Fallout for the Royan navy over Iran - RN incident
 

Well at least they should be greatful that they don't do capitial punishment anymore!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...-31477,00.html

Well Australia was lucky not to have ended up the same way!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1854274/posts

Of course, the real lesson we all learned - from blogs and anonymous comments, anyway - was that should a similar situation befall the US they would respond by going all out and fighting to the last bullet...and when that was fired, they'd used bayonets, and when those broke, they'd use sharps sticks, and when those snapped, they'd use stones, etc etc. Just don't mention Sgt Maples crying in front of millions as he thanked Khomenei for his hospitality during the US embassy takeover. Or Army Sgt Joe Subic, who collaborated by identifying "CIA agents" among embassy staff. The tub-thumping flagwavers seem to have erased these incidents from the popular record, but they did happen. We don't even need to get into the aborted rescue - hardly Operation Barras or the SAS storming the Iranian embassy in London.

PS - I think the Australian Navy has dined out on their encounter with the Iranians for long enough. It'd have been better if they'd just kept that cheap shot to themselves, actually.

Please remember that 99% of any military is made up of people who could not afford a better lifestyle. Sure they will beat their chest and talk about the stars and stripes but who wants to admit "hell this was the only ticket out of my trailer park".

Don't give these kids any grief because the only thing separating them from their uniform and their job at McDonalds they had before "defending freedom" is a few measly weeks of basic training. Big deal.

Seriously though special ops people are told just to keep their mouth shut for 3 hours so the rest of the team can evac. These kids never got any training on what to do if captured. Are we supposed to hope they "saw that movie" and know they are supposed to never talk and spit in the face of their abuser.

I don't hold the Marines from the US embassy incident to any set of idealised standards, and I'm certainly not criticising them. Just making sure we keep it in mind before comments from over the Atlantic similar to those following the FreeRepublic article (and many more) start to appear. My lasting impression of the RN affair was how much US super-patriots enjoyed gloating over it with an inflated sense of superiority.

My take on it, without any flagwaving, is that the world was lucky to get away with it without there being a series of escalations into conflict.

If the Iranians tried it on again, I'd take a guess at the price of oil hitting new highs, global recession or not!

I would hardly say they were bragging about it, as they didn't let the public know untill after the RN incident, and they weren't the ones who first told the story, it was the UK media.

If they had been further away from the vessel they were expecting they would have ended up like their RN counterparts. In the RN saliors had been able to get back on board the ship like the Australian saliors they would have most likely done the same thing, but weren't able too.

It was no attempt to make the saliors caught look bad, they kept their heads in a high pressure situtation and stayed safe. If they had gone out all guns blazing, the out come would have been a lot worse.

Do you really think these are isolated incidents?

By "tried it on again", I was referring to keeping a crew prisoner.

I've got no doubt there are both maritime and land border confrontations on a daily basis

I certainly hope so.

Just where do you get your information?

i'd like to know that too

Well I have served in not only the military but SpecOps as well and that hasn't been my experience. Some sure but 99% or even a majority? No.

Must of pulled it out of his ass. That's where his brain is.

Never question the bravery of our soldiers.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2288/soldiermy6.jpg

I'm not familiar with the French army's induction requirements but i do know that the US military has a higher percentage of high school and college graduates, per capita, than a similar sized group of civilians.