Name, rank and serial number
I fulminated about that damned scarf Faye Turney was wearing during her time in Iran (although, interestingly, feminist groups such as NOW seemed unperturbed, just as they seem unperturbed by Pelosi’s Hermes shenanigans during her disgraceful trip to Syria). I could have, but didn’t, comment on the fact that all of the kidnapped sailors behaved disgracefully, under the traditional standards that used to govern seized armed forced, by doing and saying anything their handlers demanded. As I noted with Turney, I hadn’t walked in her shoes, and I didn’t know the pressures she might have been under. The same goes for the other sailors involved in this debacle. I wasn’t the only one, nowever, who noticed this bizarre behavior from military personnel:
But despite widespread relief at their release, the group may face questions as to their behaviour in captivity.
Colonel Bob Stewart, who became famous as a hard-hitting commander of British peacekeepers during the Bosnian war, said today that he had been “disquieted” by the captives’ TV appearances.
“In the old way we didn’t used to say much when were taken as a captive – name, rank number, date of birth,” Colonel Stewart told BBC Radio 4’s Today programe. “I know things have changed and I know they were not prisoners of war, but I’m a little disquieted about it.”
While the Colonel is absolutely right, the Captain has a very good point about the sailor’s conduct, and it goes to the very moment of their capture:
It would be churlish, though, to spend much time criticizing the detainees when the focus should be on those who allowed their capture in the beginning. Despite its proximity, the Cornwall did nothing to intercede on behalf of its crew when threatened by a hostile force. That demonstrates a lack of loyalty from the top down on that ship, which certainly excuses any from the bottom up. Those who conduct military patrols have every right to expect that their leadership will act to protect them against hostile forces, and British command failed to do so.
An organization’s ethos starts at the top. Lousy management almost invariably equals lousy conduct, and that goes for the military as well as for any place else. (Something that once again increases my respect for the Marines, an organization with an ethos of deep respect for military values and the for the men and women serving this country and observing those values.)
