In the End, We Are Limited.
We've Been Told to Condemn Men to Hell. We Must Take Our Marching Orders.
By Thomas Posted in War — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
This is a long one. Forewarned is forearmed.
I begin by noting that I'm a monarchist.
Well, that's not precisely correct; it's no more accurate than saying I'm a theocrat, an oligarchist, a republican, a democrat, a plutocrat, or even a certain kind of fascist. What I am is someone who does not believe that government needs to be responsive to the people it governs; rather, it needs to be the government to which the people consent. Thus, as I once remarked offhandedly, I'm not opposed to theocracy per se; I'm only opposed to it insofar as it is not the form of government to which its people have consented. Calvin's Geneva, while predictably awful, was legitimate. Based on how the Iranians act, their government is legitimate. The iron test is not voting or some other positive means of assent (although that is a useful measure); a mere negative test, i.e., a lack of a sufficiently large insurgency or insurrection, is sufficient to make the point.
There are certain forms of government, however, which no matter how legitimate, are simply unacceptable, and must be brought down by all means necessary, either because of the human toll they inflict on their own citizenry; because of the dangers they pose to others; or more often than not, both. Thus, the Soviet Union. Thus, Hitler's brand of fascism (but maybe not Mussolini's). Thus, frankly, whatever it is that Kim Jong-Il is running in North Korea, and the People's Republic of China. And, thus, Saddam Hussein's regime.
But that's not the whole story. Read on.
I'm not going to bother proving all of that; that would result in a thousand irrelevant discussions that step past where this is going. My essential point is that I generally subscribe to the idea that men should be able to sentence themselves to Hell if they so desire, but that we are our brother's keeper when other men are sending them to Hell on Earth. The government of Saudi Arabia, while repellant on a number of levels, appears to be a fairly consented-to one, and for all their small-level atrocities, they don't aim high; as such, it's not our problem. Hussein, by contrast, not only reveled in the little tortures that made his life bearable, he was unapologetic in his view that the rest of the immediate area belonged to him, and he was willing to get it.
Thus, whether or not he had weapons of mass destruction, he regularly tortured his own for fun; he invaded other countries; he undermined the much-ballyhooed sanctions regime to the point where it was a mockery of our power and the power of the (heh) international community; he gassed, he shot, he murdered en masse; and let's be frank, one way or another, he would have had a nuke pointed at us or Israel or both at some point.
Suffice it to say that I have and had no quibble with eliminating that psychopath once and for all.
I'd go a bit farther, in fact: Although I had and have serious doubts about its ability to work, I'm entirely comfy with giving a run at "planting" democracy in Iraq. The reason is because such an idea is, counterintuitively, profoundly conservative -- or more accurately, its impetus is.
My good friend Paul Cella is fond of saying that the Iraq War is a profoundly unconservative one; indeed, he goes so far as to say that it is Liberal. We disagree on this point because the most fundamental Conservative insight is that men are entirely fallible, and keep making the same mistakes again and again. Recognizing those past mistakes, and trying to avoid them (while realizing that your chances are slight), is one of the most conservative activities possible.
We did the Realpolitik thing in the Middle East starting with FDR and one of the original al-Sauds. The net result was despotism unchecked, constant war with Israel, mass murder, theocracy (frequently preferable to the only alternative on the ground), terrorism, inflated oil prices, war unyielding, and, finally, thousands dead on our shores.
The belief that continuing that path would yield a different result is the classic definition of madness. It is not conservative; it is insane.
I add that a very good reason to try what we did is that there are no really new events in history; and one of the great lessons of history is that when a superpower gets punched in the nose, it generally responds with a massacre of whoever was dumb enough to take that swing. Quite simply, while I love my countrymen dearly, I'm not convinced that one nuke floated into Baltimore Harbor would not produce an undeniable demand to turn the Middle East -- and the millions of innocent men, women, and children living there -- into a shiny, well-irradiated parking lot. And if we didn't try something different soon -- I believe this to be the key Bush insight -- then that parking lot was in the undeniable future.
