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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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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
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.
So when you say short range... are we talking dogfight range?
Just seems like one jet taking out 3 should be harder. But if the speculation were to be true, I guees they could have willingly let him get behind them and stayed in formation or something. Do those jets even have the programming to fire at three targets simultaneously? I assumed nowadays dodging air to air missles wasn't too hard if you knew it was coming. The high speeds on both the plane and missle should make it easier to avoid them meeting if that's your goal.
well, there's new footage from the ground, showing both the f18 and the third and final f15 in the same frame. So yes, that would be within what you called "dogfight range"
From what I've read and heard, the f15 were all cruising home at 300 knots. That is mach .45, so they are going quite slow, and they are not expecting any danger since they are now inside kuwaiti airspace.
I'd say it's the opposite. It's more difficult than ever to "dodge" a missile. Not that it can't be done if the circumstances are in your favour.
In this case, the f15 is going subsonic. A missile coming from behind at probably mach 2-3. There's nothing in the world a pilot can do about that.
No. You would have to "lock" the missile on your target, fire. Lock the next missile on your new target, fire, lock again for a third time, then fire.
But in the case of the third airplane shot down. The F18 was well within visual range. He should have been able to visually identify that those were F15 SE
For the dodging, the faster something goes, usually the easier it is to dodge because it can't change direction as fast. Like a bullfighter stepping aside to let the bull run through the red cape. But I guess the target can't change it's position very fast, and would have a hard time timing the move against something coming that fast.
And for the third jet. How long do you think it would be between the first missle launch and the third? Like how much time did he theoretically have to react. I assume alarms would have gone off in the cockpit of all three when the first missle launched.
Hey, lots of text ahead, but it seemed like you wanted some information of the situation so I did my best.
For the dodging, it's the opposite, the faster something goes, the harder it is to dodge it in the air. You can only move so fast, and you can only change direction so fast. Especially if you're only doing 300 knots
The missile is faster than you, and it's more maneuverable than you. Best case you can bleed it out of energy. But that's not gonna happen in this situation.
The f18 shot them from within visual range. Don't quote me on it. But from what I heard, he used IR seeking missiles. I don't believe the planes can give you an alarm for them. They're not blasting you with a detectable radar wave. It's looking at your IR signature with a camera. In this case, from a rear aspect. And modern missiles will narrow their focus a lot to avoid locking onto flares. You'd have to pre-flare a lot, and/or bloom your flares out while making a maneuver to have even the slightest chance of avoiding it coming from the rear.
Regardless, even if they would get an alarm. I highly doubt there's anything they could do. It's very short range, they're going slow. The missile is very fast. It's like you decided to go to the bathroom. And mid shit someone kicks the door open and starts to punch you. You don't exactly have a lot of options.
I do not have a time frame of the entire event. I'm not sure that kind of information have been made available. Though I have not been active in researching this daily. There are some very qualified people on YouTube that have been breaking down the few videos we have available. I've seen a few as they pop up. It's a very strange situation.
Shooting down 1 friendly is bad, really really, really bad... it can happen. But it's bad. Shooting down 2 is unthinkable, and 3, we're into the territory of seriously considering it must have been deliberate.
Maybe at some point in the future we will get a full rapport of what and how it happened.
But the F18, if it had its radar on, should have seen that those were friendly contacts. Planes "squawk" a signal. And we use that to determine if it's a friendly plane or not. Planes also have what's called a RWR system. Radar Warning Reciever. It detects when you are hit by radar waves, and can thus give you an alarm that someone can see you. And this is also what will detect if you are locked on to by another plane.
But it can't detect if something is visually locking on to you. Such as an IR seeking missile.
People familiar with the F18 and the training those pilots recieve, are very suspicious because they know what the training entails. You have to KNOW what it is you're shooting at. If you're not entirely 100% sure, they say the procedure is to fly within visual range and visually identify the target. At that point. It should be obvious for the pilot that it's not a drone, it's an aircraft. And it should be obvious that it's first of all, not a mig29. And should also be obvious that Iran isn't going to fly migs inside of Kuwait, while cruising at 300 knots.
Thanks, I do appreciate the condensed version you have here over watching a bunch of youtube vids myself. The vids are so slow. Lol.
I guess the maneuverability thing is fundamentally different in the air. On the ground, it's easier to change direction or what not the slower you are going. Mainly I think because you depend on friction against the ground to move in any direction. But in the air of course you are redirecting the air passing over a surface to turn first, then that changes the thrust vector which combine to maneuver. So speed increases the effectiveness of the first part.
I wonder if you had some kind of very powerful burst jet that could provide significant up or down thrust paired with the normal up or down controls... could you relocate the aircraft enough for a missle to go by before it can adjust course. It would have to be timed by computer of course. And those things ain't light. So it would have to be a heck of a lot of burst thrust in a perpendicular direction. But theoretically it should be doable. Just likely not practical.
Some planes also have thrust vectoring.
And there are ways to defeat missiles. But not when you're caught with your pants down.
"Typically" or at least what you would expect from two major powers. Is that you see the other plane on radar long before you ever see it with your eyes. You'll fire long range missiles, you assume they did the same. And then you start defensive maneuvers to bleed the missile out of energy.
And if you're so close to that IR seeking missiles are an option. You'll probably have to pre-flare a lot hoping their missiles lock on to your flares instead of you.
As to your theoretical idea. It is unfortunately not theoretically possible either. And you'll just have to take my word for it. But I don't think neither humans or aircrafts could survive the loads required
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.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. The US have committed more than their fair share of war crimes. But this spcific incident isn't one of them.
You say you read it, but it would then seem you purposefully ignored this part
You can look back and say "oh, they never sent a jet, there was no danger". But you're doing that with the textbook in hand. You are sitting several days in the future with far more information available to you than at the time of the incident.
A submarine, and I honestly can't believe i have to say this more than 10 times by now. Is generally not equipped to conduct rescue operations. As far as the submarine captain goes. What do you want him, personally, to do, that also does not put his submarine or his crew in potential danger.
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.