Iranians capture 15 Royal Navy personel

[roomy]

and they are appeasers - much like our liberal party

some have taken bribes form Saddam - much like the UN has

'shake my head in disbelief'.

 

[maineman]

and they are appeasers - much like our liberal party

some have taken bribes form Saddam - much like the UN has

but they are not the party running Britain...roomy is right: you really don't know what you are talking about.

 

[red states rule]

'shake my head in disbelief'.

does the name George Galloway mean anything to you

a rea nutcase you tok bribes from Saddam

 

[roomy]

does the name George Galloway mean anything to you

a rea nutcase you tok bribes from Saddam

And his party is who/what? I know who he is, do you?

 

[red states rule]

And his party is who/what? I know who he is, do you?

He is a Bush hating appeaser who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar

 

[roomy]

He is a Bush hating appeaser who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar

There are plenty of those about, I was wanting you to tell me what role he plays in government

 

[Annie]

British special forces should have no problem with a surgical insertion, rescue and withdrawal. Methinks, it would hurt Iranian leadership if the Brits could do this with precision and little collateral damage.... Ahmadinejad is already encountering oppostion on campuses and amongst professionals.... I wish you luck and success.

I second that!

 

[Dirt McGirt]

Iran seizure unjustified - Blair
HMS Cornwall
The 15 are based on HMS Cornwall, which patrols Iraqi territorial waters
Iran's detention of 15 Royal Navy personnel is "unjustified and wrong", Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.

The UK is still waiting to be granted access to the HMS Cornwall staff, who were seized on Friday.

At a Tehran meeting between Iranian government officials and the UK ambassador, the Iranians failed to say where the Britons were being held.

Iran says they were trespassing in its waters, but speaking at an EU summit, Mr Blair denied this was the case.

"It is simply is not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters and I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us," Mr Blair said.

"We have certainly sent the message back to them very clearly indeed. They should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act, which is unjustified and wrong."

The prime minister, in Berlin for the EU's 50th anniversary celebrations, said he had not commented up to now because he wanted the incident to be resolved in "as easy and diplomatic a way as possible".

He added: "It is the welfare of the people that have been taken by the Iranian government that is most important."

HMS Cornwall's area of operations

The Foreign Office is adamant that the 15 were in Iraqi waters and has called for their immediate release.

The British embassy in Iran said it had sought Sunday's meeting to demand the release of the sailors.

However, reports on Iranian TV said it was Iran's foreign ministry that summoned the ambassador, to receive a protest about British actions.

The Britons, who include one woman, were seized at gunpoint by forces said to be Iranian Revolutionary Guards, after inspecting an Iraqi boat and returning to their two small boats to head back to the Cornwall.

British ambassador Geoffrey Adams asked to know the whereabouts of the personnel and for consular access, but this was not forthcoming.

A British diplomat said the Iranians replied they would get back to the embassy on those issues - and told the ambassador the release of the 15 Britons was yet to be determined.

Germany - which holds the EU presidency - has called for the immediate release of the Britons.

On Saturday, the UN Security Council voted unanimously in favour of further sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme.

The seizure of the boarding party carries echoes of an incident in June 2004 when a group of eight marines and sailors were held for three days after being seized by the Iranians in the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

They were paraded blindfolded on television and later freed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6493391.stm

 

[Dirt McGirt]

I honestly think this gets settled diplomatically in a couple of days. But regardless, I hope the best for your countrymen Roomy.

 

[Gunny]

One of the reasons I don't make any political distinction here is that I feel I don't know enough about American politics.You would do well to adopt the same policy.

Liberals have a political party of their own here in Britain, it is called 'The Liberal Party'.You should shut up now.

And they are actually the more conservative party, correct?

 

[GeeWhiz]

Iran seizure unjustified - Blair

Iran says they were trespassing in its waters, but speaking at an EU summit, Mr Blair denied this was the case.

"It is simply is not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters and I hope the Iranian government understands how fundamental an issue this is for us," Mr Blair said.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6493391.stm

Notice that no one is saying Iran was out of Iranian territorial waters when the Brits were captured. Quite the contrare England is simply denying they were in Iranian territorial waters and leaving it as that.

 

[Dirt McGirt]

Not sure what to make of it. But here is a more detailed account. Seems like a valid explanation:

Marines 'confess' to Iranian captors
Tehran said yesterday that 15 British sailors taken hostage had confessed to straying into Iranian waters. Terri Judd, the only newspaper journalist on HMS 'Cornwall', reports
Published: 25 March 2007

The white Toyota Corollas on the ship gleamed in the bright sunshine as the Royal Marines sped across the Persian Gulf in their fast inflatable boats.

