I would never say that we or our Brit pals cant fight and kick butt but Id be willing to bet if this were 15 Yanks instead of Brits the outcome would have been the same. I cant understand why everyone is so scared of these Persian m&%$^#r &^@*$#rs.
You know the story of the isolated Marine on Guadalcanal who was surrounded and thought he was going down, fighting of course. Then another Marine called from a couple trees away. 'There's two of us! Let's go!' And they did.
They busted out of there yelling and shooting.
Have to agree with you there. We're usually no better. Its part of our hands off policy with Iran.
Sometimes I get so tired...
"Id be willing to bet if this were 15 Yanks instead of Brits the outcome would have been the same. I cant understand why everyone is so scared of these Persian m&%$^#r &^@*$#rs."
Then what does this mean?
"Asked by The Independent whether the men under his command would have fired on the Iranians, [Lt. Cdr. Erik Horner] said: “Agreed. Yes. I don’t want to second-guess the British after the fact but our rules of engagement allow a little more latitude. Our boarding team’s training is a little bit more towards self-preservation.”
The executive officer - second-in-command on USS Underwood, the frigate working in the British-controlled task force with HMS Cornwall - said: “The unique US Navy rules of engagement say we not only have a right to self-defence but also an obligation to self-defence. They [the British] had every right in my mind and every justification to defend themselves rather than allow themselves to be taken. Our reaction was, ‘Why didn’t your guys defend themselves?’”…
Our Brit pals know that if they got into it, we would have backed them 100% per-cent.
You cannot say the same about any other country, if we got into it.
When the USS Pueblo was hijacked in international waters by the NKoreans in 1968, we allowed the crew to remain captives of the NKoreans for 11 months rather than create an "international incident".
IMO, there would be fewer possibilities for "international incidents" if response was swift and sure everytime a rogue nation pulled a stunt like this. After the Pueblo was hijacked, the Enterprise was off the coast of NKorea the next day. Had I been in charge, I'd have parked 5 F-4s out the deck and invited the NKoreans to come take a look. Then, I'd let them know that they had 24 hours to release the ship and the crew intact. After that, a NKorean city would disappear every 2 hours until the ship and crew were released or there just wasn't anything left to destroy.
Unfortunately, we abandoned that crew to the "negotiators" for 11 months!! BS!!!
I'm inclined to agree with you. I think it isn't so much fear of Iran as Iran's allies and the court of world opinion.
Weren't there some special forces guys who were detained by Iranians during the early part of the war and we didn't fire a shot? The U.S.S. Cole comes to mind as well. I certainly hope our guys would have fired and not be outgunned.