eglamkowski's Journal: British soldiers kidnapped by Iran

So, this whole thing with British sailors being kidnapped by Iran.

Look, I'm all in favor of a very intimiate relationship with Britain - they've been the best ally we've ever had over the past 200 years, and as far as I'm concerned, an attack on Britain is the same thing as an attack on the USA. I hear people saying how this kidnapping is an act of war, and some people are so outraged that we weren't already bombing Iran within hours of the kidnapping. I hope those people don't vote.

Kidnapping of sailors was hardly invented by Iran - it's an extremely ancient practice. The British were among the most notorious not only for kidnapping sailors of other nations, they went one step further and impressed the kidnapped sailors into crewing British vessels. In fact, the British impressed so many US sailors, thousands of them, that it became one of the key reasons for the War of 1812. We did go to war, in part, over the issue of kidnapping of sailors, but we didn't go to war within hours of the first sailors being impressed, it took a good 5 or 6 YEARS for this to reach the point of justifying war.

I understand this is not just one isolated incident of Iranian aggression, they've become very belicose of late, but when it comes to Britain dealing with the kidnapping of their sailors, it's a situation that Britain, of ALL countries in the world, necessarily must handle delicately, given their own sordid history of this sort. The US also has a rather bad history, in fact extending 100 years longer than the British practice (it was made a federal crime only in 1915, yes not until after The Great War was under way!), of shanghai'ing innocents. Going to war so quickly over only one such an event is just... stupid.

Of course, as part of a pattern of behavior (kipnapping UK sailors, supplying both material AND troops to the terrorists in Iraq, just its general history of the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in recent decades, it's defiance of the UN on the issue of nuclear weapons, it's violations the Geneva Conventions, it's stated goal of obliterating Israel and genocide against the jews, it's support of terror groups like Hezbollah, etc. etc. etc), it helps build a compelling case for some sort of action against Iran, but don't just say we should start dropping bombs because they kipnapped some sailors. It would be a very foolhardy country indeed who used that as a sole reason for war.

Self-defeating

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm the first usually to cry for using nukes. But in response to a hostage crisis, bombs are self-defeating. If for no other reason than you're likely to hit the very people you're trying to rescue.

Re:

[JesseL]

Bombing hostage takers isn't entirely self-defeating. You probably won't get the hostages back, but it will certainly discourage future acts of hostage taking.

Better reason

[Stargoat]

It's a better reason than the Bush Administration took us into Iraq with.