ウォール・ストリート・ジャーナルの論説で、米国の極右がチャーチルを非難していることが取り上げられていました。
“Why the Far Right Hates Churchill”
作者は、ANDREW ROBERTS。イギリス貴族院の議員で “Churchill: Walking with Destiny.” の著者です。
極右が、第二次世界大戦の大悪人はチャーチルと非難しているのですね。
Cooper’s remarks on the Tucker Carlson show led the Holocaust-denying podcaster Jake Shields to conduct a poll on X asking “who was the biggest villain of WW2.” Among his almost 136,000 respondents, 40.3% gave that distinction to Churchill, with Stalin at 25.9% narrowly beating Hitler at 25.3%.
その理由が、チャーチルの視座が世界を見据えており、当時の内向きな英米とは逆だったからと分析しています。
So why is the ultraright targeting Churchill?
In the simplest terms, it is because his practical aims and principles as a leader of the West were directly opposed to the new strain of isolationism in America and Britain. Today’s revisionists project their views about Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran backward through history and denounce the leading global interventionists of yesteryear.
時系列は以下の通り。
Churchill did not even enter the British government until two days after the Nazis’ invasion of Poland. Even then he was not in control of British decision-making, as he did not become prime minister until after Hitler had unleashed his blitzkrieg on Western Europe in May 1940.
チャーチルがヒットラーと戦うべきと内閣を説得したのは事実。
It is perfectly true that Churchill was instrumental in persuading the British war cabinet not to make peace with Hitler. The decision was taken after no fewer than nine discussions over four days between May 25 and May 28, 1940. As they deliberated, a small armada of boats made their way to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of Dunkirk back to Britain.
いま、ウクライナが継戦能力がないのにロシアと戦っていると非難する人もいるかもしれませんが、当時の英国も一国でナチスに対抗できませんでした。１年後の1941年6月、ナチスがロシアに侵攻すると、チャーチルはスターリンと手を組みます。
It is worth considering what might have happened had Churchill not urged these fateful choices. If Britain had remained neutral in the West and refrained from bombing Germany, Hitler would have been able to concentrate his entire Luftwaffe against Russia. Instead he had to hold back 30% of it to guard against Churchill’s bombers.
英米のロシアの支援を私は知りませんでした。
Neutrality in the face of Hitler would have meant that the 5,000 aircraft and 7,000 tanks and 51 million pairs of boots and the rest of the aid that Britain and America sent the U.S.S.R. would not have materialized. Nor would the invasion of Normandy have taken place while the Russians and Germans were fighting in Belarus.
ロンドンのチャーチル戦時執務室に行ったことを思い出します。チャーチルの外遊を示す世界地図が展示されており、第二次世界大戦の間、驚くべき頻度で外遊したのがわかるのです。クラウゼヴィッツが「戦争は政治の延長」と述べたのがわかる地図でした。
米ロ首脳会談を控え、今の我々には、チャーチルのスピーチが響くのではないでしょうか。
“The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we always march in the ranks of honor.”
我々は、この栄誉の列に連なることができるでしょうか。
— 参考 —
【本】危機の指導者チャーチル
【本】第二次世界大戦
【本】史上最大の決断