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Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines (look up SERE school if you’re curious, one of the craziest training courses outside of special
by MarkMarine 6mo ago
Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines (look up SERE school if you’re curious, one of the craziest training courses outside of special forces) and there is a special force just for aviator recovery behind enemy lines, US AirForce Pararescue. Hopefully they’ll get the aviators back quickly, the last thing our country needs is American hostages making this ridiculous war harder to stop.
- tokai 6mo agoPrisoner of war, not hostage. edit: I'm baffled by the amount of downvotes pointing out the objectively correct terminology can get. Its not a matter of opinion, military personnel captured by the enemy are pow no matter their treatment. A hostage, by definition, has been abducted.
- spwa4 6mo agoThat is assuming Iran holds itself to the Geneva conventions, which ... seems like an extremely risky bet to make.
- Tadpole9181 6mo agoEspecially after the double-tap on civilians and first responders the US just did on that bridge. Or the threat for no quarters from the secretary of defense. Or the threats to destroy critical civilian infrastructure for water or power.
- empyrrhicist 6mo agoOr Hegseth running his mouth about exactly this issue...
- nemomarx 6mo agoPrisoner exchanges are a pretty strong motivator for any group, even hardline ones. If the Taliban was up for exchanges I think the IRGC is pretty likely to want to keep prisoners for that too.
- mothballed 6mo agoI would note ISIS put out some high res, professionally edited video of burning a (Jordanian?) pilot to death while inside a cage. Quite savage, but the propaganda effect is more profound than about anything else I've seen.
- spwa4 6mo agoYes, after that video it was clear that Daesh and everyone in their little caliphate would be hunted down. And it was, they were. They were attacked everywhere they tried to return to. From minor girls returning to the Netherlands to 45 year old men (trying to) return to South Africa, all were persecuted, and that one video had a lot to do with that happening. After that video, even muslim nations started hunting these people.
- potatototoo99 6mo agoAnd yet, they are still around, made famous and split into separate groups, still actively fighting on multiple fronts all over Africa. And if the Iranian government falls for sure they will be coming back with a vengeance in the area.
- craftkiller 6mo agoDoes the US have any prisoners to exchange? Wouldn't we need boots-on-the-ground to capture enemy combatants?
- nemomarx 6mo agoIsrael probably has some prisoners that Iran might want released, is my thinking?
- tjpnz 6mo agoWhy wouldn't they?
- spwa4 6mo agoFirst: count the responses to my thread of people suggesting Iran cannot/should not be held to the Geneva convention: 4,5 (I'm counting the Hegseth comment as 0.5) The point is there are a great deal of people, even in the US, who advocate that it is unreasonable to hold people fighting the west in general and US in particular to the Geneva conventions. I don't know where this idea comes from, because morally it is of course indefensible, but there you go. I would expect the number to be bigger in Iran. I would expect the number among IRGC extremists to be even higher than in Iran in general. Second: war crimes have 2 interpretations. First as violations of the Rome treaty which require that the state where the warcrimes happen has signed the Rome treaty. Iran hasn't. The second interpretation of warcrimes is that they are violations of the Geneva conventions, and the reaction would be that the UN security council intervenes. Well, the UNSC has preemptively declared they will not hold Iran to account for warcrimes (to be exact: France, Russia and China have declared they will veto). So at minimum you can say that Iranian warcrimes will not have any "official" consequences. The world and the UN have decided that warcrimes "don't count". As in there will not be any consequences unless the government of the country where they happened implements those consequences. Third: Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage. This is already a violation of the Geneva convention. They have also kidnapped hundreds of foreign nationals of other nations and are also holding them for ransom, which is also a violation of human rights, ie. a warcrime. So those are my three reasons Iran won't hold itself to human rights standards.
- sokitsip 6mo agoIranians have dignity. Something American top brass doesn’t even know the meaning of.
- spwa4 6mo agoYou mean the army shooting 40.000 protestors just 2 months ago including 1000+ children, then executed a child that won an international wrestling competition, now accusing everyone else of warcrimes? I think I'll need some reeducation on this concept of "dignity" you speak. Could you explain further?
- nprz 6mo agoWhat has Iran done to show it would not uphold Geneva conventions?
- hajile 6mo agoWhen they struck desalination plants in Bahrain would be an easy example. You can say that they are retaliatory strikes, but they are certainly against the Geneva Conventions. Iran's use of cluster munitions to attack swaths of Israeli cities is also against the Geneva Convention (though I'd again point out that we started hitting civilian targets in Iran first). Both sides have violated the conventions, but the US and Israel have violated them to a much greater degree (especially Israel and all their attacks on Lebanese civilians not to mention razing Gaza).
