"This thing is a complete cock-up"

"MSO [Maritime Security Operations] help set the conditions for security and stability in the maritime environment, as well as complement the counter-terrorism and security efforts of regional nations," explains the USS John C. Stennis web site. "These operations deny international terrorists use of the maritime environment as a venue for attack or to transport personnel, weapons or other material." Teddy Roosevelt would be proud. We're speaking softly and carrying a big strike group.

"In my view this thing is a complete cock-up," said a former Falklands Islands commander, furious at how those UK sailors surrendered to Iranian gunboats without a fight, reports the Sunday Telegraph:

Maj Gen Julian Thompson called for a review of the Navy's rules of engagement, dictated by the United Nations, that they cannot open fire unless they are shot at first . . .

"I want to know why the Marines didn't open fire or put up some sort of fight. My fear is that they didn't have the right rules of engagement, which would allow them to do this."

Our own fear is that our cousins Across the Pond are at sea, drifting off course without an Iron Lady at the helm:

Ministers are preparing a compromise deal to allow Iran to save face and release its 15 British military captives by promising that the Royal Navy will never knowingly enter Iranian waters without permission.

As Mark Steyn puts it in today's column, "Taking of hostages by Iran is not Britain's finest hour":

On this 25th anniversary of the Falklands War, Tony Blair is looking less like Margaret Thatcher and alarmingly like Jimmy Carter, the embodiment of the soi-disant "superpower" as a smiling eunuch.

Fortunately, unlike the smiling eunuch, the right-of-center SunTel editors get it:

In comparison to the decade after the Falklands War, when Britain's international reputation was at its height, today we are perceived as weak. The consequence has been the taking of British hostages and their humiliation on Iranian television . . . the lesson from this great nation's history is that we are more likely to avoid war when we are in a position of strength. We become a target for tyrants when we forget that.

Meanwhile from the UKs head-in-the-sand community, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt displaces fear of the enemy onto fear of politically incorrect behavior [via Tim Blair, who warns "As always with such a blindingly stupid quote, be alert to the possibility it’s too stupid to be true.]:  

"It was deplorable that the woman hostage should be shown smoking. This sends completely the wrong message to our young people."

We had joked here the other day about the ciggie-puffing, hijab-wearing infidel:

The cigarette is quite a statement, no doubt an expression of the terrorists' "compassion" for their victims. No word yet from the anti-tobacco lobby.

So now we have word from the anti-tobacco lobby, and it doesn't speak well for the health of the national psyche. We agree that wrong messages are being sent -- to both British young people and to the forces of darkness in Tehran -- but the propriety of a brief smoke under duress isn't one of them. Fortunately, the grown-ups are still in charge, with the Eisenhower and Stennis nuclear-powered supercarrier strike groups now operating in the Persian Gulf for the first time since Operation Iraqi Freedom three years ago, even as rumors fly that the US "will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month."  Gunboat diplomacy, anyone?

Comments

[goomp]

Many of those raised in the protective zoo-like atmosphere that has existed in the Western Democracies during the last half of the twentieth century don't know danger when they see it. Let us hope the Major General Thompsons and those who direct the "gunboats" of the US Navy keep the true dangers foremost in their sights.

[Tara]

Neville Chamberlain and 1930's European appeasement of Hitler come to mind....