As a Christian, I'm also compelled to note that recognizing that we are our brother's keeper is sort of entrenched as a 2,000 year old teaching, which sounds suspiciously conservative to me.
But all of this is beside the point, now. And it's because of the consent of the governed.
All of the calls for a "Sherman style" general who will ride roughshod over the Iraqi insurgency are pointless. All of the calls not to "cut and run" are irrelevant. We lost the Iraq War last week, because we, as Americans, elected to lose.
I know, I know. The Democrats say they won't "cut and run." Some manner of Republicans, embracing the belief that hope can triumph over experience, believe them, and, showing signs of early madness, suggest that the Democrats don't dare cut and run.
This is foolishness of the first order, and I would respectfully submit that the American people are not so stupid as that. The Democrats' unabashed foreign policy platform since Nixon first pasted them on a Presidential run has been "no American wars." They don't hide it. They got elected en masse in 1974 when Americans knew (or should have known) that the Democrats would abandon the South Vietnamese to mass slaughter and gulags. They made no secret of their positions, and if Americans thought they were repaying the GOP for Nixon, they assuredly didn't care that they were condemning millions to death and torture. The most bellicose Democrat President since 1968 couldn't bring himself to put troops on the ground if there was any chance that their blood would flow. While it's fair to say that the Democrats haven't exactly articulated any meaningful plan with regard to Iraq, they weren't required to do so; they did what any good opposition political party would, and simply stomped their feet and said the opposite of the party in charge. And what they said, removed from all the pretty dressing, was "cut and run." Or redeploy somewhere five thousand miles away. Something like that.
And the American people heard them. Oh, we can sit here and come up with dozens of reasons why the GOP lost last week, and God knows I have a nasty post just waiting to share my thoughts; but at the most basic level, whatever other motivations voters had when they went to the polls, they knew -- or if they had active brain cells, which the overwhelming majority do, should have known -- that every time they pulled the lever for a Democrat, they voted to run tucktail.
In other words, there will be no March to the Sea Through Sadr City. There will be no vicious ground campaign. There will be no long-term assistance to the Iraqi government, even though they seem to want it, because the American people have had enough. Pretending otherwise is for the politicians. Eventually, we will have a point where the popularly elected Democrats in Congress put forth a budget with no appropriations for the war in Iraq. The popularly elected (through the electoral college) President will either sign it, or he will shut down the government. George W. Bush will not shut down the government.
We are basically looking at a situation where black has a queen, a rook, and its king, and white is left with only its king, and we're watching just to see if black is competent enough to steamroll white into checkmate without stalemating him first.
One of our best commenters is fond of predicting the decline of the Pax Americana, and the rise of India and China. I have often disagreed with him, but for a very limited reason: India may or may not rise, but China's doom is written on the wall. Anyone reading through my comment exchanges with him will note that I never say it is because I expect America to continue prevailing of its own weight. Roughly half of our country would be perfectly at home in Europe, if Europe offered the same amenities. They do not have more than one or at most two children. They favor heavy government intervention, relatively high taxation, forced preservation of land that isn't theirs, socially liberal policies, and European bloodlessness to the murder of innocents in different countries. While I disagree stridently with their ideas, that does not make them immoral; its makes them highly rational, but ultimately doomed to head the way of Europe. All humans, as I've noted before, are scum; that half of the country's manifestation as scum merely has the side effect of electing Democrats does not make them more or less scum than the rest of us.
And they just set our foreign policy by convincing enough of their fellows to agree with them.
The problem, of course, is yet another of those history lessons: When a giant -- an empire, a superpower, what have you -- slinks away from a battle, the world knows the giant is weak, and begins tearing it down in every way possible. Behold Rome when she started erecting walls. Behold the Mongols when they started entrenching. Behold the Crusader kingdoms, the Soviet Union, the Byzantines, the Holy Roman Empire, various Chinese Dynasties, the Ottomans, the Spaniards. When a superpower embarks on a military adventure, it must win, or watch its own doom writ on a wall.
Ronald Reagan knew this. Jimmy Carter did not. George Bush, I suspect, knows this. Nancy Pelosi does not.