- thinkingtoilet 6mo agoThe US doesn't hold itself to the conventions, why should the country it started a war of aggression with?
- rbanffy 6mo agoIf you throw away your principles because you are fighting an unprincipled enemy, you are no better than them.
- thinkingtoilet 6mo agoThere is no if. We've already done that. So yes, we are no better than them. So answer the question. Why would Iran follow conventions it's enemy that started a war of aggression is not following?
- ofrzeta 6mo agoBecaus two wrongs don't make right. If they are smart they will stick to the convention.
- saimiam 6mo agoIt’s such a shock to the system to realise that “unprincipled enemy” referenced here is the US.
- rbanffy 6mo agoAnd it seems interesting a lot of people seem to be completely oblivious to it.
- kelnos 6mo agoThat's a lovely thing to say, but if your existence is being threatened by an aggressor, I wouldn't blame you for throwing out the rulebook. In my view, if someone invades your territory and starts attacking you, you have no obligation to follow any sort of "principles" or "rules" when it comes to how you fight back. Anything you need to do to the attackers in order to defend yourself and your people is, by definition, morally defensible. (Do note that I said "need". Doing arbitrary messed-up things that don't actually further the goal of driving back the attackers is not ok.)
- tenthirtyam 6mo agoThey're going back to the stone age, remember? The Geneva convention wasn't around then AFAICR.
- n2j3 6mo agoWe are expecting Iran to honour an International Convention when US and Israel have squarely shat on every convention's face, so to speak.
- bz_bz_bz 6mo agoThe person you’re replying to is very explicitly not expecting them to honor the International Convention…
- n2j3 6mo agoThe funny thing is that I am, even if that puts me in the naive minority in this thread.
- hackable_sand 6mo agoIt's not naive to have adult expectations for adults
- cestith 6mo agoAs a matter of fact, if Iran comes out of the war having not committed war crimes they’ll have a huge worldwide moral and public image victory over the United States and Israel.
- watwut 6mo agoThey already targetted civilian infrastructure, so they already commited war crime. They also threatened to attack universities wh8ch is war crime on itself (after attack on their universities).
- unyttigfjelltol 6mo agoIran has for nearly fifty years pursued unilateral hostilities against the US and Israel, including funding numerous terrorist groups and militias to wage war on them. It can’t negotiate its way out of this quagmire because the IRGC’s core ideology and mission is hatred (and hostage-taking). In addition to waging continuous offensive militia operations, it’s been cultivating a conventional and nuclear offensive option which it most definitely would use if it had it, because again, the IRGC’s reason for existence is to “resist” Israel and the US, by which they mean obliterate those nations. What Trump recently has been saying about Iran is exactly what Iran has been saying for decades about the US and Israel. One of those militias went all Leroy Jenkins in 2023 and prematurely initiated the current hot war, which Iran is losing. In frustration, Iran has embarked on a terror campaign of bombing neutral neighbors to punish them for … friendly diplomacy with the US I guess, and bombing civilians in Israel. And annexing an international waterway. What Trump and folks on this board don’t seem to realize is that war with Iran is more like fighting a bunch of lawyers. You hurt them kinetically and they make you feel like you hurt yourself, get all confused. They slaughter 35k of their own people and shut off the Internet; the US mixes up the boundaries of an IRGC naval base in a much more constrained horror and the UN starts strutting around. Narratives do matter for winning wars and between Trump derangement syndrome and the IRGC’s natural cleverness at permanent victimhood, it’s the narrative that’s at risk in a war between great nations that, unfortunately, sadly has been perfectly inevitable for decades.
- rbanffy 6mo agoHegseth explicitly ordered to give the enemy “no quarter”.
- surgical_fire 6mo agoMaybe Iran is more civilized than the Barbarians attacking them. We have to wait and see if Iran is fighting a woke war.
- anigbrowl 6mo agoI have a LOT more trust in Iran following the Geneva conventions than I do the US.
- MarkMarine 6mo agoIt’s a “well, actually” and counter to the HN guidelines
- tokai 6mo agoOnly for someone breaking the guideline of "Assume good faith".
- MarkMarine 6mo agoI didn’t downvote you, but a terse “well actually it’s prisoner of war” doesn’t really add to the conversation. Imagine doing that in person, you’d annoy everyone around you. If you explained why it’s distinct and what that might mean for downed crew I think it wouldn’t have been down voted
- cromka 6mo agoNo, they wouldn't annoy everyone around them, that's just your subjective projection. I, for one, found it an important distinction that highlights how easy it is to skew a narrative towards a more sympathetic one. It saw it as having similar value to those Instagram posts juxtaposing headlines reporting on "dead Palestinians" vs "killed Israeli victims".
- bobchadwick 6mo agoThere's a significant difference between a hostage and a prisoner of war, and in this context that distinction seems highly relevant.
