Mocking Those in Harm's Way

Remembering recent past hostage episodes in the Middle East, and those related to this war in particular, I was wondering how long it would take for American wingnuts to begin chastizing the captured British sailors. Ah, not long.

Some lowlights from the "culture of life" brigade:

In his April 3 Post column -- headlined "Where's Winston?" -- [Ralph]Peters called the captives "wankers" and asserted that they "wimped out in a matter of days and acquiesced in propaganda broadcasts for their captors," a reference to videos aired on Iranian television in which several of the captives said that they had entered Iranian territory. Peters continued: "Jingoism aside, I can't imagine any squad of U.S. Marines behaving in such a shabby, cowardly fashion. Our Marines would have fought to begin with. Taken captive by force, they would've resisted collaboration. To the last man and woman." He went on to write that the "once-proud" British military has "collapsed to a sorry state."

In an April 3 post on National Review Online's weblog The Corner titled "Brit Wimps," [John]Derbyshire linked to Peters' column and stated, "Once again, it's me and Ralph Peters on the same wavelength, deploring the cowardice of the British sailors and marines kidnapped by Iran." Derbyshire further wrote: "When it happened, I said I hoped the ones who'd shamed their country would be court-martialed on return to Blighty, and given dishonorable discharges after a couple years breaking rocks in the Outer Hebrides." Derbyshire added: "And in any case, there was no evidence of torture or mistreatment in any of the filmed cases I have seen. They look just fine. You can't fake that. The girl sailor had that headscarf on within hours. From what I've heard of torture, even weaker cases can hold out for a few days."

...on the March 28 broadcast of Michael Savage's nationally syndicated radio show, a caller asked if the British troops were given Bibles upon their capture. In response, Savage said: "I don't think these people need a Bible. They probably need a condom," adding, "By look of the British sailors, they look like they took them off the back streets of Liverpool." Savage went on to say that they were "lucky they found a job in the navy. I mean, I don't know. You take a look at them -- no wonder they were captured. I don't think they even know they were on a boat".