And so, if I thought we had popular will behind us -- because we only act at the consent of the governed -- I would say we must push on, and leave Iraq in better shape than it was. We must be prepared to mix blood and peace as need be, whether that means slicing Moqtada al-Sadr's throat or shaking hands with him, so long as we win. And when Iraq has a government to which its people can consent, and which threatens no one (especially not us); or if the Iraqi government asks us to leave; then, and only then, should we withdraw. To do otherwise is to leave our fellow men to blood and terror. To do otherwise is to surrender any pretense to authority -- not "moral authority," which is merely Leftese for "agreement with the Left," but rather the kind that actually bends other nations to our will in ways great and small -- on the world stage. To do otherwise, frankly, is to prepare the nuclear launch codes for the day when New York City is so much glowing rubble.
But this is 1974, not 1980. Good or bad, right or wrong, our system has just informed us that today is the day when we abandon Iraq. I frankly wash my hands of it, but there is no denying the popular will.
Thus passes the Pax Americana, because of the consent of the governed.
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Given that the Iranian people seem to have reached a happy compromise -- Persian nationalism combined with the odd religious crackdown, infrequent but rarely disciplined Zoroastrian holidays, porn on cable and internet access, and the odd Death to America rally -- I think you'd have a hard row to plow to show that they're opposed to their regime.
I'd love to be wrong.
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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.
We are basically looking at a situation where black has a queen, a rook, and its king, and white is left with only its king, and we're watching just to see if black is competent enough to steamroll white into checkmate without stalemating him first.
Actually, you missed one other piece on the board. It's a lowly pawn, over there in the corner. White's only hope is for the King to cover the pawn long enough to advance to the 8th rank ... or should I say, the 2008th.
You probably missed the pawn because there was no mirror.
Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
Any player worth his salt can squish that pawn with just the rook and queen. In a worst-case scenario, you sack the rook and go on to mate with the king and queen. It'll take about seven extra moves.
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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.
Seems to me (and I say this with trepidation regarding my imputed infantile reading capabilities) you advocate winning because it is right and then you advocate acquiescing because the electorate has demanded it. I would make argument against the rationale of the second step. Though to the extent you are merely making a prediction, I would concede its merit without totally giving up hope for the better, more right outcome.
John E.
The right thing to do is to set an objective -- one that I believe has been set -- then win, period, full stop. The inevitable course of action from this point on, however, is to lose.
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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.
If the Iraqi government has the consent of the governed, then why do we need a march of the sea to get its own people to stop rebelling against it?
Indeed, that march to the sea sounds exactly like the tactics Saddam Hussein stayed used to stay in power, massacring tens of thousands of the minority in order to make them buckle under to his government.
We will win the Iraq war by excluding items like the Iraqi civil war from our war plan. It's not our business, not our fight, not right, and has nothing to do with our national security. The Iraqis are not terrorists, they're not our enemies, we never declared war on the, rather they are just people who happened to be in a country we invaded.
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"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, when asked by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "Are we at war, Helen?"
I'm not worried too much about our guys leaving Iraq.
According to the left...The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the "War on Terror",so all those Al-Queda that are fighting our troops and stirring the Islamist pot in Iraq will just pick up and follow our troops to wherever they may "Re-deploy" to.
I mean,the GWOT is still going to be fought, right?
The American people didn't vote those Bozos into office to oversee the dismantlement of the American military and Intellegence communities (again!) and our withdrawal from the fight against the enemy that did bring us the 9/11 attacks, did they?
I'm sure the Democrats intend to continue the fight against the people who murdered 3000 Americans and killed or wounded thousands more since 9/11,
I mean they have to don't they?
They are about keeping America safe from all enemies foriegn and domestic, aren't they??
Aren't they?
"You never need a firearm,until you need it BADLY!"
> so all those Al-Queda that are fighting our troops and stirring the Islamist pot in Iraq will just pick up and follow our troops to wherever they may "Re-deploy" to
If we stay in Iraq but stop fighting their civil war, there would be less advantage for the Iraqis to let Al Qaeda stay in their country. They couldn't cause casualties and they'd know we could outlast them. Also if we stay out of their civil war the Iraqis will have incentive to negotiate an end, which would include getting Al Qaeda out of their country.
this "civil war" in Iraq between those under Saddam, who held the boot on the necks of the people and those on whose necks the boot was held?
