British Prisoners In Iran

Or Americans (see Wars, World I & II).

That's right. Oh, curse the fact that I attended "uni" in the Colonies! My education is so inadequate ranked against the "public schools" of the Mother Country! By Jingo!

Looks like they couldn't hold back the seamen forever.

soldiers--or anybody--are not going to fight back in the face of overwhelming odds if there is no clear reason to. why? because they don't have orders to, and they don't want to die. if the UK had been at war (or whatever the fuck nations call it these days when they invade other countries) with Iran, then the soldiers would have fought until death or capture. American soldiers would have done the same thing the British soldiers did in that situation--surrendered and hoped.

What, exactly, should they have done?

Screamed "This is SPARTA!" and responded to Iranian provocation by opening fire and thus declaring war on Iran just so they didn't come across looking like pussies to armchair soldiers around the world?

Or Canadians....

Uncognitive and motorfirebox, thanks for finally providing a sensible viewpoint on the topic. You have officially won at this thread, by the way.

Also, I think most of SG is wanting to audition for the next Rambo movie. I'm considerably less than impressed.
I demand someone supply me with a Canadian to throw at you.

Of course not. They actually responded properly there. But the fact that they were so easily suborned afterwards, by such comparatively mild methods of coercion, doesn't say much for their mettle as soldiers. As human beings, of course, they can't be blamed for that, either.

And it also demonstrates, yet again, that torture is worthless as an tool for gathering reliable information.

Pick on us Canadians, will you? May I remind you, good madam, before you continue your torrent of British imperialist abuse...

Canadians


British

Pardon? Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of you having sex with that moose.

Canadians:


Brits:


Disclaimer: I like Canadians. This is just an opportunity for me to make awful jokes and look at pictures of Orlando Bloom. No serious offence intended, dude.
Also: Orlando Bloom needs to be in my pants immediately.

That's no moose, its the queen. What, she was choking....

Celine dion is a habitante!


Much better.

Oh, you crafty Canadian. I shall use the pure sex of Keira Knightley to compete with your foxy tattooed lady:



Game, set and match, my friend!

Also, everyone knows the Queen is a bit of a floosy. The moose probably would have been more of a challenge.

One thing to remember is that they really weren't forced to say anything all that offensive. They merely said that they were in Iranian waters, which considering how disputed that waterway is really doesn't have the same weight as having them say "Death to England!" or make claims that Britain should alter it's foreign policy.

I'm also willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to POW's who are being forcibly interrogated, especially when the keyboard kommandos who are just itching for a shooting war with Iraq are quite happy calling them "cowards".

And yes, coercive interrogation is incredibly unreliable, even when it's as comparative mild as what Iran did to these soldiers.

I%u2019m quite shocked to see the amount of petty, playground style, nonsense that has come out in the last few pages of this thread. I can think of a fair few people who need to take a step back and cool it.

I%u2019ve been reading through the comments to try to see where the thread went wrong and it seems to me that we were all getting along reasonably well until oyaji came out with the following set of inflammatory remarks%u2026

oyaji judging by your aggressive tone, I can%u2019t help but wonder if you were deliberately trying to provoke an argument.

I think you all need to pay more attention to saltonsea%u2026

Anyway, I%u2019m glad that our sailors were released and that we were able to achieve this in a civilised manner without resorting either to the use of force or to public concessions.

Yes. Silly internet arguments aside, it's really good news that there are 15 men and women alive today and diplomacy triumphed.

I don't particuarly want to continue the debate of the merits of playing Rambo in the Gulf. I suppose some people will understand that the UK refuses to train kamikaze troops, and other people won't. That's life.

I consider this a minor point, but just for the record, at least one of the letters that Faye Turney was "coerced" into writing included "her" demand that British troops leave Iraq. She told a British newspaper that writing it made her feel like a "traitor."

Referring to soldiers who are psychologically prepared to die in the line of doing their jobs as "kamikaze troops" is just silly. However, your post is valuable in one respect: it is a good barometer of just how twisted, backward and anemic British thinking has become since World War 2 -- people there have actually come to regard British forfeiture as 'noble.' They have come to champion the utter belittlement of Britain's stature on the world stage.

I don't. I like Britain, and I like British people, and I want to see Britain be as influential on the world stage as it can possibly be. I'm interested in seeing what kind of impact this episode will have on attitudes among the British public. Even at the best, it's probably a matter of way too little, way too late. But, shit, do something people. You've been utterly raped.

Well, this has all been a very profitable experience for Mr.Ahmadinejad.
Its all just a huge PR exercise for both camps now.
To the Iranian people, their military now look both decisive and merciful, highlighting the idea that they would use nuclear power with the same responsibility.
To the British people, the Iranians look desperate to use PR stunts to prove how responsible they are, denoting that in reality they aren't.
And overall, the British media have succeeded in showing that British military personell will change and embellish their stories as much as possible at the sight of pound signs.
The only winner here is the media, especially on the Iranian side.

As to the issue of how these soliders should have reacted:
Soldiers who do their jobs well follow orders.
Any soldier in any military who reacts with a gung-ho attitude as soon as things go wrong is not doing his/her job properly.
These soldiers had been trained in how to react in such a situation and did so as ordered.

The solutions to tense diplomatic situations cannot be found in Steven Seagal movies.
There is a stereotype in Europe that Americans do not understand this- personally I don't agree with stereotypes, but I certainly believe individual troops don't have the right to effectively declare war against other nations on behalf of their countries.
It would be quite worrying to consider that anybody in their right mind would disagree.

I think that the oil price rises which were caused by this little debacle would have been rather profitable for Iran.

Of course, I am not suggesting that's why they did what they did.

I am tempted to speculate that the capture of the British sailors was the opportunistic result of a random brainwave by overzealous Iranian sailors rather than some nefarious scheme on behalf of the Iranian government to hitch up the oil prices.

Too true!!