The two navy crews had spotted the merchant vessel on the horizon as it brazenly offloaded its cargo of vehicles on to an old barge which would most likely slip up the Shatt al Arab waterway to the Iraqi city of Basra as part of the booming smuggling racket.

As they drew up alongside to investigate further, the barge turned tail and set off towards Iranian waters with the Marines and sailors in pursuit.

It started out as a routine UN-authorised navy inspection of a suspected smuggling operation. What followed has now become an international hostage crisis being mediated at the highest levels by Britain and Iran against a backdrop of nuclear brinkmanship.

The eight British sailors and seven Marines - including a young mother - who were seized by Iranian gunboats on Friday were yesterday reported by Iran to have "confessed" to straying into Iranian waters off the disputed waterway which separates Iran and Iraq.

The timing of the stand-off could not be worse as the sailors' fate risks getting caught up in the showdown over Iran's refusal to curb its suspected nuclear weapons programme.

The 15 members of the UN Security Council, were set to vote unanimously last night on a resolution ordering the expansion of sanctions on Iran to force Tehran to halt sensitive activities that could lead to production of a nuclear bomb. The session took place without President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who sent a deputy foreign minister to address the council after accusing the Americans of delays in issuing visas.

The hostage-taking looks increasingly like a deliberate act by Iran's Revolutionary Guards who have now reportedly transferred their hostages to Tehran. There are suspicions that the seizure was ordered in retaliation for the kidnapping of Iranians by US forces in Iraq.

The kidnapping stemmed from Thursday's events, when the barge tried to evade the sailors who decided to take a more forceful approach. They leapt on to the craft as it sped towards the buffer zone that separates Iraq and Iran's territorial waters. As the Royal Navy crew jumped aboard, the car traders tried to hide a box before tossing it over the side. The Marines half raised their SA80 rifles and ordered the barge to turn back. Ominously, they could see an Iranian Republican Guard boat circling nearby.

The suspected smugglers complied with the British orders and the crew returned to its rigid hull inflatable boats (rhibs) to continue its patrol, only to turn around and see the traders laughing in its direction.

Later that night, I joined them as they set off on their next patrol from HMS Cornwall - part of a "hearts and minds" offensive started by the British when they took over control of the task force three weeks ago. In the darkness the two rhibs were dwarfed by the giant, rusty hulk of the nearby Khawr Al Amaya oil platform. Minutes later they reached their destination, a row of dilapidated-looking Iraqi dhows populated with fishermen who make a living playing cat and mouse with the mammoth military operation which protects Iraq's vital oil assets.

Buoyed by the friendliness of the fishermen, the Royal Navy team was in high spirits. But exhausted after a 17-hour day, they were still irked at the laughter of the smugglers earlier that morning and decided, in consultation with senior officers, that the matter merited further investigation. The following day the 15 Marines and sailors set off from HMS Cornwall again.

The water was as calm, the weather as fine as it had been the previous day as they headed out to the Al Faw peninsula where the Shatt al Arab waterway opens into the sea and the ever-shifting boundary between Iran and Iraq.

Above them Lieutenant Commander Phil Richardson and his crew were providing cover in a Lynx Mk 8 helicopter as they once again spotted the same ship offloading as many as 50 cars on to three barges. This time the larger vessel was compliant as the British crew mounted ladders. Confident the ship was being co-operative and that there was no other sign of trouble from across the border, the helicopter disappeared to continue its reconnaissance of the area.

But minutes later, half a dozen large Iranian Republican Guard Corps Navy fast-attack speedboats mounted with machine guns suddenly appeared and ambushed the British sailors as they returned to their two small rhibs. Soon as many as 15 to 20 boats encircled the trapped team.

Frequently the odd IRGCN patrol boat has been spotted dipping across the often disputed water border but polite, firm negotiations has always seen them depart. They have, according to Commodore Nick Lambert, the head of the coalition task force in the area, maintained "a healthy professional respect".

This time, however, he insisted, the Iranians were clearly half a mile into Iraqi waters around Marakkat Abd Allah and in vast numbers. Suddenly HMS Cornwall lost all communications with its crews and the Lynx was immediately dispatched back, only to find they had completely disappeared. Scanning the huddles of fishing boats, the pilot saw the crew of the merchant ship gesticulating urgently towards the mouth of the Shatt al Arab.