We went in there for a reason,-actually many reasons- among them was to show our enemies that we would do whatever it takes to achieve our goals.
Now that the Dems are in charge of the purse strings,I fear that our enemies will be proven correct,America is weak and unwilling to fight for what we believe.
It's 1974 all over again.
More is the pity that Americans refuse to learn from history, and recent history at that.
Leaving Iraq will not make America or anyone else safer.
WE will be attacked again and again until we simper and beg for mercy and there will be none given.
DO the Dems truly believe that those who seek our destruction will leave us in peace should we disengage on any battlefront?
Has history taught us nothing?
Our cut & run from SE Asia was one of the reasons that bin laden gave for his contempt for the American people.
I say, stay and fight and win,then move on to the next battle,wherever that may be.
Our enemies will not stop,they will not rest,until America and all she stands for is destroyed.
They keep telling us that,Why won't we listen?
"You never need a firearm,until you need it BADLY!"
"China's doom is written on the wall."
No, it isn't. Of all the worthy causes that conservatives embrace, both Europhobia and Sinophobia are both the most useless, most errant and the most misguided. I've worked over many, many years in China and that's probably the most pro-business place on the planet right now. We keep getting snowed by the history of the Communist Party there. Russia was deeply and sincerely Communist-- China was not. What they had was a megalomaniac incompetent of a ruler in Mao Tse-Tung who used supposed Communist ideology to support his own vices, but they never had anything like the system the Russians had.
Now, it's preposterous to speak of them as Communist or Marxist in any form. They still don't have the details right (intellectual property laws in particular), but they're learning from their Western tutors quite well, and gradually introducing a highly transparent and quite responsible system of freely accessible capital and entrepreneurship.
When I first went to China, I was suspicious about all the corruption and inefficiency I'd heard about. I was pleasantly surprised by the discipline and sheer resolve they demonstrated to move to clean up these problems-- they're a capitalist country that believes in the free market capacity to clean up their system. Also as China's middle class grows, the calls for representation grow as well. It's a slow process but it gradually leads to increasing citizen participation, starting at the local elections level. Most importantly, China actually *makes* things. This is also something that a lot of conservatives get wrong about Europe-- despite their economic doldrums, Europe has a long-term advantage in the strength of their manufacturing base, which is steadily eroding here. China is also a country with a decent-sized Christian community with an increasing say in the country's business. Europe, for its part, is actually having a small Christian resurgence in a few places, especially in central Europe (quite to my surprise as well, I must admit).
"They do not have more than one or at most two children."
No, no-- totally wrong. I used to believe this too until I actually went to China. People in the rural regions regularly have 5-6 kids, that One Child Policy never had sway outside of the major cities in China, and even then there are all kinds of ways around it. China's demographers and census takers so obviously and openly understate their population figures (helps with promotions) that the inaccuracy of China's census is an open joke among statisticians at their meetings. Their actual population is about 1.4 billion people, and their fertility rate is only a bit below replacement, right about at the ideal point for population stabilization.
"They favor heavy government intervention, relatively high taxation, forced preservation of land that isn't theirs, socially liberal policies, and European bloodlessness to the murder of innocents in different countries."
No they don't, Thomas. I agree with you on just about every issue but you're way, way off base here. Taxation has been high but this is one of the issues that's been bristling the growing middle class which has, in turn, been calling for tax reductions-- very, very different from the high-tax economies of Europe. Similar situation with eminent domain. It's no overstatement to note that China's very gradual transformation into something like a republic is being driven, in large part, by the people's irritation at the taxation and eminent domain laws. As for the forced preservation of land bit-- I've heard many people say the same thing about the US in Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Southwest or the Dakotas and other territories with high native American populations. Lots of people say we bloodily seized those territories from other peoples by conquest-- the relevant point is that we've been administering them for well over a century and have become a part of our national identity. Chinese territories have an even longer and more ancient association.
