Historian Criticizes Winston Churchill

I have occasionally linked to Tucker Carlson, so in the interest of balance and accuracy, I link to scathing attacks on him from CNN and super-skeptic Michael Shermer.

At issue is that Carlson interviews Darryl Cooper who had some criticisms of Winston Churchill for decisions related to WWII. Cooper also blames Hitler and Stalin, but Shermer is outraged that Cooper does not credit Churchill's enormous moral superiority.

quote from 19:49 Irving okay this is all yes the 19:54 Allies killed Innocents on the road to 19:56 Victory but the killing stopped the 19:58 moment the Allies 20:00 won the genocide of Jews by Germans 20:03 ended on VE Day and the genocide of 20:06 Chinese by Japanese ended on VJ Day aitz 20:11 and then King were no more the Allies 20:16 killed in order to Stop The Killing by 20:18 the axis and for no other 20:20 reason the axis killed for geography for 20:23 political control for economic power for 20:26 racial purification and for pleasure and 20:30 the killing would have gone on and on 20:33 and on were it not for the 20:36 Allies anyone unable to see the 20:38 difference should have his license to 20:41 practice history 20:43 revoked that's you Mr 20:46 Cooper

Shermer seems to be blaming Cooper for Irving's opinions. I did not see where either of these videos factually dispute anything Cooper said. And Carlson just interviewed him, and so does not necessarily agree.

Shermer's ends with his real beef, a racial statement.

even Hitler himself was a physical 24:14 wreck by their own criteria. all of them 24:18 should have been sterilized before 24:20 passing on their defective 24:22 genes. extermination of masses of people 24:25 racially or ethnically different from 24:27 those in power is The Logical outcome of 24:30 the aristocratic romance and the belief 24:33 that there is or can be such a thing as 24:35 pure race and 24:38 ethnicity. there is no such thing, as 24:41 modern genetic Sciences unequivocally 24:45 demonstrated every person on Earth comes 24:47 from a single population of a thousand 24:50 to 10,000 individuals who migrated Out 24:53 of Africa and began to colonize Europe 24:56 and the rest of the world time between 24:59 100,000 and 160,000 years 25:03 ago. black Australian Aborigines for 25:06 example are genetically more closely 25:08 related to Southeast Asians than they 25:11 are to Black Africans because the route 25:14 of migration was from Africa through 25:17 southeast Asia into 25:20 Australia. the similarities between 25:22 Australian Aborigines and Africans and 25:25 the differences they show with Southeast 25:27 Asians are literally Skin 25:30 Deep. the principle holds for All Peoples 25:33 around the world and our racial 25:35 similarities vastly outweigh our racial 25:38 differences. We Are One race, one folk, one 25:45 people. all right thanks for Les thanks 25:47 for listening. it's Michael Shermer here 25:50 another solo commentary of the Michael 25:52 Shermer show.

I do not see how this has anything with Churchill's decisions, or the Carlson interview.

As a factual matter, Hitler did not have any children, and did not pass on his genes. What Shermer says "modern genetic Sciences unequivocally demonstrated" is not true as DNA evidence proved about ten years ago that the out-of-Africa population interbred with European Neanderthals and Asian Denisovans. That is, we did not descend from a single out-of-Africa population, but from several populations that had already scattered around the world.

He says that we are one people right after saying that some racial groups are more similar than others. Which is it? If there are measurable racial differences, then we not one race, one folk, one people.

There are probably dog-lovers who say that the similarities between humans and dogs outweigh the differences. So what? Does that mean that Churchill should not be criticized?

I have noticed that some public intellectuals, when presented with a controversial topics, immediately make statements that are obviously wrong. Why? My guess is that they are signaling that they know some politically incorrect facts, and do not want to say them. Shermer has already been fired by SciAm magazine, and may not want to be further canceled.

CNN shows Cooper saying:

0:32 I told him, maybe trying to provoke him 0:34 a little bit, that I thought Churchill 0:35 was the chief villain 0:36 of the Second World War. 0:38 He didn't kill the most people. 0:40 He didn't, 0:41 commit the most atrocities 0:42 and stuff that comes into their head. 0:44 He's saying, 0:44 is that, 0:45 oh, you're saying 0:45 Churchill was the chief villain. 0:47 Therefore his enemies, 0:49 you know, Adolf Hitler 0:50 and so forth, were Stalin 0:52 the protagonists? Right. 0:53 They're the good guys. 0:54 If you think he's a villain, 0:55 that's not the case. 0:55 That's not I'm saying,

So Cooper, in trying to be provocative, said Churchill was the chief villain, but was not excusing Hitler or Stalin.

Shermer acts as if Churchill entered WWII in order to stop the Jewish Holocaust. I do not think that is historically true.

This is weird for a rational skeptic to be so triggered by some criticism of Churchill. We need healthy criticism of war policies. Shermer acts as if Cooper is a Jewish Holocaust denier. I didn't see any of that, but it is still weird to go into a rant about African DNA.

Warmongers frequently cite Churchill to justify war. They will say that we need to stand up to Saddam Hussein and Putin the way Churchill stood up to Hitler. I am not expressing any opinion about Churchill here, except that I think the defense of him is a little strange.

Update: CNN reports:

The Biden administration is denouncing Tucker Carlson after the far-right personality hosted a guest on his show this week who suggested the Holocaust happened by accident, calling the interview “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans.” ...

The administration’s statement specifically refuted Cooper’s claim to Carlson that Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II.

“Hitler was one of the most evil figures in human history and the ‘chief villain’ of World War II, full stop,” Bates wrote. “The Biden-Harris Administration believes that trafficking in this moral rot is unacceptable at any time, let alone less than one year after the deadliest massacre perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Holocaust and at a time when the cancer of Antisemitism is growing all over the world.”

Reached for comment on Thursday, Carlson sharply criticized the White House.

“The fact that these lunatics have used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history disgusts me, and should terrify every American,” he said in a text message to CNN. “They’re warmonger freaks. They don’t get the moral high ground.”

But numerous columnists have pointed out inaccuracies in Cooper’s remarks, including his assertion that the Nazis “went in with no plan” for housing millions of prisoners of war “and just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead there.”

So I guess the chief technical disagreement is over whether the Nazis had a plan. Maybe the White House could have provided a link to a historical document with the plan. Regardless, it appears that Carlson's main interest is in whether Churchill is a good example for starting wars today.