Andrew:

Where the hell did that “theater of the absurd” post come from—some English Lit. professor who makes a living looking for far-fetched subtexts? What else might he offer up—Jane Austen, an anti-Slavery campaigner; Alexander Pope, a closet transvestite?

I prefer the evidence of my own lying eyes. That sailorette didn’t have to put the headscarf on. So long as her hands were free—and they were—she could have just kept tearing it off. That was the only patriotic and soldierly way to behave. That Marine didn’t have to offer his groveling apology and testimony to the benevolence of his captors. He looked perfectly sincere to me.

Could you really detect any irony in what these miserable fools were doing? Did either of them have the look of someone who has, or has recently had, any key body parts in a vise?

These cowardly wretches are a disgrace to their uniforms. They are doing things they ought not do if they had any soldierly self-respect and love of country.

Your opening remark that, “In surrendering without a fight, those marines were, apparently, obeying orders,” is neither here nor there. I certainly agree that the current British ruling classes are scum. It is still open to British soldiers and sailors to behave honorably. Were these particular ones obeying orders in truckling to the Iranian barbarians? Pshaw! Outer Hebrides, I say.