As for "European bloodlessness to the murder of innocents in other countries"-- it's not like we've been all that active in halting the genocide in Darfur ourselves, nor did we do a whole lot for Rwanda. Furthermore, with the recent election of the Democrats, we're on the verge of meekly leaving Iraq in defeat and abandoning the people there to murder by either Iranian-funded militias or resurgent Baathists, plus we're likely to soon follow the Colin Powell-Condi Rice policy of basically appeasing Iran and allowing them to go nuclear.
One respect in which I do agree with your heavy criticisms of Europe, is in the way that Europeans get so cowardly in the face of Iran and abandoning Israel to Ahmedinejad and his goons. Yet we're basically moving to do the same thing, despite having the world's most powerful military and surrounding Iran with hundreds of thousands of troops. Rather than launching air strikes to take out the Iranian nuclear sites (and we don't have to be 100% perfect, just take out the main ones and deliver a message), we're just meekly capitulating to what everybody realizes is airheaded, fruitless diplomacy that merely buys Iran time to increase its nuke arsenal further while we dither stupidly and ineffectually.
With the Democrats' election, we'll probably soon withdraw from the region entirely in complete capitulation to Iran, leaving the Iranians in almost complete control of the southern Iraqi oil fields *and* in possession of a massive nuclear arsenal and an immense military. We're basically about to abandon Israel and sell our Israeli allies down the river to the Iranian beast and its tentacles in Iraq and Lebanon. So, I see no reason these days to in any way crow about superiority to China and Europe. China's a strong and rapidly improving country that anybody businessperson there can rapidly recognize. Europe has its own issues, but I hardly think we're much better at this point. At the very least, we seem to be following the European line of acquiescence to and appeasement of Iran and the ayatollahs.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
"China's doom is written on the wall."
I was speaking of demographics. The popcorn needs to be ready by 2015. I think we'll have an intermission in 2025 or so, but by 2030, it gets to be a lot of fun.
Now, skipping ahead slightly, only to return:
Their actual population is about 1.4 billion people, and their fertility rate is only a bit below replacement, right about at the ideal point for population stabilization.
I'm not a demographer, but the folks in Beijing appear to disagree with you, and are mildly panicky about it.
I also wonder how they'll do with a rising India on their border. Historically, we're not talking the best of friends here.
"They do not have more than one or at most two children."
Read the sentence before that one before lecturing me about China:
Roughly half of our country would be perfectly at home in Europe, if Europe offered the same amenities. They do not have more than one or at most two children.
I wasn't talking about China. I'd moved on. You need to, as well.
"They favor heavy government intervention, relatively high taxation, forced preservation of land that isn't theirs, socially liberal policies, and European bloodlessness to the murder of innocents in different countries."
Ditto.
Look, I found a great deal in that comment insightful and informative -- seriously. I'm all about despair and pessimism. But please, before lecturing me about something, make sure you read what I wrote, ok?
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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.
Deng has always been known for steering China away from communism, but I think history will mark Jiang for steering them toward fascism. Of course, contrary to lefty wishes, fascism is a close cousin of communism, but it's still a leap to make.
Jiang and now Hu are unifying and strengthening China under nationalist socialism, much as Hitler unified and strengthened Germany. It's a great model to follow; Germany rocketed from a relatively free, unstable, and weak country into a relatively controlled, stable, and powerful country under it. And China's doing the same.
But they'll fall though. We're pledged to defend Poland from being absorbed, and we have an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the region. It might even become a nuclear carrier if we play our cards right.
The only question is how bloody the fall will be.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
CAn someone explain why we just can't leave Iraq.
It seems as if they want us gone and they should better know the consequences (if any) of us leaving than do we.
What if we put it to a vote for the Iraq people? This was all about democracy, right (Bush excuse #23)? So let's do it, give them the choice.
If they say "go" (I believe they will), then we do not need any more face saving ploys, we just go.
I would be against leaving the country cold as was done in the 80's with Afghanistan after the Soviets left, but that would be for economic/food/educational efforts, not military.
What do you think.
of the region or the enemy we are dealing with. None.
