SultanOfSwing

With a name like O'Reilly, one would think he does. Doesn't it have to be one of his parents though? This isn't the national football team, after all, a degree of actual Irishness is required, surely ...

amideislas

Well, the extremist ultra-liberal/non-usc/muslim/socialist/commie Obama, hell-bent on seizing 300 million guns from innocent men, women and children, who apparently has single-handedly irreparably destroyed life in America, ironically would patently qualify as center-right in European politics. But then again, we aren't quite as exposed to the bombardment of sensationalist fear-mongering US campaign ads as Americans are subjected to. But maybe that says more about Europe than Obama. Or says more about the American right...

Just say it over and over, and eventually, it becomes the truth. Problem is, if both sides equally convince the electorate that "the other side" is truly "something to fear", then no wonder candidates like Trump get so much attention.

After all, who in their right mind would vote for anyone who openly aligns with an extremist ultra-liberal/non-usc/muslim/socialist/commie, hell-bent on seizing 300 million guns from innocent men, women and children, who has single-handedly irreparably destroyed life in America? Pretty scary...

scrubbedexpat099

They have put up with Obama?

dc koop

My point mainly was that there was a video made and intended to belittle and humiliate captured US sailors. That was not necessary and I doubt that had the situation been the other way round no video footage would have been distributed world wide showing Iranian sailors on their knees with hands behind their heads stood over by US Coast Guard armed with assault weapons

I suppose one could say "oh well let the Iranians have their little moment of glory" and anyway if it ever came to it the US Navy could sink the whole freakin Iranian Navy in about two hours flat

Giantaxe

I'm sure the Iranians would have preferred that the incident not happen at all. After all, they did not cause it.

sir_eccles

The US sailors were following their training. Unlike say Jihadist fighters who willingly martyr themselves a the drop of a hat, some people are grown ups who don't want to escalate a navigational error/mechanical problem into something it doesn't need to be.

I'm sure many hawks are quite disappointed that the sailors were held in comfortable surroundings and fed and watered then handed back within 24 hours. No crazy hostage crisis. No BENGHAZI. No long drawn out discussions to retrieve the bodies.

Weird what happens when people act like grown ups rather than petulant children.

Shard

Surely the whole navy/Iran thing was stage managed by both sides to signal the new found spirit of cooperation to other players ? (Russia, Israel, Syria). A similar event happened 5-10 years back (I think) although that one probably was a mistake.

SultanOfSwing

It was hard to tell if the soldiers were doing that because a gun was being held to them, or if they adopted that pose themselves because they accidentally strayed into Iranian waters and they wanted to show from the start that they meant no threat.

The videos were released as propaganda, of course, but there was nothing in them to show that the sailors were mistreated in any way. It looked like protocol to me.

That is about the most 'Murican thing I have read all day

FlaviusAetius

In real life you probably aren't, but anyone reading your crap posts on this thread would be justified in believing that you are as implacable an enemy of America as the Iranians. Nothing America does is right. For example, in your view as an example of our aggression against Iran we deliberately shot down an Iranian civilian airliner to kill Iranians - actually, if deliberate, amounting to a war crime. You really should think seriously about either moving to Iran or returning the hell back to the UK.

Giantaxe

I do think that the captain of the Vincennes should have been prosecuted. Instead he received the Legion of Merit.

"Commander David Carlson, commanding officer of USS Sides, the warship stationed nearest to Vincennes at the time of the incident, is reported to have said that the destruction of the aircraft "marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers's aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago"

...

"Carlson is also reported to have written in the U.S. Naval Proceedings that he had “wondered aloud in disbelief” on hearing of Vincennes '​s intentions, speculating that the ship, known as “Robo Cruiser” for its aggressiveness, “felt a need to prove the viability of Aegis in the Persian Gulf, and that they hankered for the opportunity to show their stuff.”[37]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

And of course the "America love it or leave it" comment is entirely predictable for someone of your ilk.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Are you a genuine idiot, or do you just play one on the internet?

Oakvillian

The shooting down of Iran Air 655 was, in almost all the rest of the world except the US, seen as a war crime. The ICJ action against the US was only dropped in 1996 after the US government paid what was then quite a large amount of compensation to the airline and the families of the victims.

"I thought it was an F-14" is a quite remarkably weak excuse for shooting down a civilian airliner that was readily identifiable as such to anybody who'd bothered looking. The captain of the Vincennes, at the very least, should have been court-martialed for firing on an Iranian airliner flying in a defined commercial air corridor over Iranian territory, while his ship was inappropriately in Iranian territorial waters.

edited to add: even the UN Security Council resolution passed after the event is - considering the permanent membership and the elected membership of that session of the Council - pretty sternly worded. "... expresses its deep distress at the downing of an Iranian civil aircraft by a missile fired from a United States warship..." is remarkably unequivocal in the circumstances.

dc koop

I doubt it was staged or managed. That implies that the Navy knowingly allowed it's sailors to be filmed in such circumstances.

All Kerry had to do during the press conference was to declare that the sailors had been released and had been well treated instead of continuing to run off at the mouth as to how this latest episode was a demonstration of the so called new relationship with Iran. Iran's leaders are as rabidly anti-American as ever and will continue to make mischief in that part of the world.

Aside from the street rabble that the Ayatollahs assemble to shout "death to America" and burn the US flag I have nothing against Iranians in general whatsoever. I know several and they're very nice well educated people

It's interesting to remember that several years back the Iranians took several Royal Navy sailors prisoner. I don't remember the full circumstances but I do remember that the commander of the British ship took no action to stop it

Maybe i'm old fashioned but the first priority of any ship's captain is to protect his crew members above all including himself

dc koop

I've never operated a ship's guided weapons system and know sweet fanny adams about it whatsoever. Mistakes have been made however for one reason or another and the downing of the Iranian aircraft should not have happened.

The downing of the Malaysian airliner by a Russian missile crew in the Ukraine, the shooting down of a Korean airliner by a Soviet interceptor may or may not have been done in error. ISIS however never make mistakes when it comes to blowing up passenger planes

Sh*t happens unfortunately

sir_eccles

I'm not a military man but I suspect the first priority of a ship's captain is to follow the orders of his superiors. I have no doubt that for a ship operating in the Persian gulf there are very explicit orders for engagements with Iranian forces and when it is appropriate to open fire or even to assume an aggressive posture. I doubt they have free reign to defend to the last man.