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Title: National Review: Brit Wimps
Source:
National Review Online
URL Source: http://corner.nationalreview.com/po ... ZkNWU5ZGQ2YTAxMmJiNmQ3MDRmNmU=
Published: Apr 4, 2007
Author: John Derbyshire
Post Date: 2007-04-04 13:22:20 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 424
Comments: 22
Once again, it's me and Ralph Peters on the same wavelength, deploring the cowardice of the British sailors and marines kidnapped by Iran. When it happened, I said I hoped the ones who'd shamed their country would be court-martialed on return to Blighty, and given dishonorable discharges after a couple years breaking rocks in the Outer Hebrides (which, believe me—I've been there—have a LOT of rocks). Now, I confess, I wouldn't shed a tear if some worse fate befell them. The only coherent response I get to these sentiments is: "How do you know what they've been through? How would YOU stand up?" To which the obvious reply is the one Dr. Johnson gave in some similar case: "I may criticize a carpenter who makes me a bad table, though I cannot make a table myself. It is not my job to make tables." It is the job of a Royal Marine to fight, and if necessary suffer and die, for his country. They know that when they go in. It's what they are told! I nurse a quiet hope that if put to the test, I would stand up as well as any Marine. Whether or not I would, however, is irrelevant. Whether or not I could stand up well to torture, I expect Marines to. And in any case, there was no evidence of torture or mistreatment in any of the filmed cases I have seen. They look just fine. You can't fake that. The girl sailor had that headscarf on within hours. From what I've heard of torture, even weaker cases can hold out for a few days. As for the argument that these people might have buckled under threats to hurt their comrades, I should think a soldier's answer would be: "They are soldiers, same as me. They know the risks of service, and they'll answer for themselves." In any case, a trained soldier will have been instructed that these Iranian fanatics are without any scruples. They practice what Lenin called "revolutionary morality"—i.e. whatever advances the revolution is good, whatever does not, is bad. It should be assumed that everything the Iranians say is a lie. If they say: "Do this, and we won't harm your mates," and you do it, they will harm your mates anyway. Of course, this kind of truth is much harder to get across to young people who have been brainwashed from elementary school to believe that their own culture is corrupt, evil, and false, while the cultures of Third World barbarians are morally superior...
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Aliyah bump.
Daddy started out in San Francisco, HAHAHAHAHA. This is precious - John Derbyshire (who has never served a day in the military) denigrates the UK sailors referring to them as "cowards" and hopes they are court-martialed on their return and made to do hard labor, splitting rocks ( and Derbyshire calls on his own vacation memories to name the perfect punishment site for cowards)...HAHAHA...there's good irony here. It's great fun to see that the neocons are imploding, exploding, going off the deep end - all because neither the UK navy nor the UK gov't allowed this event to function as a tripwire for WW III. Derbyshire and Ralph Peters ( who at least served in the military) are on the same page all right - it's called the Looney Tunes page of the Perpetual War book written by Leon Trotsky. Shut the fudge up, John. You are a big fat ugly phoney, through and through. An empty suit with a big mouth.
From the public fool system of the U.S., nothing would surprise me. It is time to return to the advice of those dead white guys. "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Do we know if those sailors were armed?
Derbyshire seems to be assuming that what the sailors admitted was false. For all we know, it was true. If it was true, does he still think they were wrong to say it?
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
There is food for thought here, but Derbs misses it with an easy play. It is clear the sorts of soldiers in harms way are not the sorts of soldiers we think of from heroic tales of youth. It is a worthwhile point to show that their behavior is well, odd, for military folks, considering the short duration. I am certainly plenty happy that there seems to be a peaceful end to this story, and the soldiers, through no effort of their own, seemed to have made a mockery of the whole absurd adventure in that part of the world.
It's not easy to be heroic in a cause that you don't believe in.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Yup, but there is many a tale of Vietnam POWs who knew the BSness of the war but didn't break. It's just not something that you do. (Another example is that the death penalty--the firing squad-- should have used against the torturers of AG but instead they got light prison sentences.)
there were at least some among the 15 Brits who did have guns. It was reported in UK newspapers that when the Iranians pulled up the commander of the 15 Brits was on the radio to the Cornwall to ask what their response should be and they patched the radio call immediately to Tony Blair's office. and the commander of the 15 was told to hold their fire. and I read that some of the video shows them holding their weapons during the ride to Iran after they'd been captured.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I guess what you view as being commendable, I view as being stupid. The Vietnam War was based on lies to benefit the MIC. You yourself call it a B.S. war. And if POW's knew it to be the case at the time they were held captive, who cares whether they allowed themselves to break or not? Breaking might have made life easier for them while they were held as POW's. The US gov't didn't give a damn about their lives - the gov't drafted them into a a shameless war of aggression to support a corrupt S. V. gov't and to line the pockets of defense contracters. The US gov't then left many of the POW's behind to die in N. V. after the war ended inspite of knowing full well that Americans were still being held as POW's. There was no honor to uphold by the POW's - fedgov't was the worst offender of "dishonor" from the get-go. LBJ should be tried for treason posthumously, lying cheating corrupt war pig that he was. He got us into a war for lies so he and his MIC pals could profit from the blood of drafted American young men and from the blood of Vietnamese. I hope LBJ rots in hell.
