egregious as Nazi Imperialism is that it was the British, not the Nazis, that invented concentration camps.
In the same way that Colt invented the revolver is the historical foundation of the atom bomb.
Not really. More like the same way that Colt inventing the revolver is the foundation of the double-action revolver.
Absolutely correct. The British did build the first concentration camps in Africa
However were those camps the same and did they serve the same purpose?
Were the British seeking to conduct the eradication of an entire race of people?
Did the British construct Gas chambers and incinerators at the concentration camps industrialising murder to the tune of 6 million people?
Did the British Government have a formal policy of a final solution in Kenya South Africa and Tanzania?
Did the colonialists practice Eugenics upon their prisoners?
Were the Nazi camps constructed as a result of warfare or as a result of racially motivated extermination?
Did the British conduct hundreds of medical experiments upon their captives without anaesthetic?
The answer to all the above is no they did not.
What the British did do was conduct Imperialism that was evil and viscous. But to equate it to what the Nazis did and had planned is bloody ridiculous. I cannot believe that anyone who is not an Ultra Right Wing zealot would even consider it to be so.
Hitler was mainly focused on Europe, Russia in particular though, that was his āvisionā. Maybe even he wasnāt megalomaniac enough to think that he could take over and then control the entire world. Afaik itās pretty well documented that he had to be convinced to take actions in Africa and even that was more about strategic war reasons for him.
One can always speculate though.
Strange take. Alternatively, only an apologist for British oppression, mass killings (in some cases genocide), inhumane and degrading treatment of women and children, would be incapable of seeing the parallels.
Over 26,000 women and children died in the concentration camps in South Africa alone, in less than three years. Itās one of the earliest examples of a country deliberately targeting an entire population (including non-combatants).
So you are arguing that the camps in South Africa are the same and were set up for the same reasons as the Nazi extermination camps? Not a single point I made can you disagree with - but somehow I am an apologist for Imperialism? Really - sounds more like you are trying to reduce the horror and reality of the Nazi extermination camps.
This is not a case of being an apologist for colonialism - this is one old fart resisting the revisionists who seem intent on diluting and reducing the absolute evil that was Nazism.
Nothing, before or since, even comes close to the vile actions the Nazis took.
I agree that the Nazis were a particularly extreme kind of evil but to the Boers in South Africa (and to many other ethnic groups who suffered under the British) they could be forgiven for thinking that their treatment was not many degrees different to the treatment of Jews and Romany under the Nazis. So for particular groups of people, they may not have considered things materially worse had they been under Nazi control.
After all, how large was the Jewish and Romany population in Africa?
Are you serious ?
I cannot further engage in this conversation.
Stay safe.
I am always a bit bemused by a āthat genocide was worse than that other genocideā discussion.
To the victim gassed or hacked to pieces with a machete, the outcome is the same. Iād wager those left behind donāt care much for the distinctions eitherā¦
Well consider it this way -
Of all the wars before or since, is their any incidence anywhere in history, that comes close to the heinous crime of the industrialised murder of 6 million people and the attempted eradication of an entire race?
As genocides go they dont come much bigger - or have the same underlying sinister intent.
Those left behind do care for the distinction - the Jewish genocide of 1936 -1945 has no parallel and cannot be allowed to be the subject of reductionism or revisionism.