Humiliation

Humiliation

Friday, April 13, 2007

After an urgent investigation by the Royal Navy, GPS equipment proved that British Navy personnel captured by the Iranian Navy were in Iraqi territorial waters. The British Navy sailors were conducting sanctioned inspections of cargo vessels operating in the Persian Gulf—a necessary wartime function to prevent the smuggling of weapons, explosives and other dual-use technologies into the Iraqi theatre of war to arm insurgent and terrorist forces there. The Persian theocratic government claimed that the British Navy sailors had crossed into Iranian waters and the capture of the sailors was warranted. The leftist international media at many levels vociferously agreed, fueling the confrontation between Persia and the west.

What followed was nothing short of a humiliation for the British people. The British sailors were bandied about on Iranian television with charts of the waterways of the Persian Gulf and the British sailors confessed to “trespassing” on Iranian territory. The Iranian government threatened to try the sailors as spies and saboteurs—some of the highest crimes against a sovereign state imaginable—and the west never raised an eyebrow in response. Diplomatic channels were formed, or “back-channels” to be more precise—any effort short of real conflict to garner the release of the British sailors. Only after the Pope contacted President Ahmadinejad from the Vatican in Rome did the Persians end their recalcitrant response to western diplomatic efforts to release the sailors.

This crisis has taught the Persians a lot about the current standing of the western alliance in the War on Terrorism. First, if the Persians had any doubts about whose side the media was on, no doubts remain. Second, the failure of the British government to even threaten to use force to secure its citizens must be simply astounding to the Persians and other Islamic states. Third, the fact that the British sailors confessed on television to a crime which they did not commit to under the mere threat of harsh treatment by their Persian captors is incredible. Lastly, the Persians can sense the imminent collapse of the will of the British people to carry on the fight in the War on Global Terrorism. The will of a “people” can always be measured by the personality of the military force that its nation wields.

Some weeks ago it was announced in Britain of plans to mothball over half of its entire surface fleet. An island nation without a proficient navy is literally unheard of in history, especially for England, but if you think about it, political trends in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries gives us clues as to why these decisions are being considered. Britain was for decades the rough edge in regards to the formation of the European Union, an uncooperative state when its currency was slated for transfer to the Euro. Unification with the European Union socialist collective also placed Britain under great pressure to conform to the popular will of the EU government. Since the EU government is unconvinced of the necessity of the War on Terrorism, Britain’s alignment with the United States in the war has ruffled the feathers of many EU bureaucrats who want nothing to do with shoring up security matters in opposition to fundamentalist Islam.

The most efficient method to remove Britain from an alliance with the United States in the War on Terrorism, or any other war that the British people may have an interest in pursuing, is simply to reduce the British Navy to impotent levels of operability. A professional navy is the most important force for the western nation-state at this point in history. It is the only security guarantee that the modern state has in ensuring that its exports arrive to their destinations safely and in the guarding of energy resources in transit from the Middle East. The chief reason then to reduce the British Navy is the idea by socialists to remove Britain from allying with the United States. British socialists want a nation-state synchronization such as found with Spain and Germany. Let the Americans fight the War on Terrorism and let the Americans spend their resources on the war while Europe increases its undeclared neutrality.

The Persians must not only see this, but they must also be emboldened by it. Why shouldn’t they? The Persian nuclear program is moving along without restriction. Persian military advisors and Persian weapons are filtering down to insurgent and terrorist groups in Iraq to keep the American coalition pinned down there—it is the perfect arrangement for Iran.

When the British sailors were on television confessing to a crime that they did not commit, that was an example of the decline of western democracies. Instead of refusing to confess to a crime they did not commit, the British sailors provided the Iranians with one of the most effective propaganda victories to date in the War on Terrorism, a declaration to fundamentalist Islam that America’s chief ally does not have the will to continue the fight against radical Islamic terrorism and its transnational expansion. Instead of sending the entire British Navy to take station off of the Iranian coast and demand the release of the captured sailors, Britain acquiesced to its mortal enemy.

The captured British sailors acted unethically and immorally. The captured sailors should have refused to speak on television and should only have given their captors their name, rank and serial number. The international leftist media is also at fault for declaring that Iran was authorized to capture the British sailors even though they were in Iraqi waters, not Iranian waters. The media can sense that a confrontation with Iran may possibly be developing with the west and is trying to act as an “elected” government entity charged with foreign policy decisions. Not even during the Vietnam War were there breaks in discipline within democracies to the degree that we see them today. It is simply astounding that Iran was allowed to dictate yet another hostage-taking scenario to the western powers.

There is one weapon in the west that has yet to be utilized against fundamentalist Islam and the leftist international media’s efforts to derail the War on Terrorism. Britain and the United States should work together with this idea because in its truth is victory over fundamentalist Islam.

Freedom is not empire.

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

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