The 15 Brits Captured by Iran

After a recent post about the need for more manly virtue in our society, I was at a loss to know what to think about the 15 Brits captured by Iran. I don't wish to understate my ignorance relative to this topic, but I have come to some tentative conclusions.

Should I condemn these Brits for caving in too easily to the Iranian government? For instance, Ralph Peters goes so far as to call for their court martial. These detractors compare the mild treatment of the Brits compared to what James Stockdale and John McCain endured in Vietnam. The Brits should be more tough. They also complain that the Brit soldiers should not have surrendered when surrounded by overwhelming Iranian force. These same people think Britain suffered a national humiliation for this soldiers being captured and ransomed.

I have some sympathy for that point of view. I was quite uncomfortable about seeing the Brits smile while in captivity. What ever happened to stiff upper lip? But should one restrain one happiness before cameras on seeing your comrades undamaged? We've never had cameras in such situations before.

Playing into my interpretation of these soldiers is that I've always admired the figure of the trickster, starting with a childhood fascination with the trickster pagan gods, Hermes and Loki. Yes, it may be less than manly in that the trickster uses brain not brawn to get out of a situation. Is that really so bad? Why shouldn't one lie and write meaningless statements to get out of evil clutches?

No, I don't think the problem for the West is the behavior of the Brit soldiers. The Iranians only got some PR of dubious value at best.

The problem is much more the moral myth that it is always evil to kill--the myth that stops us from killing more of the muslims. When we fought World War II, we killed Germans. We bombed German cities causing widespread civilian death. Consider our firebombing of Dresden. We didn't stop to analyze how much a particular German supported the Nazi regime. At most, forty percent of the Germans were Nazi enthusiasts--at least judging from the last vote of the Weimer Republic. We cannot afford to treat muslims any differently. We can't be squeamish and girlish over the slaughter of muslims, but we can forgive a few soldiers who did their best to save their lives.

In the big picture, our actions in World War II were just. Even the Germans who hated Nazism were still instrumental in keeping Nazi Germany going. The same is true for the secretly atheist or Christian, liberal person in muslim lands. They enable the muslim evil to continue and are legitimate targets, as much as we may lament that fact. In war, there is not time for subtle judgments about the enemy.