- NickC25 6mo ago...but we aren't at war, according to the President and his secretary of Defense (war). what a fucking mess.
- ks2048 6mo agoNot a Prisoner of War - a Prisoner of a limited military excursion.
- butlike 6mo agoIt's more of a 'romp' than an 'excursion,' if you will.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- RobotToaster 6mo agoPrisoner of a three day military operation.
- postsantum 6mo ago> He was kidnapped from his warplane
- andrewflnr 6mo agoI don't know what definition of "hostage" you're using, but practically speaking, a hostage is what you make of them.
- jimnotgym 6mo agoI guess the down goes is because war has not been declared? Therefore they captured a what, war criminal, foreign terrorist?
- lokar 6mo agoDo they train for a “no quarter“ conflict where injured or surrendered combatants are killed?
- rbanffy 6mo agoHegseth is not in charge of the Iranian military.
- lokar 6mo agoBut he did publicly declare his intention to commit war crimes.
- two_handfuls 6mo agoIn case anyone else doubted this, I will save you the time to look it up. Yup, it's sadly true. https://www.commondreams.org/news/hegseth-no-quarter-international-law https://www.commondreams.org/news/hegseth-no-quarter-interna...
- lokar 6mo agoYep. And war crime seems to have lost all meaning in the US. But, even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.
- jMyles 6mo ago> But, even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that. Even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, a no-quarter declaration is against _US law_, specifically subject to the penalty of death with no other lawful penalty defined: https://www.govregs.com/uscode/title18_partI_chapter118_section2441 https://www.govregs.com/uscode/title18_partI_chapter118_sect....
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- asdff 6mo agoIf they landed anywhere near a town they are probably captured. The kuwait video from the f15 that was hit with friendly fire was crazy. Like 6 suvs worth of locals immediately surrounded this guy and they were threatening to beat him with a galvanized pipe.
- pram 6mo agoTBH I went through SERE school (aircrew) and I questioned its value, since the training is in eastern Washington/northern Idaho area mountainous woodland environment and all the evasion they showed us relied on that kind of cover and "bushcraft" And you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran are definitely not eastern Washington lol
- cactusfrog 6mo agoEastern Washington has a lot of hot desert
- pram 6mo agoWashington indeed has a giant desert but it's in the middle fwiw, the SERE school is in Spokane
- nielsbot 6mo agoRelevant: This is a very interesting read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5150259-u-s-air-force-survival-handbook https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5150259-u-s-air-force-su...
- rchaud 6mo ago> American hostages Military personnel captured as prisoners of war are not hostages. Unlike embassy personnel held hostage during the 1979 revolution, it's unclear if military POWs have any value to leverage against the US, considering how its leader feels about about "people who get captured" and "they knew what they signed up for". We're only hearing about this so the administration can get ahead of the narrative instead of Iran. Otherwise, it's doing everything it can to hide information about the cost of war in terms of monetary cost and casualties. The hostages here are the so-called "allies" in the Arab world who received no notice of the invasion and were sitting ducks for wide-scale regional retaliation from Iran due to them hosting US bases.
- ilovecake1984 6mo agoGiven the war is illegal I don’t think they are POWs.
- LtWorf 6mo agoYeah I guess they'd legally just be terrorists.
- bigbugbag 6mo agoto have POW, you first need to have a W, but to have a W you need to go through appropriate legal channels which trump has specifically avoided to be able to launch this collection of war crimes assaulting foreign countries along israel and causing havoc on a global scale.
- steve-atx-7600 6mo agoWouldn’t it be wiser and more considerate to your fellow soldiers to pull your side arm and go out like a man. Unless you’re able to nose dive into the ground to minimize the chances of useful parts/intel being recovered by the enemy?
- trvz 6mo agoLookong forward to you going out like a man when retiring so you’re not a burden on society.
- steve-atx-7600 6mo agoI’d be the last to burden anyone else.
- voganmother42 6mo agoUS FEMA has been working on hand of god teleportation for this exact situation. We need to search the waffle houses first thing
- anigbrowl 6mo agoAmerican hostages Poor choice of words. Hostage taking is illegal, but any captured US aviators would be prisoners of war, whose detention is entirely legal as long as they're treated humanely.
- ilovecake1984 6mo agoIt’s an illegal war. They are not pows.
- tootie 6mo agoSeems like a good time to dust off Trump's policy on POWs “He’s not a war hero ... I like people who weren’t captured.”
- bambax 6mo ago> making this ridiculous war harder to stop If the US military would like this war to stop they could not fight it, that would be pretty easy I think. Probably not without consequences, but that would show actual courage. Whereas dropping bombs on civilian from afar shows zero.