Ooh, they are freezing relations

[The Rabbi]

As you can see above, I used the term "cowardice," not "coward."  No real difference.  I could call you a bad quoter, but that would be wrong, I guess.  And if you read the post, it attacks the argument and the arguer at the same time.  The rule against ad hominem arguments is not there to keep feelings from being hurt; it is there to detect poor arguments.  Instead of paying any attention to the horrible prospect shootinstudent suggests, of letting ourselves be bullied by Iran, you would rather be distracted by the fact that I used a harsh word on someone that deserved it. 

"I did not have ad hominem relations with that poster Shootingstudent."  William Jefferson Fistful.

[MechAg94]

Last I heard, Iran is not self sufficient on gasoline.  They would be hurt by shutting down trade as well.  Oil facilities are easier to destroy than others.    Blockading them wouldn't do them any good at all. 

The danger I see in them launching anti-ship missiles is getting supplies to our troops in Iraq.  I figure we could do something about that in time though.  I'd like to see war avoided, but Iran does not appear to be leaving open any alternatives.  I think they were emboldened by Israel's failure in Lebanon and think we are too tied up in Iraq to do much.

[MattC]

I'm a bit new to armedpolitesociety.com, so please forgive my confusion over some content in the posts above.

Regarding the thread's topic, it seems to me that Iran is attempting to incite hostile conflicts.  They didn't televise the prisoners to insult Britain--they televised them to show how civilly the prisoners are being treated.  The political leaders in Iran want the citizens to believe that their leaders have done nothing illegal and nothing wrong.  Any aggression that happens over this incident is the fault of the West, and any response to that aggression is self-defense.

The Iranians do not want to go to war and watch their economy crumble as ours might also in a war with Iran.  The Iranians want to go to work, send their kids to school, watch TV in their living rooms, and have a comfortable pair of shoes to walk in.  I think it is unfair to cast an entire country as terrorists based on the aggressive political actions of their political leaders; I will agree that it is their responsibility to correct the aggressive political actions of their political leaders.  But if they are led to believe that the West began hostilities and they now have to act in defense of their country, how many of them do you think would pick up a gun and shoot at the foreigners?  Diplomacy is the correct response, because it is a war for the sentiments of the citizens.  MechAg94 has good points about the Iranian economy and ability to wage a war.  I am less confident of the current US ability to fight on two fronts given the current military situation and American political climate.

Headless Thompson Gunner, I agree with you about Tehran pushing this conflict to the edge.  Backing down in front of a bully is not always a bad thing, however.  There is no single template for appropriately dealing with a bully.  In this case, Britain either has to wave over some friends for extra muscle, which they are doing by asking for help from the (feeble) U.N.  On the other hand, Tehran will exploit this as much as they can for political gains, but knows that executing these 15 Brits will spark an international hatred towards them.  Their execution is highly unlikely.  If, however, it comes down to that, the lives of 15 marines are not worth the terrible consequences for the British nation if they go to war.  Economic sanctions would work better to push out the political aggressors in Tehran than British missiles would.  You see, economic sanctions make the citizens blame their government.  Physical aggression scares the citizens into self-defense.

[Perd Hapley]

"Everyone else was doing it"

I wish everyone else was as polite as I have been. 

[The Rabbi]

"Everyone else was doing it"

I wish everyone else was as polite as I have been. 

I served with George Washington.  I knew George Washington.  Fistful, you're no George Washington.

[K Frame]

MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE. 

MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE. 

MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE. 

THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE FOR.

Repetition doesn't make it true, but maybe it will help you to understand that MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE is basic to my position (or any reasonable position) on this issue.  So all the moral outrage ("He acts like they're expendable.") is just uselessly stating the obvious. 

Unbelievable, but not surprising.

Third-world dictatorships and Josef Stalin viewed military personnel as expendable. Zap Brannigan views military personnel as expendable.

But few people who actually have a modicum of a clue as to the nature and purpose of an integrated military organization view troops as expendable, simply commodities that can be easily lost and just as easily replaced.

To quote the great sage Krusty the Klown...

You, sir, are an idiot.

[K Frame]

"Bringing the sailors home should be a very high priority.  Keeping Iran from using kidnapping as a political tool should be higher yet.  You know that's what I meant, but you twist my words dishonestly.  I don't pity your dishonesty."

Why?

You've already espoused your learned, insightful view that all military personnel are like unto empty soda cans -- disposable commodities for which there should be absolutely no regard given.

[Perd Hapley]

Rabbi, you can start by apologizing for the comments below.

I have rendered the relevant comments in bold. 

Rabbi, I understand that you are really passionate about your booze, but while you're busy looking down your nose at pot smokers and saying "Those savages, why, they're burning a common weedand inhaling the smoke to addle their minds," remember that you've spent years and who knows how much money in order to aquire a taste for an expensive,  toxic, brown-stained, mind-altering, liver-destroying solvent composed largely of a dangerous and concentrated bacterial waste product that develops in rotting corn.  You're actually bragging about how much you like using it as a recreational drug and feeling that you're so much better than magic-brownie-munchers? 

