15 British sailors kidnapped by Iran

[Wesley]

can i call you smacker Wesley?

Only if you mean it with respect! And dont give me that crap about the Cornholio not being near the incident. They had to ask London if they could engage with the Iranians, of course some skirt there said no... I know the captured troops were not on the Cornwall when they were captured.....
Chacal, I can't believe you think we are kidding about bombing Iran.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UWGa9ViY7G8

[SavageParrot]

Lol they weren't captured from a boat like that. They were in 2 small patrol boats. I'm pretty sure I read that at the time they were siezed they were searching another vessel as well so I don't think they were even in a position you yell "cheese it" and spank the accelerator.

[Chacal]

Chacal, I can't believe you think we are kidding about bombing Iran.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UWGa9ViY7G8

Good one!

[CodeRed68]

Only if you mean it with respect! And dont give me that crap about the Cornholio not being near the incident. They had to ask London if they could engage with the Iranians, of course some skirt there said no... I know the captured troops were not on the Cornwall when they were captured.....
Chacal, I can't believe you think we are kidding about bombing Iran.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UWGa9ViY7G8

LOL I love that video! hilarious... but .. was that supposed to make Bush look good or bad? guess that depends on your affiliation but it could go both ways!!

[Chacal]

If that makes him look good, I wouldn't want to see one that makes him look bad!

Haliburton FTW!

[King]

I feel bad for those sailors and royal marines... i really do. I'm sure that parading the soldiers on state television is disapproved of somewhere in the Geneva Convention doctrine, however, I'm not sure. That being said, Gitmo isn't something that every person in the states should be proud of because as soon as one of our boys gets captured and we scream bloody murder, we become hypocritical.

There needs to be a bridge between the Western political belief system and Middle Eastern belief system. So far, the give and take is pretty much take all you can without conceding very much so you don't look weak to your allies.

[cavalierlwt]

There's a fact of life, nobody wants to look bad. My fear is that Iran might be feeling the heat over either nukes or Iraq, and might be considering a capitulation of some sort with these sailors to be used a pawns to save face. Not the end of the world if they let them go soon, unharmed. But I do fear the other option, where they do something far worse to these sailors so they can show the rest of the ME that they are strong, in control.

[CreepingCharlie]

My only fear in all of this is Iran might do something that would bring in all of the world into war. WW3 by proxy. Much like WW1. Protect each other. I'm only hoping that Iran wouldn't be that stupid.

[CodeRed68]

Interesting read... U.S - Iran firefight 9/7/2006. Apparently this took place?
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1605487,00.html?cnn=yes

[cavalierlwt]

Wow! What is up with Iraqis? When our guys decided to make a break for it and fight their way out, 6 of the Iraqis chose to give up and be taken by the Iranians. Ten bucks says that the Iranians turned them over to Al Sadr and they wound up getting their heads chopped off. It seems like they get into trouble and they just collapse, let themselves get executed. The only thing I can figure is Saddam's reign just conditioned them to believe all is hopeless, to just accept the inevitable.

[[ecgn] btt]

Where did it say they didn't try to run and gave up? It just said four plus 2 remained in Iranian hands. That could mean any number of things.

[cavalierlwt]

I can't think of another (reasonable) way they wound up captured and no US soldiers got captured. Add that to all the clips I've seen of insurgents capturing and executing Iraqi police and soldiers who went quietly without a fight, and I just put two and two together. I'm not calling them cowards, just that it sounds like another instance where they just gave up.

[cavalierlwt]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070403/ap_on_re_mi_ea/british_seized_iran

The clock is ticking.

[SavageParrot]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6525905.stm

Aw isn't he sweet...

[Chacal]

The whole event was saber-rattling for show, as usual.
Both sides save face, having demonstrated they stand firm against the enemy but are reasonable enough to negociate.
Meanwhile the public gets it's fill of breaking news, forgets about real issues.