Outrage as Iran captives cash in
The MoD said: “Serving personnel are not allowed to enter into financial arrangements with media organisations. However in exceptional circumstances such as the award of the Victoria Cross or events such as those in recent days, permission can be granted by commanding officers and the MoD.”
It said the decision had been made because of the “exceptional media interest” and it would have “someone sitting in” on interviews with the hostages.
Well, I think it’s a bit tacky, and I say that as an American. Not that they’d sell the story, so much as that anyone would want to buy it. On the other hand, the general elevation of ”contemptible yobs” to celebrity status does make me wonder what all the fuss is about. I suppose it’s demoralising to see your troops cash in. Or at any rate, more demoralising than having them plucked by Iranians out of Iraqi waters when on a UN-sanctioned mission and held hostage and forced to apologise, while the military does nothing. It appears that this is really a matter of aesthetics, though, so I oughtn’t really attach much importance to it. I’m sure that every one of those who are up in arms about it really supports the troops.
Since they’re not our troops, do we still have to support them?
A. Don’t care.
B. I would pay serious money to see the Iranians try to snatch a boarding party from an Arleigh Burke destroyer.
They were working under the authority of the UN at the time, do you support the UN?
I don’t know whether I really don’t care about the latest wrinkle, or whether I’m just as disappointed with the 15 and the MOD as I can be and it doesn’t make any difference.
Same symptoms.
They really should go back to the Gulf in a little dinghy and make a bid for do-over on this one.
That’s a trick question, isn’t it?
Hmmmm … let’s create an incentive to get captured. Yea, that’s the ticket.
I think I’ll coin a word for this one: Britiots.
It seems logical that the soldiers would be restricted from telling their stories without specific permission from the British military.
I do find it amusing how many people in the driveby media though the soldiers would actually come home with uplifting stories about bonding with their iranian captors – apparently, not so much bonding.
Hmmmm.
Britannia is dead.
On the other hand the next some asshole pops up and starts shouting about the Geneva Accords, we’ve got a really big ass stick to beat him with.
IMHO: Leave NATO, the UN and the Geneva Accords.
The Geneva Accords give lots of cover to our enemies and have never afforded American soldiers any worthwhile protection. Instead make a simple rule:
Abuse our soldiers and we’ll fucking kill you, your wife, your kids, your parents, your brothers and sisters, their spouses, their kids and your fucking dog too. Don’t even ask what we’ll do to your cat.
Point of discussion around the Easter dinner table:
Why aren’t these 15 yahoos being court-martialed?
At a minimum, in the US military, under similar circumstances, they’d be getting dishonorable discharges.
Today is the 65th anniversary of the Bataan Death March*
Why aren’t these 15 yahoos being court-martialed?
At a minimum, in the US military, under similar circumstances, they’d be getting dishonorable discharges.
My (retired) Army husband had similar thoughts.
I rather thought the 15 would hide in shame, rather than want to tell the sad tale, publically. Go figure.
We don’t know what their orders are, under the circumstances.
Dan
From what I’ve read of the ROE, their capture by Iran was inevitable.
However, their behavior afterwards is what is contemptible.
Maybe the problem is with their training…but to read from one of the hostages that another one collapsed to the floor in hysterics after hearing the cocking of a rifle makes me wonder.
Those were Royal Marines??? Jesus on a Pony, how far has the fabled British military fallen!
They need some Todd Beamers in Jolly Olde England…
I’m sure you keyboard jockeys would have used Kung Fu to kill your captors, steal a plane, and bomb Tehran. Just like in that movie you saw that one time.
Christ. The only people who should be ashamed are the simps mewling “Britannia is dead”. Listen to yourselves.
Darleen:
That’s grossly unfair. No one is so “hardcore” that they aren’t likely to get nauseous when they are sure they are about to be executed.
They are Royal Marines, not robots.
Your opinion that they should be stone cold killers who do not care about living at all is contemptible. Especially since it is well established those kinds of Soldiers and Marines get other Soldiers and Marines killed through damn stupid actions.
If you want to find something to point at them and go, “Cowards!†then point at the stupid ass ROE that existed in the first place. Point at their cowardice in not being willing to violate said ROE to cover their friends and allies on the boat when armed Iranians are after them.
Don’t go jumping on them when they are surrounded in enemy territory with out one clue what is going on. Even if being there is largely their own damn fault.
