Let’s check out the details of what happened to the British sailors and Marines, shall we?
Apr 6, 2007 — CHIVENOR (Reuters) – The 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iran in the Gulf last month said on Friday they were blindfolded, bound, kept in isolation and warned that they faced up to seven years in jail.
[…] “We were interrogated most nights and given two options. If we admitted that we had strayed, we would be back on a plane to the UK pretty soon. If we didn’t, we faced up to seven years in prison,” they revealed.
They heard weapons being cocked behind them and feared the worst.
The sole woman among the group, Faye Turney, was kept isolated for several days and told by her captors that the others had been freed and gone home.
[…] After their arrest in the Gulf, the sailors and marines were taken to a prison in Tehran. “We were blindfolded, our hands were bound, we were forced up against a wall,” they said in their statement.
They were “stripped and dressed in pajamas … we were kept in stone cells, approximately 8 feet by six, sleeping on piles of blankets. All of us were kept in isolation.”
Gee. That doesn’t match the letters that were supposedly written by Faye Turney, or the claims of the British sailors on Iranian TV. I’m shocked, shocked I say, to discover that the Brits were coerced. Gee. No wonder they didn’t let the Red Cross or any representative of the U.K. visit them. Because that wouldn’t have fit the Iranian puppet theatre, using live people in fear of their lives, instead of puppets.
I fully expect to hear from Human Rights Watch over this. Well, no, not really.
Still think you ought to apologize to Iran, Brits?
>> I fully expect to hear from Human Rights Watch over this. Well, no, not really.
Actually, they are…
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/04/03/iran15632.htm
Wow. HRW basically says nothing. They practically say that the Geneva Conventions don’t apply, and they don’t demand the return of the sailors.
Way to go, HRW!
It’s not as it anything was done to them that wold not have been fully authorized by America’s Attorney General, was there?
It it’s acceptable to the Bush White House, why should the Iranians be condemned for what they did?
Okay, I’ve been trying to figure out where people like Steve are coming from. Turns out that Slate linked me. (And gee, the influx of hits is in the dozens! Slate thinks I’m a conservative. I have given up trying to persuade them that I am not.
If they behave, they can post comments. Please remember, my regulars, to be civil. It’s right up ^there. Next to “Leave a reply.”
Of course, if you’re to the right of Ted Rall, you’re a conservative. Get used to it.
“they were blindfolded, bound, kept in isolation and warned that they faced up to seven years in jail.”
Poor little things …
Not to mention the disgusting Iranian suits!
The most obscene pictures I’ve ever seen!
Abu Ghraib’s shots in comparison were chicken shit !!!
Mill and Churchill must be rolling in their graves:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
“We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat. … This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we arise again and take our stand for freedom.” Churchill, 1938
http://jcdurbant.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/04/05/iran-shame-on-you-tony/
Lessee, the Brits were captured in Iraqi waters by forces of the Iranian government. They were in uniform at the time. Iran was not at war with Britain at the time. The Euros certainly don’t believe they are at war with Iran, whatever Iran does. Gorilla Boy decorated the officer responsible for what was an act either of war against Britain or piracy.
As lawful combatants captured by the armed forces of a state the Brits were entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, which they did not get. The terrorists we capture are not lawful combatants, not being soldiers of a state, being in the service of a private group that has no standing to make war, not wearing uniforms or having a well-defined chain of command, and directing their primary attacks against civilians not military personnel. These factors violate the international law of armed conflict. So Steve from Philadelphia, the answer to your question is that the situations are not at all comparable.
Somebody brought up Abu Ghraib. I assume he meant that prison while the US was administering it, and not when Saddam had his execution cellars, torture chambers, and rape rooms there. The answer to that is that the US Army put a stop to the abuses there by a few guards as soon as higher authority found out about them. The officers whose laxness let abuses occur were disciplined, and the perps arrested and tried. The chief perp got ten years hard. The facts were made public in January 2004, so there was no cover-up, but the mainstream media showed no interest at the time. Only months later, when salacious photos were available, did it become a media circus for months. By then it was almost half a year after the abuse had been stopped.
So the US arrested the perps but Gorilla Boy decorated and praised the officer who perpetrated an act of piracy against the Brits. There is no similarity in the acts.
No American who denigrates the Iraq Campaign should be under any illusions that he is doing anything but impeding and opposing the war against the jihadi terrorists. You want to surrender to Osama and to Iran’s Fuehrer, excuse me Supreme Religous Leader, and his toady Gorilla Boy (as Meryl calls him). Wake up, the jihadis will come again once you get your way, until you pay the jizya in humiliation.
Well yes, because things would have worked out so much better if the captured sailors had allowed themselves to be tortured just a little bit before parroting unbelievable propaganda on TV. I don’t really want to see any of you nitpickers get “coerced” by the Iranians, but I would like to see you explain to the families of these sailors why it would have been better for them to endure more duress or torture. You might get three sentences in before you got tossed from the door.
Here’s my assessment guys: nobody takes seriously what the Iranians told them to say, and people in Britain stopped reacting to it because they realized that it would only inflame the situation. Only here in my country, where we have people itching for war with Iran, is some cheap propaganda on TV an excuse to start launching missiles.
Of course, it’s easier to make bold pronouncements about what they should have done when it’s someobody else’s soldiers in trouble. That’s not to say that you all wouldn’t be lauding the courage of the brave American servicemen who resisted torture and were sent home in body bags.