Iran Takes 15 British Soldiers At Gunpoint

[lerxstcat]

If FDR had today's press to contend with, imagine the shit he'd have taken for getting us into the European Theater of World War II.

"Hey, the Germans never invaded us. Well, they sank millions of tons worth of our shipping, but hey! That was in international waters, what were our ships doing there anyway? Sailing into a war zone? That's their own fault!"

See how that goes?

[fett]

Taft, Harding and all those "I'm a USA Prez" don't even come close to the issue. You have to throw Wilson in there, but he was a bit ahead of his times. The President of the United States of the World was FDR. The post WWII world is what we live with today. Right, wrong or indifferent we won the past but can we win the future?

[lerxstcat]

Taft, Harding and all those "I'm a USA Prez" don't even come close to the issue. You have to throw Wilson in there, but he was a bit ahead of his times. The President of the United States of the World was FDR. The post WWII world is what we live with today. Right, wrong or indifferent we won the past but can we win the future?

Internationally, no. But Buchanan sat on his ass as the Southern states seceded because his term was ending and he figured it wasn't his problem. Maybe 650,000 American casualties could've been avoided if he'd had a set of balls. I figure that alone makes him worse than Bush - unless you think only post WWII history matters.

[jonipop]

lets offer her to the terrorist she will anoy them all to death then there will be peace on earth

[RacerX]

What was that thing again about political threads?

[fett]

Yikes. I know a liitle about that. But that was an internal war from hell. The notion that we can make the world do we want ended when we rebuilt Japan and Germary after WWII. Here's a nasty revisionist bent. Should we have just let Japan and Germany dig themselves out of what they did? Would that have made us the real "Bad Ass"? Would even Russia have ever messed with us? I don't know. But, the world then was a lot smaller than it is now. And we haven't had a president that is worth the name for a long time.

[VitaminG]

You're old enough to know that everything goes in cirlces, right?
That great wheel just keeps on a turning...

It's a bit odd viewing your politicians from this side of the pond. I can't speak for the rest of the people over here, but Bush scares the living crap out of me. As does Teflon Tony pandering to his every wish, "How shall I bend over today George?". It will all end in tears.

I actually feel (a bit, well not really) for our Prime Minister Howard. He so wishes to be No. 1 in Bush's affections, but with Blair being cuter & taller than he, never will be

[fett]

Tony Blair is ghey. I listen to him on BBC. GW and TB have voices and or speech patterns that just grate on my nerves. As for substance in what they say, I won't go there. They will both be history in a few months. Let the new "Inanes" begin.

[StukaJU87]

After the news conference, Iranian television showed a beaming Ahmadinejad on the steps of the presidential palace shaking hands with the Britons — some towering over him. The men were decked out in business suits and Turney wore an Islamic head scarf.


"Your people have been really kind to us, and we appreciate it very much," one of the British men told Ahmadinejad in English. Another male service member said: "We are grateful for your forgiveness."


Ahmadinejad responded in Farsi, "You are welcome."

Three members of the crew were later interviewed on Iranian state-run TV, apologizing for the alleged incursion into Iran's waters and again
thanking Ahmadinejad for their release.


"I can understand why you're insulted by the intrusion into the waters,":ROTF: said Lt. Felix Carman, shown seated on a couch.

"Thank you for letting us go and we apologize for our actions, but many thanks for having it in your hearts to let us go free," Turney said.


Before leaving Iran, they received gifts given to them on Ahmadinejad's behalf including handicrafts, a vase and special Persian candy, Iran's state-run news agency, IRNA, reported.



Whatever happened to name, rank, service number?

[rjohnstone]

Whatever happened to name, rank, service number?

No shit.
Chatty little bunch.
Should been name, rank, serial number and I would have thrown in a middle finger for good measure.

[Sukisyn]

I wonder how long before the story of the captives recanting their statements during their imprisonment comes out.

[OnlineStageGear]

How does one justify the other?

Dude, I think you completely missed my point.

[Cleveland Metal]

Just sickens me how they were all apologetic to their Iranian captors even after they'd been released.

Blair being nice to them and then later on blaming them for supplying the EFP that killed several brits recently sayin "This is maybe the right moment to reflect on our relationship with Iran." What a tard... The whole middle east thinks we're tards... A "paper tiger" as they call us... We really need to change our methods there... If we're gonna stay, we need to get heavy on their shit...

[ozzuk1]

They arent so apologetic now they are back home, all the captured servicemen, and woman say they were held at gunpoint and forced to say apologies etc, allthough they really didnt sound forced :rolleyes

I'm just glad that the iranians didnt keep claiming we were in the wrong truth is we wont know allthough the fact that an unmanned boat was left with a few armed ships waiting around the corner, is very very suspect....

Apparently during the 70's some iranian iraqi fighting caused both sides to be very teritorial over the waters btween them, so a couple feet could have started a war when Saddam was in power...


At least this didnt end very badly

Owain

[charvelguy]

This is really not to much different than the China incident with the EP-3 surveillance plane. Bush had to apologize there too. Its a political power play.
I agree that they should be pushed , but the main point is the non nuke issue which Iran is seemingly stalling upon.
It'll likely be another N. Korea incident there. we'll see.
Bush and Blair are not about to start anything more given their precedence in how they justified conflict in Iraq against Saddam and how that came to look in the eyes of the world community.
Further action of a military nature at this point would create a whole world of instability...which is a relative but different issue of what Bush is trying to achieve and has been trying to achieve in Iraq for 3 years.

Name calling and saber rattling went long with the China incident too. Part of the reasoning why America went into Iraq with GB was to give a stronger appearance to those nations in a democratic cause in the international arena.... to bolster their stance as a democratic influence and how democracy can be beneficial or an improvement over the previous reign.
We changed/modified the rules as to why we should engage a country past the simple 'deterrent' we can melt you off the face of the map type of thing.
There's some serious lessons to be learned from history here too.
I personally don't see any engagement which would tax an already overextended military presence in the region. The Brits just pulled out, so this was also a politically dynamic hand played by Iran.
We can't keep our people from being properly equipped from getting brought home in body bags and with limbs blown off as it is. No disrespect to those sacrificed.. but it seems to me we need better conventional warfare equipment for our present troops in the area to combat in this region outside or short of lighting off a nuke in the neighborhood.

However, the Brits made one mistake of not have a stronger military presence accompanying this one boat. Either get more vessels to strengthen your presence, a bigger vessel in a solo situation or overhaul the procedure to lessen the chance of having it happen again..which it seems they will be doing.