JINGO JERKOFFS.

A U.S. Navy vessel floated into Iranian waters and was detained by Iran along with its sailors, who were fed and sheltered for 16 hours and released. Wingnuts are furious that they didn't have time to put up yellow ribbons, and also with shame, because Iran didn't just say "go ahead and float around the place, guys -- it's not like we don't have some history." Even worse, we apologized for the incursion, and the Party of Trump doesn't go for that! At National Review David French finds a picture of the sailors sitting on a rug, and reacts as if they were cartoons of defiled American maidens in old jingo propaganda:

This photograph violates international law. Article 13 of the Geneva Convention (III), governing the treatment of prisoners of war, requires Iran to protect prisoners against “insults and public curiosity.” This photograph — including a female sailor apparently forced to wear a headscarf – is a quintessential example of “public curiosity” and would be interpreted as insulting throughout the Muslim world. (And if you don’t think Iran is in a state of armed conflict against the United States, tell that to the families of hundreds of American soldiers who’ve lost their lives to Iranians and Iranian-backed terrorists.)

"I understand you lost your boy in the War against Iran." "Huh?"

The sight of members of the American military, disarmed and under Iranian control, is of enormous propaganda value in Iran’s ongoing war against the United States. To its allies in the Middle East, the photo demonstrates Iran’s strength – how many jihadist countries have had this many American servicemembers under their power? – and it demonstrates American weakness,

Thus does Rouhani build morale for the American invasion! Meanwhile Erick Erickson wants to blow something up to show how fightin' mad he is as a red-blooded, ham-faced American. After all, Reagan blew something up in '88! He did so after one of our ships hit an Iranian mine, which Erikson doesn't mention -- nor does he mention that we were protecting supply lines for our buddy Saddam Hussein at the time. But never mind that -- blowing shit up is patriotic, but Obama won't do it so America is humiliated while Iran is "flexing its muscle in order to show the world that even the United States must at times bow to the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air is mad that the sailors had to sit on a carpet, like they was Ay-rabs or something. "Iran had no chairs or couches for their 'guests' to use?" he thunders. Also they had to eat Ay-rab food -- not hamburgers and Cokes like real Americans! So much for your Geneva Conventions!

You see the problem. This ain't the U.S.S. Pueblo; the sailors were home in less than a day and seem to have suffered no ill effects. But conservatives have to at least try to gin up outrage over it, because military strength is one of their equities, and if Americans are content to settle these things with an apology and some hummus, it makes Republicans look like blustering idiots.