Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim noted that, in addition to striking what appears to have been a defenseless boat, the US also didn’t help rescue any of the shipwrecked men who were aboard the vessel.
“The Sri Lanka Navy was left to pull the dead bodies from the water,” Grim commented. “I am hard pressed to think of any other nation throughout history that would do something so cowardly and despicable. We are genuinely in a league of our own, and American media—mostly shrugging off the bombing of a girls school and acting as if carpet bombing Tehran is a normal military tactic—is deeply complicit.”
They torpedoed an unarmed ship and watched as everyone drowned. This is the US military under a drunken white supremacist fratboy working for a senile pedophile rapist.
Iirc, its an unwritten law of sailors… You rescue anyone at sea, even the enemy if you can. Drowning is a horrible death.
You at least do what you can to give them a fighting chance.
A radio message would have at least let them abandon ship in a (semi) orderly manner. Hell, even a solar ping would have got them into life jackets.
Normally, a sub wouldn’t risk this. They knew in advance, however, that the ship was not currently armed.
I’m pretty sure it’s actually a written rule.
Hey hey whoa whoa whoa, hold up there friend. You forgot Christian nationalist death cultist and pseudo-crusader-wannabe.
This is the US military under a drunken white supremacist fratboy working for a senile pedophile rapist.
The sailors are just as much to be blamed for executing the order as the commanders who sent it.
Who was the sub captian that obeyed the illegal order? Name rank and serial number please.
It was not an illegal order. And it’s also entirely possible the captain didn’t know the status of the ships ammunition supply, or lack there of. Not that it changes anything from a legal standpoint.
But, it being a legal target doesn’t change the fact that it was cowardly. Both are true.
So why is it a legal target. As pointed out, no state of war exists. So the boat wasn’t a legal target. But if we hand wave that away, not picking up the survivors is clearly against international law. And I can even hand wave the part about orders being legal, but I still want the names out there, I want the public to know that this captain left those men to die against every tradition of the navy and international laws/rules/guidelines. Public pressure can help ensure the next Captain stands up against such orders.
You seem to have some misconception of what constitutes a legal target and what doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if you are at war or not. Warships, are military targets. They are valid targets. You do not have to be in war to sink one. But it’s probably going to start one.
And no. It is not illegal for a submarine to remain submerged. Submarines are not expected to conduct rescue operations. They do have to do something. Notifying someone else as to where there might be survivors, is something.
You are only required to conduct a rescue operation if you think it is safe to do so. You are not required to rescue sailors if you believe it could put your ship in danger.
None of this means you can’t feel the way you do. That’s fine. You think the captain is a coward and scum for not helping them. Sure, I’m not trying to take that away. All I’m saying is, the order was not illegal. The act was not illegal, and the aftermath was also not illegal.
I’m really not sure why people are hyperfocusing on the one instance where the US didn’t commit a war crime. You have so many other things to pick from… why die on this hill? They bombed a God damn school for girls.
The article references the geneva convention as the document that requires rescuing the sailors. So that is where that part comes from. It is of cpurse unlikely to be as simply worded as that. So lets agree it may not be strictly speaking illegal. However, illegal is whatever the prosecutor decides to prosecute for and that the judge agrees is illegal. In some cases a jury too.
But let’s put that aside. My goal was to identify the person who was the last person to reasonably expect to reject the order. In this case the captain of the sub. Name and shame. Give people in that position in the future at least some reason to pause and think before doing such things. Just following orders doesn’t cut it at that level. If not from a legal standpoint, then from a moral one. We need to shine a light on those people, let them know we know what they did. Make them live with that.
Again. This wasn’t an illegal order. There’s nothing for a captain to interpret as illegal. They’re targeting a warship belonging to the enemy.
If a captain just blatantly refuse orders, because they have a moral problem with it, rather than a legal one, they’d be subjective to court martial. They could end up prison for a very long time. Or worse.
