Must Read Blogosphere Exclusive: Iranian Terror Pirates

Bryan publishes an e-mail from a Navy Lieutenant with a lot of the backstory you don't hear about the Revolutionary Guard's terror navy. Very enlightening, and chilling stuff and worth reading the whole thing for the strategic vision as well as tactical weirdness:

The IRGCN are erratic and seemingly looking for a fight. They are a little strange in the operational tactics as well. For instance, they set-up a little base on the top of a sunken crane. The crane part was sticking up probably 50-100 feet (I don’t know for sure, we never got within a mile of it) and they would keep it manned at all times, and their little small boat terror crews would overnight there by tying up to the crane and climbing up to their little shack they had built. I also DO mean TERROR CREWS because nightly we would hear fishermen begging for help over the civilian radio as they were attacked in what can only be viewed as state sponsored piracy, usually in Iraqi waters.

Hmmm....Yesterday Dave at Garfield Ridge used that term in an excellent post (one of two) about Iran and terrorism in general.

That said, our treatment of unlawful enemy combatants is dictated by efficacy, not decency, let alone charity. We are human beings who do not wish to be lowered to the level of beasts, but it is not we who have lowered ourselves. It is not crime, but it is not lawful warfare, either, but something in between (banditry, piracy, terrorism-- all birds of a feather in my book).

Iran is a nation-state. Their illegal abduction of these British sailors is, at best, a crisis of their own making, and at worst, an act of war. That said, they have every obligation to treat their prisoners fairly and in accordance with the treaties they have signed. They can NOT treat their prisoners in the way America treats enemy detainees, for they are not the same thing.

We've let slip from our vocabulary the idea of a "rogue state"--a state which has as much regard for the laws and conventions of nationhood as a sociopath does for the laws and conventions of society. They can live by them when it suits them but subvert and flout them whenever they can get away with it. For such states piracy, terrorism, drug trafficking (in the case of North Korea, anyway...), counterfeiting, slavery and other such illegal acts are legitimate means of national policy, to the extent they are unpunished by the civilized world. If it can turn a profit, if it advances the state's or the demagogue's interests, nothing is forbidden.

Iran is a rogue state. They are flouting the nuclear conventions to build their atom bombs, they despise human rights, and now they are sponsoring pirates.

Pirates, incidentally, are regarded by international law to be under universal jurisdiction--they could be arrested, tried, and punished anywhere, by any nation, on the high seas. I don't think slavers were ever accorded the same status, but I know that the post-Abolition British Navy took it on themselves to treat them that way, attacking and sinking slavers on sight. (I think it should be extended to certain terror groups as well, though the international political will for this is lacking.)

That was back when the British Navy was something to be reckoned with. That Royal Navy would have sunk this dedicated Revolutionary Guard Pirate Terror Navy long before this incident ever occurred. That is, if the U.S. Pirate Eradication Force didn't get there first.

(PS more on this subject here.)