In general:
While I do think their cashing in is somewhat pathetic, in a way I cannot blame them.
If the US Govt. left me in hostile hands after being abducted illegally by Iranians â€â€who I would be legally restrained from fending off by a dangerously politically correct ROE and I later learned that getting me back was basically put on the backburner to “political sensibilities”, yeah, I would probably want to cash in too.
You get the respect you give, and let’s face it, those Royal Marines were actually given very little.
Well said, Heet. I’m sure you, as a person of the Left, see no problem with captured soldiers becoming extensions of the Islamist propaganda machine in a manner of hours. Hell, you guys manage to do it willingly without even being taken hostage.
Instead of nonsensical strawman argments, why don’t you regale us with a story about how heroically you behaved when you were taken hostage by Iranians? Or just tell me how you would have handled this particular scenario. Feel free to liberally use plot elements from “24”, I don’t watch the show so I wouldn’t recognize them.
On a serious note, the people who believe the British soldiers are big pussies are living in a fantasy world.
Ah, but the Geneva Conventions protected them. So it must be OK.
/sarcasm
Brittania Waives the Rules?
All you need to know about heet in one tidy little sentence.
Because you think it is important whether or not someone watches a TV show? Am I less of an American to you? I don’t watch much TV at all. Why should I waste my time?
Hey Heet: Here’s another guy living in a fantasy world, someone who knew what he had to do rather than become a tool for the enemy:
But those scars probably precluded his starring in the made-for-TV movie, eh?
Here’s another MOH recipient with some very pointed words for the garrulous 15: LINK. Maybe you can question his bravery, too.
I’d ask for examples of your own capitulation to and trumpeting of Islamist agit-prop, but the Internets only have so much bandwidth.
Jeffersonian,
What the fuck does any of that have to do with your assertion that the Brits deserve contempt?
I’m still waiting for your billy badass story of bravery and ninja skills. Until then, you and the other chest thumpers are big phony blowhards trying to make themselves feel good at the expense of people who actually experienced what it is like to be taken hostage.
Also, please get yourself and your brethren on TV and radio telling the world how pussified the hostages behaved. Not like the neocons could be MORE marginalized but you could certainly try.
That’s the thing—because of our country’s rules, we can’t tell you.
A – My assertion that the fifteen Brit soldiers merit our condemnation is based on, not only centuries of practice that one does not provide aid and comfort to the enemy, but also on real-world, common-sense projections of what that cooperation means for both one’s fellow soldiers as well as the morale of one’s nation. Hence the fate of, say, Lord Haw-Haw as opposed to these soldiers.
B – My citing of Jacobs and Stockdale obviously point to both the opinions and examples set by men who have been in the line of fire as well as in the clutches of the enemy and their reaction to the idea of cooperating with the enemy’s propaganda efforts. In so doing, a soldier puts at risk the lives of others, surely a despicable act worthy of condemnation, even for a surrendophile such as yourself, no?
C – Other than ad hominem, what do my possible acts of derring-do have to do with this? One need not be a robin to know what a worm is.
And yet John Mccain has written about his experience many times.
After the fact, condemnatory of his torturing captors. A trifle different from going on camera and admitting to war crimes, condemning one’s nation and otherwise mouthing the words of one’s enemy.
Surely even a leftism-besotted oaf such as yourself can make the distinction.
Because someone who believes they can so easily and flippantly judge those who have been taken hostage deserve nothing other than ad hominem. Actually, you deserve much more. Maybe fate will somehow put you in close approximation with someone keen to take a hostage so you can put your money where your mouth is.
I certainly won’t spare them my contempt if given the opportunity, so richly deserved as it is. Certainly my view is shared by others who have been there, as my citation and link show. Care to refute them, Heet?
But I think you resort to ad hominem because, at the root, you have nothing else. These pathetic creatures (and, as you will note, I do not condemn their surrender…they had no means to fight at that moment) openly, brazenly and willingly aided a viscious, hostile regime that is, even as they mouth the words fed them, killing their brothers and sisters in Southern Iraq. Given how quickly they fold for the mere chambering of a round, why not kill them?
heet
Why should I have to refer to fiction when real-life examples abound?
Hell, the civilians on United 93 certainly behaved differently when they realized it wasn’t a mere hijacking.