Everyone that has served in any country. Knows that you as a captain/pilot/sailor/infantry, mechanic, whatever. You don’t have all the information. You have to trust your superiors and their superiors that they know what they’re doing.
So unless you’re given a blatantly illegal order. You follow it. Because other people’s lives may very well depend on it. I don’t think the captain was the person that should reasonably reject the order. Partly because you have no idea what information that captain had available to them.
You do you. If you want to name and shame people you will do that regardless of what anyone else thinks. But the reasons you’ve laid out does not support your argument that the captain is the problem.
So I wasn’t talking about the strike as much as not aiding the sailors. Sinking the boat, while reprehensible, would be a hard order to defy. Rescuing the sailors until other help arrived though. That would be reasonable to do, even if ordered not to. Leaning on the Geneva convention as support may not save a person. But it would still be the honorable thing to do.
If the US had other ships nearby, closer than Sri Lankas ships, and still deliberately chose to not help the sailors in the water. That would be utterly reprehensible.
As for the submarine, I can understand why they did not want to surface.
The entire strikes are illegal as the United States is not in a state of war with Iran.
Besides, “I was just following orders” has never and will never be accepted as a justification.
It might be illegal under US law. I wouldn’t know. I’m not a US lawyer. But what I do know is that it’s not a war crime. And it doesn’t break any “international law”.
The international body that is supposed to look into these things would be the UN security counsel. At which both US and Russia are permanent members and both have veto powers. So good luck getting anything done there
They knew it was unarmed it was leaving an event that involved unarmed ships, an event the US backed out of and then had a sub attack a ship they knew to be unarmed.
Seizure would be arguably legal, sinking it is not.
I understand you feel strongly about what happened. But that is not going to change that it was a legal target in war.
There are lots of things that are legal, but still cowardly and shitty to do.
There’s no law that says you can’t rip off a giant fart outside a restaurants outdoor serving area. It would be legal. But incredibly shitty.
An unarmed boat is not a warship as per international law. They fly flags that state they are unarmed as this one was.
Quit equivocating.
It is still a military warship. Surely you don’t actually think countries can just put up an “unarmed flag” and expect their warships can safely make it across to a dry dock or for rearmament.
How do you KNOW it was unarmed? Because they had a flag up? Because they said so? Because India boarded the Iranian ship and conducted a thorough search of the entire interior? I’m genuinly curious as to how you are so confident it didn’t carry a single shell, rocket, torpedo or missile.
You cannot possibly think any nation at war would let an enemy warship sail by without consequence just because they claim they’re unarmed.
If Russia sailed a warship right outside Ukrainian waters with an “unarmed flag”. Do you think Ukraine would just let it be? Oh damn guys, they say it’s unarmed. Guess we have no choice but to let it hang around…
It’s a military target, it isn’t a warship. When deployed unarmed to naval exhibitions they are deployed as auxillary, it’s the same as training ships.
Because it was boarded and inspected to take part in a fleet week of sorts, yes.
You can when it’s beyond combat zones and flying flags signaling peaceful intention and being unarmed. There’s a proportionality issue when it comes to striking military targets and moreover there’s an obligation to rescue crew.
It wasn’t anywhere near Iran unless you are somehow under the impression sri lanka is adjacent to Iran. And Ukraine tends to abide by normal military conventions so yes if they knew it to be unarmed they would likely seize the ship and not sink it.
Iran:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran#/media/File:Iran_(orthographic_projection).svg
Sri lanka:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka#/media/File:Sri_Lanka_(orthographic_projection).svg
Location of sinking : https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/3188/live/10450900-17e7-11f1-b048-c9424b2cf5fd.png.webp
I cannot help but laugh at your notion that Ukraine would let a Russian warship just sit outside of their waters simply because Russia said it was unarmed. Seizing something isn’t always possible.
You can absolutely engage enemy military targets regardless if they are within “combat zone” or not. With the sole exception if they are within another nations border. That is something that would make it more complicated. But that wasn’t the case.
Naval vessels are not required to rescue sailors. They are requires to take all possible measures to redcue sailors. Which can include rescuing sailors. If possible. There is a huge difference. Sometimes it is not possible to conduct a rescue operation. For a plethora of reasons.
One being that submarines do not want to surface unless they have support of other vessels.
Another is that submarines are generally not equipped to conduct rescue operations. Nor equipped to handle POW’s
A third would be that submarines generally do not have what you would call a lifeboat. Because first of all, where would they even keep one? And secondly, they are submerged, at times several hundreds of meters deep. They don’t need a lifeboat, they need a system to send their crew to the surface.
If they deploy all of them in the hopes that a few Iranian sailors might find them and climb aboard once they inflate at the surface. What are they themselves going to use in case of an emergancy?
Hot take, if you elect a person who showed in their first term a total disrespect for international, national, and martial law maybe the kind of people you have in the armed forces aren’t likely to be any better. The smart, moral people who also were high enough in the chain of command to matter have likely been purged or jumped ship to something less problematic.
The naive belief that any laws matter at this late hour is hard to understand, and harder to respect. This isn’t going to blow over and “go back to normal.” Which incidentally wasn’t great either.
Well, I less care about prosecution that isn’t going to happen, and more about name and shame. That can do a lot to shape future behaviour.
the whole thing about following illegal orders is complete bullshit and impossible for military personnel to follow… it’s just a pretence so the Murican military can claim moral superiority
Honestly, I don’t expect the rank and file members to make a stand. But a sub captain… I do. And from that person all the way up the chain that gave the order. I don’t expect this DOJ to do anything. So I just want names for now. And I want them public so those people can’t go anywhere without being known as the ones who failed to stop the illegal order.
During the state of the union speech, Trump PROUDLY said that people are afraid to go fishing around Venezuela
Why Hegseth? He didn’t push the button, but some idiot to whom ordinary Americans would shout “thank you for your service.” “I’m just following orders” is not an excuse, many such people were shot by the Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes they committed because someone ordered them to.
The submarine commander didn’t do this unilaterally. He was clearly ordered to do so, and that order would have come from Hegseth or Trump.
Because responsibility starts with leadership. It’s a very simple concept that current leaders ignore and we pay the price for.
No one was shot as a result of Nuremberg trials. And only, like, nine people were hanged as a result of them.
That should be an automatic declaration of war.
Aren’t we, like, way past that point…?
Iran certainly thinks so
When you blow up their leader then keep bombing their cities, that usually is a good reason to think so.
Also because Trump keeps calling it “war”.
War™*
*For legal reasons not an actual war.
Not according to Congress.
*Special torpedo operation
These murderous pedophiles will do anything to distract from the Epstein files.
All of this is happening because Israel is blackmailing American Pedophiles into war.
I hope the sub mutinies.
In the calmest of times submarines have poor connectivity with the outside world, so there’s no telling what they’ve been told.
Release the Epstein Files
Cowardly and despicable… in other words, Trump’s entire administration.
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I see no reason to fight fair, why put our troops at unnecessary risk?
I also can’t think of a reason why we wouldn’t capture their unarmed ship, or at least give them ample opportunity and “incentive” to surrender. Honestly, the greatest show of strength is the ability to show compassion and humanity to your enemy. Think of how much power it would project to capture a whole warship, hold the crew as PoWs, treat them well, and return them well fed and cared for?
Instead, we blew them up and left the survivors stranded in the ocean for other nations to assist.
One way to not put your troops at unnecessary risk would be not to start unnecessary wars.
Yeah, that too, but we’re talking about the US… Unnecessary war is like the trademark move of the republican party.
the ability to show compassion and humanity to your enemy. Think of how much power it would project to capture a whole warship, hold the crew as PoWs, treat them well, and return them well fed and cared for?
Woke. being woke is why the US keeps losing, so stop being woke and start winning
I shit you not, this is how these morons actually think.
I could literally give zero fucks about an Iranian/Russian/ us/French/ Canadian war ship. I hope all the warships from every country kill each other. But please bring Petey with you.
I expect this to be unpopular with the hive:
When you join a military, you take the risk that someone might shoot at you at some point.
It’s a warship, not a civilian ship, what’s the problem? I can’t think of a “better” target in a war than a warship.
Is that little knob on the bow for spraying lemonade at the thirsty? Are those boxes in the back for delivering free meals to underprivileged students?
Someone help me see your viewpoint as to why sinking this ship is an especially evil action getting as much attention as a literal girl’s school.
I have heard through (unsourced reddit comments keep in mind) that the US knew about the war games and was supposed to take place and pulled out last minute. So they knew that the ship was partaking and still blew it up. The US participated in the 2024 edition, so it seems like it was true.
I also don’t understand that would be a sticking point. It was in international waters when it was sank, so I assume it was returning home to get armed with shells, torpedoes, and missiles. Why wait for a warship to become an active threat before striking it?
It presumably had the option to either surrender itself to a neutral port, as another Iranian warship has done, or fly the white flag.
Because they knew it wasn’t a threat. They could have intercepted it, and the crew would likely have surrendered, and there would have been no senseless loss of life. It did not have that option as far as I can tell. It seems like Mr Social media content Hegseth wanted a video to share on socials to show how badass we are and opted to blow away innocents. That is fucked, and if you can’t see why, I can’t help you.
Submarines haven’t asked for surrenders in over a century. They stopped because ships that “should be unarmed” kept blowing them out if the water once they gave up stealth. Would you gamble your ship and crew on an Iranian warship following wargames rules to the T?
The ship was waiting to surrender to Sri Lanka I think. There was another one that had priority that did surrender while the one that was hit was next in line.
Your comment does multiple things at once.
You are asking why the outrage over this vs the school. Well, that’s a false dilemma. Nobody says the school bombing was A-OK.
You’re asserting that being in a country’s Navy makes it so that you accept the risk someone might shoot you. Well, nobody says it isn’t so. But that doesn’t make that loss of life A-OK. This is especially shocking given the brutal nature of a ship being torpedoed like that.
The United States has not declared war on Iran according to their own fucking constitution. They only make a bullshit self defense argument. But the ship was in an unrelated part of the world, in Shri Lanka, so literally unable to threaten anything. So the killing felt gratuitous, cold blooded, brutal, unnecessary. The US could have neutralized the ship in a more humane way, given them a chance to surrender, etc. Instead they chose this.
So, no, this isn’t more important than the bombing of the school, and yes it is a warship but it’s still brutal and shocking. Your scolding of people’s natural aversion to this massacre is just not helpful.
Your comment also does several things at once.
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Still fails to tell why sinking a warship gets more comment than literally massacring protesters or literally bombing a school.
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I was operating under the basic assumption we’re adults who agree war is evil, and people die in wars. War is never fucking “A-OK” as you describe it. 2a. War exists, war is inherently evil, because humans are humans. If you volunteer for war, and then don’t want to participate, surrender yourself to a neutral country.
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WOAOWOOWWOWOW a nation didn’t actually do the political process of " I declare war"??? Grow up.
Throughout the full history of submarine warfare, warning “unarmed” ships they should surrender has resulted in submarines getting blown the fuck out of the water by “unarmed” ships.
How is this “brutal and shocking”? They could have sailed to a neutral port and surrendered to the neutral nation, as another Iranian ship just did.
Your statement that this gets more attention than killings of civilians is not as obviously true as you make it. This is the first thread on Lemmy I’ve seen for example specifically discussing the ship whereas I’ve seen multiple others discussing the school bombing. So I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about here.
About the other two, again I’m not sure where you’re getting at. You’re digging your heels on what exactly? That people should not be upset about this? My points 2 and 3 tried to describe some reasons why people might feel upset. Your point is what? “Fuck your feelings”? I mean ok, you can say that, but then what?
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