Dum Pendebat Filius

Even after the British sailors/Marines returned home safely from their stint in Iranian captivity, most wingnuts are still very upset about the matter. It was bad enough when they were calling the sailors “cowards” who should be “court-martialled”, or calling them “dhimmis” because they smiled for a group picture while they were on their way home to their families, but now they’re being attacked because what happened to them was just like 9/11 and they let us all down by wimping out.

That’s right: their situation was just like what the passengers on United Flight 93 had to face on the morning of 11 September 2001. The Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf was just exactly like a group of four terrorists who hijacked an airplane.

A few weeks ago, 15 British seamen and marines, soldiers of the Royal Navy, found themselves in a similar quandary. Belligerent Iranians had surrounded them and threatened them with both words and actions. Just as the passengers on Flight 93 had a choice, so too did the British seamen who ultimately spent a couple of weeks as hostages of the Iranian regime. Why did these soldiers, the products of military training and representatives of Her Majesty’s flag, make the decision to surrender themselves? Because, according to their Captain at a Friday press conference, “Fighting back was simply not an option.”

What a strange and dismal trip it has been for the Western world, going from “Let’s Roll” to “Fighting Back Was Not An Option” in scarcely more than five years. One can only hope that when the history of our era is written, the former will turn out to be the immortal quote, not the latter.

To Dean Barnett, this incident was another example of “the Western world” backing down in the face of an existential threat. There’s no difference between al-Qaeda terrorists and the Iranian Navy, you see. Those British sailors and Marines should have just shouted “Let’s Roll!” and opened fire, consequences be damned. They should have realized that after 9/11, every day is 9/11.

Just as there are things worth living for, there are things worth dying for. One’s own honor and especially the honor of one’s country must be among those things if you don the uniform of your country’s military.

How dare those sailors disappoint Dean Barnett (and Michelle Malkin, too) by not getting themselves killed? How dare they?