Today, the first day of Spring Break, has been a rather chaotic one for me, as I’ve had shifting plans regarding the children and, all the while, two legal deadlines to meet. As I always say, you know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up at 5 a.m. worrying about your schedule, and you’re already frazzled and behind by 9 a.m. As it happens, I’ve got my priorities straight, and my children and my professional obligations have been neatly stowed away (thanks in no small measure to good friends and neighbors).
What’s suffered, of course, is my blogging, which isn’t a responsibility, but is a great pleasure. Fortunately for me, others are blogging and, even more fortunately, I have friends to tell me what’s out there. This time, Danny Lemieux brought a Melanie Phillip’s post to my attention. She’s the British journalist who wrote the fantastic (and fantastically worrisome and depressing), Londonistan
In a measured, but still furious tirade, Phillips takes on the horrible conduct the British showed, at every level, from start to finish with this entire Iranian debacle, as well as the cost to all of us resulting from British conduct. Her opening paragraph gives you a good idea about what to expect:
The British marine hostage saga is a debacle of the first order – a grim parable of the degraded state to which Britain has now descended and an alarming portent for the free world in its fight to survive. Relief at the safe return of the 15 sailors, and the fact that we must always bear in mind that none of us knows how we would ourselves behave in such circumstances, cannot nevertheless mitigate the sickening realisation that the hostage fiasco is another terrible milestone in the west’s current suicidal trajectory of decadence and moral collapse.
It seems that, every time one thinks Britain has hit bottom, and is ready to begin lifting itself up again as a nation amongst nations, it goes and does something that reminds us that it may have slid too far down the slippery slope of national decay ever to recover.
Whether this is the bottom or not depends on the moral state of the British people, and particularly of her leadership. Good leadership could rally the latent qualities of the Brits, shown so often in the past. On the other hand, if the British have had enough, they can replace their feckless leadership.
If neither of these things happen, then there’s still a way to go to the bottom….and there is an active and substantial fifth column currently resident in that country that will be only too willing to push her on down the slope.
Weep for Britain, and then determine that WE will not follow her into the hellish swamp that political correctness and cultural relativism always take one.
[...] Bookworm Room linked to this from Melanie Phillips. Ms. Phillips is a Brit who shares in the belief that the [...]
Ms. Philips has hit the nail on the head. Thank you, ma’am.
I was stunned when I read the article by the youngest of the crew that was siezed by the Iranian criminal government. As soon as he was reunited with Faye Turney, he said he cried like a baby and she comforted him. He referred to her as his mommy. He was terrified.
This is a British Royal Marine. I know he was the youngest, but was he an eight year old cub scout on a dark and stormy night? I apologize for disrespecting courageous cub scouts by my statement.
It’s partly an issue of training, but most importantly it is an issue of the military culture itself. As I’ve pointed out before, our debacle at Abu Ghraib points out a case where our own troops went wildly out of control when leadership was also totally lacking.
However, this British debacle points out the failures within their current military culture. Soldiers represent their culture. This young man, behaving even when once freed as if he were a little boy, is a public face of the British military. Is this how the British military wishes to be represented? Does he truly represent the current state of British military culture?
Wouldn’t be so bad if he was Navy, but it gives a bad image to the Royal Marines, which obviously isn’t the same as the US Marines. Which should gladden Book’s heart, at least.
In today’s local paper there was an article about these sailors/marines. The article mentioned that the youngest captive was singled out by the Iranian guards for abuse. He was subjected to, and I quote, “The guards would abuse me by flicking my neck with a snapping of their forefinger and thumbs”.
That is terrible! Good thing the guards didn’t pull wedgie on them, or a titty twister, or snap their ass with a wet towel.
Let’s hope that none of us have to find out how it feels to be held captive, in fear of our lives — that none of us will have to find out whether we actually behave after such experiences as we now think we should (in our present comfort and safety).
Of course, selling the story to the press (or allowing it to be sold) wasn’t a very smart move. It wasn’t even a slightly smart move. Melanie’s spot on, there.
But she sounds unduly critical of 15 lightly armed servicemen in a dingy, surrounded by gunboats with machineguns trained on them, “allowing” themselves to be taken without a fight (rather, presumably, than perishing in a hail of bullets and glory).
One final thought – are these snippets really representative of the story told to the press – or even of what actually happened? Might we be leaping to conclusions based on a selective presentation of fact and interpretation?