The unheroic captives

Ralph Peters:

IT WAS a fitting image of the 14 wimps and a sob sister arriving back in the United Kingdom yesterday: skulking away with pink goody bags in hand.

The color was no accident - although yellow would've been more appropriate.

The released hostages weren't allowed to make any more statements. Apparently, the Blair government feared they'd repeat their lavish praise of their Iranian captors.

Look, we're all glad they're home safe, if not necessarily sound. But why on earth is Britain, the land of the legendary stiff upper lip, celebrating cowards who clambered over one another to shame their country?

Wouldn't the Brits do better to make a fuss over the many soldiers of the queen who've served bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why break out the cakes and ale for officers who enthusiastically briefed Iranian propaganda for the TV cameras and who let their subordinates behave as if the Revolutionary Guards were their best pals?

One almost expects that Royal Marine captain and his Navy lieutenant sidekick to receive Victoria Crosses.

In a sharp signal of the difference between our military and the politically beleaguered Brits, our chief of naval operations gave an interview to CNN (which he knows the Iranians watch), making it clear that if Tehran tried such a stunt with our sailors and Marines, we'd feed their thugs to the sharks.

The admiral also stressed that if captured, our troops are still taught to give name, rank, service number - and very little else.

Those blubbering Brits were only playing dress-up in the military uniforms they happily swapped for Iranian loan-shark suits at Wednesday's kissy-face meet-and-greet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

They hadn't been through the Bataan Death March. They didn't suffer four years in Changi Prison after the fall of Singapore. They didn't spend a five-year lifetime in the Hanoi Hilton. And we have yet to see evidence of torture.

But they started criticizing their own country within days.

...

At some point someone in the UK will have to stand up and say that this was not their finest hour. The UK has been shrinking its forces inexorably since the end of World War II, but until now, those who remained in the service were a proud lot. Is there anything in this episode to be proud of? I am sure they are happy about the safe return, but it is not a return deserving in honor.