Excuse me while I snicker.

It is the habit of the ignorant to make fun of what they don't understand.  Snicker away.

Rabbi, were your parents killed by dope-fiends or something?

No, Blackburn, they weren't.  Were your parents drug dealers or dope fiends?

[Perd Hapley]

expendable != empty soda can

I speak as a former infantry soldier.  In relation to larger  goals of foreign policy, we wouldn't put the boys out there on the sharp end if we weren't prepared to lose a few.  In that sense, they're definitely expendable and everyone recognizes that. 

[CAnnoneer]

Fistful, please refuse to apologize for telling the truth or to split hairs about it. No society is worth saving if it forsakes truth for convenience or affectation.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Yawn...

[The Rabbi]

Rabbi, you can start by apologizing for the comments below.

I have rendered the relevant comments in bold. 

Rabbi, I understand that you are really passionate about your booze, but while you're busy looking down your nose at pot smokers and saying "Those savages, why, they're burning a common weedand inhaling the smoke to addle their minds," remember that you've spent years and who knows how much money in order to aquire a taste for an expensive,  toxic, brown-stained, mind-altering, liver-destroying solvent composed largely of a dangerous and concentrated bacterial waste product that develops in rotting corn.  You're actually bragging about how much you like using it as a recreational drug and feeling that you're so much better than magic-brownie-munchers? 

Excuse me while I snicker.

It is the habit of the ignorant to make fun of what they don't understand.  Snicker away.

Rabbi, were your parents killed by dope-fiends or something?

No, Blackburn, they weren't.  Were your parents drug dealers or dope fiends?

"I guess it depends on the meaning of ad hominem"  Pres. Bill Fistful.

[RevDisk]

MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE. 

MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE. 

MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE. 

THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE FOR.

Repetition doesn't make it true, but maybe it will help you to understand that MILITARY PERSONNEL ARE EXPENDABLE is basic to my position (or any reasonable position) on this issue.  So all the moral outrage ("He acts like they're expendable.") is just uselessly stating the obvious. 

Uh.  Military personnel generally understand and accept that they are secondary to the mission.  So, yes, technically they are expendable, relative to completing the mission.  However, to consider them trivially expendable, that's another story all together.  

If any of my superiors had EVER said or hell even implied, "We're writing you off, because we don't consider rescue worth the effort", they would have prayed that I did not survive.  One of the basic tenents of the US military is if there is even a remote chance of getting our personnel back, we're going for it.  It's one of our most embedded traditions.  From what I know of the British, they are not quite as rabid on the subject as the US military, but they still believe it.  

In this case, the UK doesn't have the capability of a full on invasion of Iran.  Odds of a Desert One style rescue mission succeeding are less than the original.  The UK pols and generals are not stupid, they know their limitations.  They also know if they write off those sailors and Marines, PR wise they're screwed.  As well as the fact that military morale would be completely shot.  Hence, their only real option at this point is diplomacy.  That's just reality, not cowardice.  

Iran will milk the incident for all the PR it can, but it won't cross the line.  More than likely, they know the UK will grind their teeth and put up with the insult so long as they get their people back.  If the 15 sailors and Marines were executed, things would change.  Quickly.

This sounds like a joke coming from you.  You use personal insults as a matter of course.  shootinstudent's statements in this thread reek of cowardice.  And as I said, I pity him for it.  I will apologize when you and every other member of this forum apologizes for saying that other members are stupid, bigoted, ignorant, sexist, biased, homophobic, unpatriotic, jingoistic, knee-jerk chickenhawks, or a number of other insults.    This happens all the time, and I won't be singled out for it.  When all of you go back through every post and apologize, I'll do the same.

 

Said in the true spirit of taking the High Road.  Sigh.  

[cosine]

Wow, this thread has really created divisions between certain individuals on this particular topic I wouldn't have thought would occur.

[Gewehr98]

I wonder why I went to all the USAF survival schools if they didn't plan on getting me back after being shot down.   

[RevDisk]

I wonder why I went to all the USAF survival schools if they didn't plan on getting me back after being shot down.   

Really?  I thought it was so airmen could feel like they're almost real military. 

(KIDDING! I do know the more intensive SERE courses are more unpleasant than I'd prefer to experience.)

[Perd Hapley]

Why all this flap-doodle about what I said?  The remarks that deserve your attention belong to shootinstudent, who consistently held that Britain should negotiate with a rogue state to regain hostages.  He then misconstrued my statements as pushing for war between Britain and Iran, and having no regard for the lives of military personnel.  Even though I've been one, and of the more expendable variety.  And most of you seem to have bought it. 

I don't fault britain for being more loyal to those 15 than to a geopolitical agenda.]

The issue here is priority: is showing muscle to Iran more important, or is bringing those 15 home more important?

Maybe you think the UK should sacrifice its people for someone else's geopolitical agenda. I don't.

I'm not condemning Britain for showing that its commitment is to getting its people home, instead of treating them like expendables in a geopolitical game that doesn't serve British interests anyway.

So you think Britain should not be committed to bringing its servicepeople home wherever possible.

