[tokai]

Prisoner 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.

[ks2048]

Not a Prisoner of War - a Prisoner of a limited military excursion.

[RobotToaster]

Prisoner of a three day military operation.

[butlike]

It's more of a 'romp' than an 'excursion,' if you will.

[andrewflnr]

I don't know what definition of "hostage" you're using, but practically speaking, a hostage is what you make of them.

[jimnotgym]

I guess the down goes is because war has not been declared? Therefore they captured a what, war criminal, foreign terrorist?

[postsantum]

> He was kidnapped from his warplane

[spwa4]

That is assuming Iran holds itself to the Geneva conventions, which ... seems like an extremely risky bet to make.

[n2j3]

We 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]

The person you’re replying to is very explicitly not expecting them to honor the International Convention…

[n2j3]

The funny thing is that I am, even if that puts me in the naive minority in this thread.

[cestith]

As 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.

[bigbugbag]

Iran already has won on this matter, which is a major concern considering it is an islamist dictatorship that recently killed thousands if not ten of thousands of its own population.

yet israel and the US both come out are infinitely worse in comparison, committing massive war crimes, lead by incompetent far-right extremists blinded by ideology and motivated by greed, personal gain and attempting to evade legal issues.

[watwut]

They 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).

[losvedir]

How am I reading this? Wasn't the regime mowing down tens of thousands of its own citizens prior to this war? I mean, not a "war" crime, I guess, but it seems ludicrous to give them any "moral victories".

[unyttigfjelltol]

Iran 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.

[hackable_sand]

It's not naive to have adult expectations for adults

[nemomarx]

Prisoner 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]

I 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]

Yes, 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]

And 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]

Does the US have any prisoners to exchange? Wouldn't we need boots-on-the-ground to capture enemy combatants?

[nemomarx]

Israel probably has some prisoners that Iran might want released, is my thinking?

[tenthirtyam]

They're going back to the stone age, remember? The Geneva convention wasn't around then AFAICR.

[thinkingtoilet]

The US doesn't hold itself to the conventions, why should the country it started a war of aggression with?

[rbanffy]

If you throw away your principles because you are fighting an unprincipled enemy, you are no better than them.

[kelnos]

That'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.)

[decimalenough]

FWIW, during the Iran-Iraq war (where Iraq invaded Iran), Iran used a bunch of pretty questionable tactics like suicide squads of child soldiers.

[saimiam]

It’s such a shock to the system to realise that “unprincipled enemy” referenced here is the US.

[rbanffy]

And it seems interesting a lot of people seem to be completely oblivious to it.

[thinkingtoilet]

There 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]

Becaus two wrongs don't make right. If they are smart they will stick to the convention.

[nerfbatplz]

They tried restraint and proportionality for decades and where did that get them? 47 years of non-stop aggression, espionage, sanctions and the mass deaths of Iranian civilians.

[epolanski]

America has never played by the rules.

US exceptionalism is a prominent feature of every republican and democratic president since decades.

It's sad, because if US did, and led by example, it could've pulled serious weight internationally on plenty of matters.

Instead it can only do so by economic or military leverage, which, at the end of the day is not enough of a leverage to avoid confrontation.

[nprz]

What has Iran done to show it would not uphold Geneva conventions?

[hajile]

When 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).

[Tadpole9181]

Especially 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]

Or Hegseth running his mouth about exactly this issue...

[anigbrowl]

I have a LOT more trust in Iran following the Geneva conventions than I do the US.

[surgical_fire]

Maybe Iran is more civilized than the Barbarians attacking them.

We have to wait and see if Iran is fighting a woke war.

[rbanffy]

Hegseth explicitly ordered to give the enemy “no quarter”.

[tjpnz]

Why wouldn't they?

[spwa4]

First: 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.

[watwut]

France vetoed proposal about opening the straight by force. France and Europe in general dont want to dragged into this war.

Also, I dont see UN punishing Israel or American war crimes either ... so it makes sense to not apply "whatever goes" standard to aggressors and different one to the defender.

[hvb2]

> Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage.

Expect there to be a lot of operatives of the US in Iran. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn't be the first time a CIA or something operative is caught and this is the cover.

In war the first victim is always the truth

[sokitsip]

Iranians have dignity. Something American top brass doesn’t even know the meaning of.

[spwa4]

You 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?

[Saline9515]

So how is bombing schools, dessalination plants and hospitals helping Iranians exactly? If that's what the US is really looking for?

[sokitsip]

Right. Go watch CNN. “Back to the Stone Age” will surely save so many of the lives spared.

Come on US media tell us the truth, you want to save people by killing them or to just kill them?

[Fricken]

Did you never noticed how there's always a little Arab Spring to provoke whatever regime the US has decided to bomb next?

[g8oz]

None of those numbers are verifiable. The opposition has every incentive to lie. And let's not forget there was a lot of armed agitators amongst those protesters. Mike Huckabee let the cat out of the bag with a tweet boasting of how a mossad agent walks beside every protester.

[RobotToaster]

Reprisals are legally permitted to a limited extent if you're a victim of war crimes, as Iran is.

[NickC25]

...but we aren't at war, according to the President and his secretary of Defense (war).

what a fucking mess.

[MarkMarine]

It’s a “well, actually” and counter to the HN guidelines

[bobchadwick]

There's a significant difference between a hostage and a prisoner of war, and in this context that distinction seems highly relevant.

[tokai]

Only for someone breaking the guideline of "Assume good faith".

[MarkMarine]

I 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]

No, 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".