British deterrence is now dead. The Iranian kidnapping of 15 British servicemen -- legally in Iraqi waters on a UN-sanctioned mission, no less -- was as much an act of war as the Argentinian invasion. But instead of meeting war with war -- launching a raid to seize the hostages, or striking at military or strategic sites in Iran, or even attacking Iran's nuclear facilities -- Prime Minister Tony Blair did nothing but wait.

Yes, Fozzie, it's so sad.  What with the whole of the Muslim world being a Bush/Blair fueled powderkeg of raw seething anger, I'm shocked - SHOCKED! that Britain didn't launch an all-out assault on Iran.  Hrmpfh!  Maggie Thatcher would have.  

What really seems to get under his skin is the sheer horror of the female captive being forcibly sodomized in a pyramid of the naked bodies of other prisoners wearing a hijab.  My God, what will they think of next?  

Iran paraded the hostages on TV -- including dressing up the female sailor in the Muslim hijab. The Geneva Conventions forbid using captured prisoners of war for propaganda purposes like that. Imagine if captured Iranian-backed terrorists were forced to dress up for the cameras, including wearing a Christian cross around their necks. Don't wait for Amnesty International or the UN's International Criminal Court to utter a peep about such lawlessness. All the while, Britain, the European Union and NATO stood by silently. Only when Iran chose to let them go were they let go.

Paraded!  Forced to dress up!  Oh, I just can't stand it - next thing you'll be telling me they were forced to play ping pong and chess. (Go to The Daily Show clip from 4/9 called "Faulty Powers) The invocation of the Geneva Conventions is an especially nice touch.  Tell it to the guys in Gitmo, Ezra.    

Ezra would have been much happier had the British captives been tortured or murdered, rather than being the obvious big scaredy babies that he thinks they are.  I'm sure he would have told those Iranians captors to fuck right off and then he would spit in their face!  They'd never be able to beat the coordinates of the secret Moon Rocket base out of him, no sir!

Time was, captured troops defied their captors. When John McCain was shot down over North Vietnam, he was tortured. When the Viet Cong offered to let him go home early -- because his father was a senior military official -- he refused to leave without the rest of the POWs. A hundred years earlier, British Private John Moyse famously refused to bow to a Chinese warlord who had captured him during the Second Opium Wars; he was murdered as a result.

To sum up, Fozzie is upset - demoralized, actually, because a hostage situation with a dangerous country ended in negotiation and release, rather than war.  A war that he, no doubt, wouldn't be fighting in.  A war that would do all of the things that the war in Iraq is doing and more - killing, maiming, wasting lives, brewing the kind of hatred that lasts for generations.  Driving up the price of oil even higher (great if you're in the industry, not so great if you're the 99.9% of us who aren't).  Bankrupting economies.  Creating new terrorists.  Making us less safe. Coupled with Conservative ideology and policy, widening the gap between the haves (Levant et al, who sit in comfy offices, typing about The War) and the have-nots (who largely end up fighting and dying in The War).  

It's quite easy to sit in a far-away place, on your laptop with a glass of something nice, and cheerlead a nation into war.  To send enlisted men and women to kill other human beings, and to be killed themselves, or lose their limbs, or perhaps come home haunted for the rest of their days.  Easy when it's not the guy sitting next to you getting his guts blown out of him.  Easy when you're not the one being fitted for an artificial limb (or two), or whose young children don't recognize you anymore.  It's quite another thing to lace up your boots, grab your gun, and put your money where your mouth is, Chickenhawk Levant.  Let's talk about how much you like war after you've signed up and are on your way to Basic Training.