National Review is an idiot magazine. I used to read it before it went neo- con. This is the same rag that told jokes about the murder of Rachel Corrie.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Admirable. If you let the hate blind you too much, you'll miss it and end up with an inverted aesthetics (by Western standards) that puts the rats in the good, and the warrior poet, that most beautiful of creatures, in the bad. Warrior poets, these Brits were not.
The great hero archetype depicted in legends of yore has been replaced. I guess you did not receive the memo from Henry. "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy." -- Henry A. Kissinger, quoted by Monika Jensen-Stevenson, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Dutton, 1990, Page 97, citing The Final Days, Woodward and Bernstein (Simon & Schuster, 1976)
Thanks for this false-flag update.
While things spiraled totally out of control under Lyndon, I believe that Ike had some of our people on ground - perhaps why he gave the warning in his farewell address...? We have to remember that the CIA was functioning almost immediately after the end of WWII to keep us properly supplied with "enemies."
No, I got it. It was a picture of Lyndie England. These Brits are almost comic relief in our tragedy. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are very much alive.
Comparing carpenters to couchwaffen is a poor, poor analogy.
"Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war." -- Thucydides
Well- they weren't fighting for their country. They are mercs fighting for a cabal of trans atlantic oligarchs. Granted- I doubt one of them would subscribe to my views of their "service" as Mercs but they generally know on some level- especially marines- that they are not going to be defending the white cliffs of Dover from foreign aramadas poised to invade or in any real way be "defending" their country. They know damn well that they will be deployed abroad in third world hell holes to kill and subjugate peoples who don't toe the line of their first world shadowy masters- of course it isn't put in those terms- flowery crap like "Liberation" and junk about "human rights abuses" are used to justify their self serving interventions. But when push comes to shove I doubt two marines in either the UK or US would "suffer and Die" in Iranian captivity so as merely to avoid embarassing warmonger cowards like Derbyshire.
I "thought" I came across a pix that showed the zodiacs? they were in looking ready for action, real serious military machines, but I cannot now find the pix.
It would appear that not all the rocks are to be found in the Outer Hebrides.
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
NR has always been about managing and steering the "conservative" movement into accepting a massive DC warfare/welfare state. But it did have a grand and rich intellectual tradition in which some damn fine articles were published from serious and accomplished scholars. Now it is a dumping ground for the cheap polemics of prep school dabbler wise asses and whored out MIC think tank "intellectuals" who take whatever position they are told to and will say anything. They are straight up shills for the Beltway and they offer nothing of substance. They seem to exist in order to convince people that supporting a souped up federal security state with an elected dictator at the helm and being for a state of permanent war against "Islam" is now "conservatism" while questioning these self serving statist fraud positions is "leftist".
I agree. and I'll just echo that National Review used to back in 1960's & 1970's and even into some of the 1980's had real intellectuals writing for it. Now it is garbage.
Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I hoped the ones who'd shamed their country would be court-martialed on return to Blighty, and given dishonorable discharges after a couple years breaking rocks in the Outer Hebrides (which, believe me—I've been there—have a LOT of rocks).
Tootin' on his trumpet loud and mean,
Suddenly a voice said, "Go forth Daddy,
Spread the picture on a wider screen."
And the voice said, "Brother, there's a million pigeons
Ready to be hooked on new religions.
Hit the road, Daddy, leave your common-law wife.
Spread the religion of The Rhythm Of Life."
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
Once again, it's me and Ralph Peters on the same wavelength, deploring the cowardice of the British sailors and marines kidnapped by Iran. When it happened, I said I hoped the ones who'd shamed their country would be court-martialed on return to Blighty, and given dishonorable discharges after a couple years breaking rocks in the Outer Hebrides (which, believe me—I've been there—have a LOT of rocks).
#3. To: Brian S (#0)
Of course, this kind of truth is much harder to get across to young people who have been brainwashed from elementary school to believe that their own culture is corrupt, evil, and false, while the cultures of Third World barbarians are morally superior...
#4. To: Brian S. everyone here (#0)
#5. To: scrapper2 (#2)
#6. To: Brian S (#0)
#7. To: JohnGalt (#6)
#8. To: aristeides (#7)
#9. To: lodwick (#4)
#10. To: JohnGalt (#8)
Yup, but there is many a tale of Vietnam POWs who knew the BSness of the war but didn't break. It's just not something that you do.
#11. To: Brian S (#0)
#12. To: scrapper2 (#10)
(Edited)
#13. To: JohnGalt (#12)
the warrior poet, that most beautiful of creatures,
#14. To: Red Jones (#9)
It was reported in UK newspapers that when the Iranians pulled up the commander of the 15 Brits was on the radio to the Cornwall to ask what their response should be and they patched the radio call immediately to Tony Blair's office. and the commander of the 15 was told to hold their fire. and I read that some of the video shows them holding their weapons during the ride to Iran after they'd been captured.
#15. To: scrapper2 (#10)
He got us into a war for lies so he and his MIC pals could profit from the blood of drafted American young men and from the blood of Vietnamese. I hope LBJ rots in hell.
#16. To: scrapper2 (#13)
#17. To: Brian S (#0)
#18. To: scrapper2 (#2)
It is the job of a Royal Marine to fight, and if necessary suffer and die, for his country. They know that when they go in. It's what they are told!
#19. To: lodwick (#4)
#20. To: Brian S (#0)
Outer Hebrides
#21. To: Red Jones (#11)
National Review is an idiot magazine. I used to read it before it went neo- con. This is the same rag that told jokes about the murder of Rachel Corrie.
#22. To: Burkeman1 (#21)
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