US War on Iran: Criminal and Cowardly

The US submarine torpedoing and sinking of an Iranian missile frigate known to be unarmed and not bound for Iran in any case (as without weapons to combat air nd sea attacks, and vastly outnumbered by the US 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf it would have been a sitting duck in the Iran war zone) is a sorry tale. In all the mainstream US news accounts of the incident I could find, though the ship’s sinking its being glowingly hailed as the first successful torpedo sinking of an enemy warship since WWII.

The Iris Dena was returning from an international India-hosted fleet review featuring Navy ships from 74 countries, including Iran and even included an admiral from the US (the US did not send a ship, perhaps because of an Indian requirement that all participating vessels come disarmed). The unprovoked US attack submarine that was sent to sink the ship committed not just a potential war crime in attacking the Iris Dena in non-combat-zone neutral waters but behaved incredibly cowardly, akin to a soldier shooting dead an unarmed and unaware enemy soldier surprised while eating breakfast or relieving himself. It was also an embarrassing affront to India (ostensibly a friend of the US), taking place just outside that country’s territorial waters but still within its “sphere of influence.” (Not that the US cares about such things unless its own sphere of influence is being ignored.)

I’m reminded of an account by novelist George Orwell I read long ago on his experiences as a soldier fighting with the leftist Spanish Republic who went with a comrade to try sniping at some Falangist (fascist) soldiers. Suddenly as an alarm went out warning of a strafing attack by an incoming Republican plane, he saw a Falangist soldier who had been caught in the act of taking a morning crap outside the Falangist fortifications, frantically running by him for shelter while trying to pull up his pants. Orwell says though he might have had a fair chance of hitting the fleeing enemy soldier, despite his being a ”poor shot,” he held his fire. As he explains, “I had come here to shoot at ‘Fascists’; but a man who is holding up his trousers isn’t a Fascist, he is visibly a fellow creature, similar to yourself, and you don’t feel like shooting at him.” The revealing incident appears in an essay Orwell wrote in 1943 titled Looking Back at the Spanish War.

Even if the crime of sinking an unarmed ship in neutral waters is not prosecuted, the captain of the US sub, the Secretary of the Navy, (who was surely involved in the decision to intercept the frigate and sink it), as well as War Secretary Pete Hegseth, should all be publicly shamed. But what could we expect when the Brill Cream-slathered head of the War Department publicly says, “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it’s not a fair fight.” Puffing out his Nazi image-tattooed chest, he added “We are punching them while they’re down, and that’s exactly how it should be.”

I’m pretty certain Hegseth, had he been in Orwell’s shoes, would have shot the fleeing man and then laughed about it at the next bar he entered.

Hegseth, I’m sure, would be surprised to learn (if he reads), that a fair number of Nazi U-boat captains had their subs, at considerable risk, remain surfaced and vulnerable so as to rescue survivors of merchant ships they had successfully torpedoed and sunk. Even some Nazi fighters seem to have had more of a moral compass than the former Fox News pretty boy commentator.

The captain and crew of the killer sub, in contrast, whose torpedo sank the Iris Dena and killed, by explosion or drowning, at least 87 of its crew, simply sailed off afterwqrds vand abandoned the survivors in the water. Sri Lankan naval vessels, apparently notified of the incident by a civilian vessel, raced to the scene and rescued 32 survivors who were brought to the island nation’s hospitals. Other ships stayed and searched for bodies. of the Iranian ship’s 130-man crew-a-bout a dozen sailors who were still missing and are now presumed lost.

The post US War on Iran: Criminal and Cowardly appeared first on CounterPunch.org.