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Comment by newyankee | Hacker News Reader

Next you will go and justify English colonization by stating that the railways British built for transporting goods for their industrial empire actually helped Indians access more grains than they would otherwise get.

In Winston Churchill's case there is a lot of evidence which suggests that due to WW2 priorities he let a few million people in India starve. In any case he did not have any love for Indians and considered them to be inferior race anyways.

Just because famines have happened in India before, no way does that mean that the damage due to certain famines in British empire could've been reduced especially given that India was the crown jewel in British empire providing so many inputs to the British industrial empire.

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All systems can be improved, but perfection is a meaningless yardstick. The most relevant comparison is systems that actually existed.

Churchill could likely have saved 100’s of thousands, but I seriously doubt he could have dropped deaths to zero in the middle of WWII. England was forced to ration food domestically, they didn’t have some great surplus to distribute. That 50,000 tons mentioned could have saved lives but wouldn’t have even come close to solving the problem.

That’s the nuance of history, people could have done more which would have helped though not actually solving the problem. All those shipments sunk by U-Boats were destroying part of a finite pool of food produced which had already shrunk as economies mobilized for war. Eventually you simply hit a breaking point.

I think you are wasting your time. Many Europeans see Churchill as a saviour they don't care about victims from colonies.

It all boils down to the survival of the fittest. Yesterday Europe, today Russia and tomorrow China. No one can stop that

> today Russia

Not exactly the fittest nor really that into survival (suicidal masochism would be a better description)

Your point on many Europeans seeing Churchill as a saviour and not caring about his victims in colonies is just normal by historical (and modern) times. Romans were proud of all the genocides Caesar committed (and proudly self documented). See for example his own account of the Gallic wars and the killing of women and children of tribes from current day Switzerland (the Helvetii). Obama destroyed multiple countries (non-European) and killed and displaced millions and is considered a hero as well in the West like Churchill is. Joe Biden took all the reserves of extremely poor Afghanistan and is starving 40 million people to there to death today. He is considered a hero in the West as well. So like most things it all depends on where you are and who you talk to and their background (European and non-European for example).

Americans in general (and the US mainstream media in their coverage) frame deaths emanating from the US (and it’s close allies) as collateral damage, killed terrorists, eliminated insurecctionists or mistakes or just even ignore it by omissions. From other countries that are not “allies” they are victims or murdered innocents or massacres or genocides etc… Just look at the favorable coverage of Madeleine Albrights death who said in her very own words that she owned to killing 500,000 Iraqi babies and children and said it was well worth it.

https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-ira...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_Wars

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bibracte

https://jacobin.com/2022/01/sanctions-financial-assets-afgha...

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