300 in the Gulf

It’s obvious enough that the right side of the blogosphere would be a lot happier if there were 15 dead British sailors and marines. Stymied in their desire for a pretext to attack Iran, they seem to be turning on the sailors themselves, emphasizing how “humiliating” their behavior was to the United Kingdom, and presumably to the “West”.

• Captain Ed: “Not only did they participate in televised programs designed to humiliate the UK, they then engaged in what can only be called tourist behavior, apparently with some enthusiasm. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines of any nation are expected to handle detention with a little more aplomb than that.”
• Shorter McQ: It’s too bad they weren’t tortured. “Yes, anyone can be broken. And no, we’d prefer our soldiers weren’t tortured. But for heaven sake, was any attempt at all made here to resist? Any? As far as I can tell, and I’m sure we’ll find out eventually, there was little if any such attempts. When you see two officers on video “admitting” to wrong doing you would think they were doing so only under severe duress and after weighing threats against themselves and those in their command against doing propaganda work such as that. I’d actually be heartened (and much more accepting) if that turns out to be the case. But I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not.”
• Jules Crittenden: “US made a deal. If this is true and the US is willing to capitulate to Iranian bullying in order to prop up a wavering, toothless ally, while Iran is involved in the murder of Americans, then may be its time to withdraw from Iraq and join the European Union.”

Check out the comments for more; these people, who claim to care so much for uniformed military personnel, are sad that the British sailors and marines are coming back in business class instead of in body bags. For the wingnutty, this is simply one episode in a grander narrative that they wish to write themselves into; oddly, though, it’s always someone else who gets to be the Spartans. Reasonable questions can be asked about the behavior of the British sailors and marines, but these questions have reasonable and clear answers; the British were detained by the forces of a country not at war with the UK, and with which, in fact, the United Kingdom maintains correct diplomatic relations. HMS Cornwall, the corvette from which the sailors had originated, was limited both by its draft and by a set of rules of engagement designed to prevent a massacre. The sailors and marines themselves avoided getting shot and shooting anyone; they also understood that no one would believe the things they said on TV, and thus that their statements had no meaningful consequence. These rules of engagement worked; contrary to Wingnut opinion, it’s a good thing that there are no dead British and no dead Iranians. The focus now should be on how improper Iran’s behavior was; diplomatic sanction is the appropriate response for this behavior.

Instead, we’ve got a bunch of people pissed off about how they were cheated not only of another war, but of their own particular “300” fantasy.