I realize Left cultists have comprehension and perception problems, but I already referred to both the ROE. As I said, their capture was inevitable, but they are fully responsible for their behavior post-capture and its possible they were ill-trained by Royal Marines. AND I referred to the Bataan Death March, funny how you ignored that.
I was under the impression that Brit soldiers were trained similar to US and to know exactly how they are expected to behave as prisoners.
But I guess the Iranians knew what they were going to get when they picked up these parade-ground poseurs, eh?
So heet, what positions of power and responsibility have you held in your life? What gives you the right to criticize and condemn the leadership of this country if you have never had to make life or death decisions on behalf of millions of people?
And where do you get off talking about TV shows if you never watch them? CHICKENDRAMACRITIC!!!!
BTW heet?
My eldest daughter is a paramedic covering a part of So Cal that would rival some Baghdad neighborhoods… she’s been threatened more than once by gangbangers
Amazingly, she never fell to the ground and peed her pants but just kept doing the job expected of her.
Responsbility and character aren’t in your vocabulary … no little suprise.
I got nothing else? Frankly, there’s no convincing someone like yourself, so why bother?
Right. You should do the job! Get over to the UK and finish the job, big man. Clearly they do not deserve to breathe the air of an internet savvy Rambo like yourself.
Darleen says:
Whatever. Darleen, you are the worst of the lot. Having a husband retired from the military and an EMS daughter makes you an authority on “responsibility and character” how, exactly?
I give up? Why do you keep coming over here and showing what an empty waste of brain cells you are?
IMHO heet’s over-the-top hysterics at the justified criticism of Royal Marine unresisted capitulation to Iranian propaganda demands says a heck of a lot more about him/her than it does about the criticizers.
Obviously, s/he would have cheerfully cooperated with Amadawhackjob and company.
A willing dhimmi. Or Kapo.
Sorry, but I’m still on the right side of this fight, hence my despair and revulsion over the immediate capitulation of the fifteen. OTOH, your applause for said collapse mirrors that of the mullahs. Does it ever give you pause, Heet, that your loathing of the Chimpy/Blair Axis has you parroting them?
We are still waiting on your credentials, heet. What in your resume grants you the authority to lecture us on all thing responsible, moral and good?
Coming from you, heet, I find that a compliment of the first order.
Don’t let me keep you here, I’m sure there are some people you are anxious to betray somewhere.
I know I’m not wetting my bed over the Islamofascist menace while simultaneously decrying the “cowardice” of actual soldiers who have been taken hostage.
Not to worry, sweetie. I never thought I could affect that Babs Bush-like “perfect mind” of yours.
Heet
You’re the one that seems stuck on the word “cowardice” where it’s never been said by any of us criticizing the Royal Marines code-breaking behavior.
Me thinks projection.
You are defending soldiers who capitulated to the enemy, thereby endangering other soldiers still in the field. What gives you the moral authority to defend this action? Do you indeed have experience in betraying those who placed you in a position of trust? Is there some positive side to being a traitor that we are not seeing?
Enlighten us, oh dark and mysterious oracle.
Oh, B Moe. That was a sad attempt at misdirection. I’m not defending anyone except those sane enough to know they can’t judge someone (as heroes or poseurs) taken hostage for their actions.
B Moe, that is a pretty stupid way to draw an equivalence between what I’ve said and the position that the soldiers deserve contempt. Please try harder.
Yo, heet!
Do you know—no fair Googling!—who Matt Maupin is?
Do you care?
Sexist much?
Matt, is that you? No? Shut the fuck up then.
Did you really need two posts to tell me you have no response? You could just go away, you know.
YIELD
Just trying to figure out, heet, if you really give a rat’s ass about the men and women who fall into the hands of our enemies, or if you’re just posturing to score off the people you consider your enemies.
Apparently the latter.
I think we ought to add heet to the “do not reply” list. He’s another who comes not to debate but to slur. And poorly done slurs, too.
So you’re saying he slurs his slurs?
Definitely, Robert. Substandard, not up to code, shoddy workmanship all around. I’ve heard third graders construct a better slur.
So I think the buying public ought to pass right by heet until he can actually construct a decent refutation or a witticism.
These two statements from heet bring up an interesting challenge. Why doesn’t heet put himself in close approximation to someone willing to cut his head off because of the passport he carries and check his pants then.
Heet hasn’t figured out that being concerned about Islamofascism doesn’t mean one is “wetting the bed” or whatever.
Methinks Darleen’s on the right track when she mentions projection.