The War on the West

by Douglas Murray

For instance, Noam Chomsky, among others, has claimed that Churchill advocated the gassing of Iraqi civilians in 1919. What such critics fail to realize is that Churchill was advocating the use of tear gas, not mustard gas. Then there is the example of the Bengal famine of 1943–44. This terrible famine, in which official estimates say that upward of 1.5 million people died, was started when a cyclone hit Bengal and Orissa, destroying the rice harvest. Local officials failed to deal with the problem, as did the viceroy and others. The cabinet records in London show that Churchill insisted that “famine and food difficulties” in the area be “dealt with.” Churchill’s recent critics accuse him of failing to send sufficient grain to India to alleviate the famine, distort the historical record, and fail to note that the truth is that even at the height of World War II, Churchill personally saw to it that emergency grain supplies reached India from Iraq and Australia.