I disagree in this case particularly because a war with Iran doesn't do anything to help Britain.  They shouldn't be called to sacrifice their lives for some other nation's battle, and the UK authorities are right to treat the issue like it isn't their battle.

Wow, this thread has really created divisions between certain individuals on this particular topic I wouldn't have thought would occur.

  There is no real divide, except with shootinstudent.  Everyone else agrees with me, they're just not seeing through his emotional appeal of "You're a warhawk who doesn't care if the sailors die." 

[Perd Hapley]

Military personnel generally understand and accept that they are secondary to the mission.  So, yes, technically they are expendable, relative to completing the mission.  However, to consider them trivially expendable, that's another story all together. 

If any of my superiors had EVER said or hell even implied, "We're writing you off, because we don't consider rescue worth the effort", they would have prayed that I did not survive.  One of the basic tenents of the US military is if there is even a remote chance of getting our personnel back, we're going for it.  It's one of our most embedded traditions.  From what I know of the British, they are not quite as rabid on the subject as the US military, but they still believe it. 

Naturally, I agree with all of that.  As you say, though, personnel are still expendable.  If we all didn't agree with that, we'd never favor any war, anywhere. 

[Bigjake]

And yes, Fistful, you attacked the person, not the argument, using the derogatory term "coward", which last I heard, was non-complementary in form

To push  a cowardly arguement, I'd suspect one has to reflect that sentiment.  I don't understand why you guys are up in arms about this.  SS has made it very clear which color runs down his back.

Fistful, please refuse to apologize for telling the truth or to split hairs about it. No society is worth saving if it forsakes truth for convenience or affectation

Damn straight. 

This place is a perfect example of why the Iranians think they can get away with anything.  We have no stomach for standing up to a f*#$ing schoolyard bully.  I don't understand some of Y'all.

[roo_ster]

UK & Iran
Iran committed an act of war.  Period.  If they seized them but quickly returned them, low-key words would be sufficient to the task.

Acts of war need careful, but firm response.  We have seen careful and wobbly.  Hopefully the Brits can turn it around.

Also, if there are no consequences, we teach the barbarians that such poor behavior will be rewarded or overlooked.


"They Were Expendable..."
We don't have a military for the purpose of setting the example of personal hygiene and splendiferously clean latrines.

Sorry if FF hurts folks' feelings, but his position is correct.  Any time we commit our boys to work in harm's way, the probability that one or more will be killed is near 1.0.  That is why it is such a difficult and profound decision to make.

Of course, the reality that we will likely lose one of our boys does not negate the martial ethic of "Leave no man behind," as well as efforts to minimize the probability of such loss.

An unwillingness to commit our boys to pursue our interests is an invitation to having our interests pillaged by every comer.  Might as well pack up the civilization nice & neat and bury it in the desert.


SS/FF Flapdoodle
I must take issue with fistful's description.  FF's description assumes SS is taking the part of the US/UK/civilization and I cannot make such an assumption with confidence.

Whatever FF's exact meaning, there is a silver lining.  Seeing Rabbi wax righteous over a perceived ad hominem is priceless.  Next, you'll see me getting cranky at folks whose posts are overly wordy...   

[roo_ster]

Holy fat-fingers, Batman!

[Perd Hapley]

This place is a perfect example of why the Iranians think they can get away with anything. 

I wouldn't say that.

I wonder why I went to all the USAF survival schools if they didn't plan on getting me back after being shot down.   

I was straight-leg infantry.  I stood a not-insignificant chance of being captured in war-time.  I never received the merest scrap of SERE training.  Now, maybe that scenario was more likely for you.  And maybe infantry are just considered more equipped and trained for SERE by our job description anyway.  But we both know that one reason why I never went to a SERE school was that I was more expendable than you.  You should know more about such realities than I.  Maybe you prefer to say that I was less mission-essential.  I would definitely have been de-masking before you.     But why were they putting you in such a dangerous situation that you would need SERE training?  Because you were still expendable compared to the mission objective. 

"I guess it depends on the meaning of ad hominem"  Pres. Bill Fistful.

I just realized that being compared to Clinton is a far worse insult than anything I said to old shootinstudent.

[Iain]

I think I was better off in hospital waiting rooms than I would have been had I been around to participate in this thread. It took a new guy to remind some people of the name of this place, so thanks to MattC.

Suffice to say that I don't think there is blame to be laid at Britain's door for the handling of this incident so far. I've been a bit out of the loop, but tried to keep up a bit. Diplomacy is the first channel, has to be. Gung ho rescue missions in this situation exist only in films and the heads of those who email BBC radio programmes to demand SAS raids followed by one solitary Trident mission. Not likely, or desirable scenarios in my world.

I'd suggest that some need to cool off a bit before posting in here again.

[richyoung]

"War is the failure of diplomacy."

No - war IS diplomacy - to be particular, it is the military extension of diplomacy.

[theCZ]

I think the time has come when people can start quoting themselves and get away with it since most people have stopped following the squabbles by now.

I think the time has come when people can start quoting themselves since most people have stopped following the squabbles by now.

*GASP!*  The nerve of some people!