First, with regard to your comment about putting it to a vote, they did. They elected the government they've got. The government they've got speaks for the Iraqi people. Your comment is completely disingenuous, it's typical of the "revote!" comments of the Democrats every time an election doesn't turn out to their satisfaction.
If we pull out the following things are pretty much a slam dunk to happen.
1. Real civil war. A million or more dead Iraqis, fueled primarily by Iran/Syria on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other.
2. The Turks attack Kurdistan. Another half million or so dead.
3. Eventual partition of Iraq, only 1/3 will end up part of Iran, 1/3 part of Saudi Arabia and 1/3 part of Turkey.
4. The victory over "The Great Satan" will be hailed around the world in every Mosque, by every Imam.
5. The only force currently holding back the worldwide organizing of militant Islam will be neutered and helpless.
6. Look for violence to dramatically escalate in Europe and Southeast Asia. Governments will most certainly fall in France, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia and be replace by governments that are either tolerant of terrorists or that openly support them.
7. Lebanon will become a part of Syria, not just a client state.
8. Africa, though it doesn't seem possible, will get worse. Islam will rise up and more millions of Africans will be slaughtered. No one will likely notice or care.
9. The Iran/Syria combo will get help from NoKo (or more help) on their nuclear weapons program. They will develop nukes.
10. Israel will be attacked relentlessly by Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamas from Gaza. They will have the newest generation of rockets and Russian anti-aircraft missiles.
11. Speaking of Russia, Islamists will rise up in Russia, the Russians will put the uprising down. Most of Chechnya will be dead.
12. Islam will spread like wildfire in South and Central America. It will be Wahabbist. We will not have a fence on the Mexican border or any more advanced border security measures than we've got today.
Generally, I don't much care about #1. If Muslims want to contain their blood lust to slaughtering one another, while leaving the rest of the world alone, I'm personally OK with that. My only concern would be that reporters from the NYT, WaPo and the TV networks send reporters to the war zone so we have an accurate picture of what's going on. For a few days anyway.
Everything else is a disaster on the order of Hitler and Stalin being loosed to play Risk with real people. The net result will make only the population control folks happy. Probably hundreds of millions dead between the conventional killing, starvation across the entirety of Africa and the likely eventual nuclear exchange in the ME.
That's why.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
If you ask the average Iraqi whether they would like American troops to be gone in a year, they would say they would. If you ask an American the same, you'd get the same answer. But that doesn't mean the person wants the Americans out now, or even in a year if things are the same. It just means that other things being equal, why sure, we should be out in a year.
Nobody (as in, not anyone) wants us to stay there forever.
But to answer your question:
The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day. And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy? So, can you sail under the command of a pirate, or can you not?
-- Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Carribean, Dead Man's Chest
We could pull out of Iraq, but there would be negative consequences to America that either don't matter or are seen as positive by the Iraqis.
Our allies (and prospective allies) would learn that we will not be loyal in the face of resistance.
Our military would learn, in a lesson that would last at least a generation, that we don't have the will to win, and neither should they. I was a Marine in the era between Viet Nam and the Gulf War. We knew, and we hated it.
Our enemies would have even more evidence that we are a weak, ineffectual "paper tiger". Terror would be rewarded.
The simpering leftists in the MSM would be rewarded for defeatism.
All of the lives and energy, to say nothing of the treasure, we have used to fight in Iraq would be offeset only by the removal and death of Saddam Hussein. That's not enough.
The power vacuum would be enormous, which would lead to and increase in Iranian and Syrian control or influence. That is not acceptable, regardless of what the Iraqi public says.
But as it happens, the Iraqis did vote on it: they have a government. If that government didn't want us there, it would be crying to the United Nations, if nothing else. And yes, they could do that, because, as Capt. Jack said, there are only two rules. They think having us there is better than asking us to leave.
The Academy: researching the Illiberal Arts
Great stuff. One quibble: I don't regard the lack of a revolution in Iran as any more a consent to the current Iranian government than the lack of a revolution against Saddam was. Certainly some of the government's policies seem to be popular but I do think that if given a greater opportunity the Iranian people would pursue a more open system domestically and probably a less belligerent posture internationally.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill