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'Cowardly and Despicable': Hegseth Condemned for Sinking of ‘Defenseless’ Iranian Ship
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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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.
How was it a legal target? We are not at war as idiot orange says.
You are in a defacto war. Despite whatever orange man says. The ship was inside international waters. It belongs to the nation you are attacking. It was a military ship. It is a legal target.
What's not a legal target are the civilian boats they shot down outside of Venezuela.
So usa’s ships are legal targets for all world countries?
Attacking a military ship is generally not a war crime (as defined by international law such as the Geneva treaties, Rome Statute etc...). It is an act of war (same as invasion or bombardment of another country), and is likely to see retaliation by the attacked country.
Aggression (i.e. unprovoked acts of war) is against the Charter of the United Nations, which also includes the International Court of Justice as a dispute resolution mechanism. It is up to the United Nations Security Council (at which the US has a veto) to authorise enforcement of ICJ rulings.
If a nation is acting to protect another nation facing aggression from the US, it would be legal for the attack US military ships. The reason why they wouldn't would more be that it would likely bring counter-retaliation from the US.
If you want to start a war with the US, sure.
Legal by whose standards? The international law’s? No one enforces that. Unless it’s to benefit the richest. Most international law is followed basically on the honor system.
By the US’s standards, everything is legal because the president has no limitations because our government will never pass those limitations on a president. If it was illegal, no one is can or will enforce it.
Who cares about “legal”?
Rules for thee not for me
Even the Japanese technically declared war before they attacked pearl harbor. That the US gov was too disorganized to get the message to pearl harbor is not their fault.
Actually the orange idiot keeps saying you are. It was Mike Johnson going the SMO route
Only Congress can declare war. Until then it's a conflict.
A war is a war whether the aggressor decides to officially call it that or not
War - Noun -fighting, using soldiers and weapons, between two or more countries, or two or more groups inside a country - Cambridge Dictionary
It's just as much a war as Putin's war in Ukraine is. The fact that Congress hasn't gotten round to declaring it yet is moot
Oh I know, and you know, but there are legal definitions and issues with what he's doing. Not that any of that matters regardless to the asshats in charge.
He also decided to not help the survivors.
It's a submarine. What do you expect them to do? They are not equipped to handle POW's
It is believed Sri Lanka was notified which were at the scene quickly after it sank.
They surface, they deploy lifeboats. They treat the wounded and hand them off to locals. Just like submarines have been doing for a very long time. As was pointed out, even the Nazis didn't abandon survivors. Sri Lanka may have been their quickly, but quickly in nautical terms is hours at best. The sub could have hung around and aided the survivors at least that long.
You are right about nazi subs helping sailors. They would carry them on top of the sub, while towing the rest from a lifeboat. And then they stoped doing that. Because they were fired upon by allied planes while they were towing the lifeboat. So they cut the line and submerged.
That was the last time a submarine tried to help sailors in WW2.
Submarine countermeasures have only increased since then.
Another reason for the submarine to not surface is because they don't want to let anyone else know which submarine is where.
I'm not gonna say sinking an unarmed warship returning from an exercise is cool. But it's not a war crime if it's in international waters, And it's also not a war crime for a submarine to remained submerged. They are simply not expected to conduct rescue operations.
Sure.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gcii-1949/article-18/commentary/2017
If you actually bothered to read what you linked. You would see this paragraph
And also
I did read it.
The action toke place half an ocean away from the combat theatre. There were no enemy naval nor aerial units around. There was no reasonable risk for the American sub.
But the captain decided not to help the survivors.
He is a war criminal and should be put on trial. But it won’t happen.
So do we really think Iran had sub killing capabilities in that area so far from home? It does say determined in good faith. You could argue that the captain's superiors may know something he doesn't, but cna you argue in good faith that they would withhold information about a threat to his sub in the area? Good faith would mean just claiming there might have been doesn't count.
Sub killing capabilities as of right now. I highly doubt it.
But it would not be unreasonable to think they might have sent a mig to investigate. Submarines have very limited radar capabilities. It could be dangerous for them to surface for a prolonged time to conduct rescue.
How plausible is that? Probably not very, a Kuwaiti f18 shooting down 3 friendly f15 is also pretty low on the plausibility scale. But it still happened.
I agree, the criteria of what is and isn't good faith decisions with the information currently at hand is difficult to prove or disprove.
What is the story on those planes. Are they really saying one f18 shot down 3 f15s before noticing they were US jets? Would have to be long range missles I assume, but can they carry that many?
As far as I'm aware. They were all shot down by an F18. I don't know if they've confirmed exactly which missile was used, but last i heard, it was believed to have been IR seeking missiles. Which are short range missiles compared to radar missiles which can probably go at least 10x as far.
Most modern jets are capable of carrying at least 6 missiles, as in, they have at least 6 hardpoints to attach weapons on. So the F18 carrying 3 is not a problem, I assume he had lot more than that.
But how they made that mistake I don't understand. Jets have so many tools available to them to identify what it is they're locking. Some speculate it wasn't a mistake. That it was a pilot sympathetic to Iran. But that is just speculation.
Absolutely this.
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.
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
There was a precedent in Nuremberg you should look into
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.
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.