Immediately he spotted a large huddle of boats, clearly displaying Iranian flags. Far more disturbingly a Royal Navy ensign was among them and, upon closer observation, Lt Cmdr Richardson could see some of the British crew he knew only too well.

Briefly the pilot and his observer managed to make contact with the Republican Guard who said they had arrested the Britons for straying into Iranian waters before a cacophony of angry Iranian voices filled the airwaves and he lost contact.

To his horror, he watched as his colleagues were taken up the waterway and into a military base on the Iranian side. There were no signs of violence. The last he saw the British crew members they were standing, detained outside a building. The friends and colleagues of the missing personnel were left to contemplate the situation in stunned conversations across the ship. Yesterday morning, reporters on board the F99 frigate, including from The Independent, were ordered off and flown to Bahrain as the diplomatic row intensified.

Back in London, British Foreign Office minister Lord Triesman summoned the Iranian ambassador to demand the immediate release of the 15 Britons.

It was the second time ambassador Rasoul Movahedian had been called to the Foreign Office, and the meeting, described as "frank but polite", lasted a full hour. Lord Triesman asked to be informed of the prisoners' location and demanded consular access.

The envoy was warned that Iran should not parade the 15 on television as it did when eight British soldiers captured in 2004 in a similar incident were shown blindfolded. They were released after three days, having made a television apology for apparently straying into Iranian territory.

It could be that the 15 sailors could be set free once the Iranians make public their "confession". But fears were growing last night that the crisis could be protracted following the announcement that an investigation is under way.

Additional reporting by Anne Penketh in London and Angus McDowall in Tehran

 

[Gem]

Dirt Wrote:

I honestly think this gets settled diplomatically in a couple of days. But regardless, I hope the best for your countrymen Roomy.

Dirt, are you at all concerned about what dealing with Mahmoud Ahmandinejad diplomatically in this instance might mean/bring/instigate for the world?

If we have learned anything from the war in Iraq, its that we can not fight an enemy that does not view the world the same way we do and expect them to respond to military actions and/or diplomatic decisions the way we would.

For example, we did not actively and aggressively stop looters in the inital stages of the war because we did not want to be viewed as occupiers or oppresors. But, what we totally forgot to factor was that we were ALREADY viewed as occupiers by a large part of the country by the sheer fact that we were there at all. By not stopping the looting, we came across as ineffectual and uncaring. We made similar errors with Al Sadr, Abu Ghraib, attacking insurgents in mosques, and in other errors.

These errors were made for many reasons, but in large part, they were made because we kept insistenting on using an American thought pattern to our decisions rather than an Iraqi or Middle Eastern one. Saddam thought he had "won" the first Gulf War, so did most of the people in the middle east. It was not because he had won militarily...but rather because he had gone up against the largest most powerful military in the world, and survived.

Are you at all concerned that by "negotiating" diplomatically with the president of Iran we are making a similar error in cultural calculation? That perhaps that will be viewed as giving him more power, more influence...that he captured these British soliders because he wanted the Western world to invite him to the "grown-up" table of negotiating power and that by talking to him the Brits would be, in a way, "rewarding" this behavior and a) empowering Mahmoud and b) showing other leaders and groups that this is an effective way to gain the power they seek?

 

[Dirt McGirt]

Dirt Wrote:


Dirt, are you at all concerned about what dealing with Mahmoud Ahmandinejad diplomatically in this instance might mean/bring/instigate for the world?

Of course I do. Are you concerned about war?

But I'm curious to hear what you think the solution will be if it doesn't involve diplomacy.

 

[red states rule]

Iran Floats Threat of Trying Captured British Troops

LONDON — Iran warned that 15 British sailors and marines could face charges for allegedly entering Iranian waters and rejected British requests to meet with the servicemen detained off the coast of Iraq.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki threatened unspecified consequences for the Royal Navy crew in comments to reporters in New York on Sunday. He described the charge against them as "illegal entrance into Iranian waters."

"In terms of legal issues, it's under investigation," Mottaki said.

• Monitor the nuclear showdown in FOXNews.com's Iran Center.

The capture and detention of the British service personnel increased tensions between Iran and the West that already were high over Tehran's nuclear program and allegations that Iran is interfering with the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The U.N. Security Council agreed Saturday to tougher sanctions against Iran for its refusal to meet U.N. demands that it halt uranium enrichment. Many in the West fear the country's civilian nuclear research is cover for a weapons program, a claim Iran denies.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,261144,00.html

 

[Adam's Apple]

Iran is playing a political chess game with this incident.


Royal Navy Incident
By Walid Phares, Real Clear Politics
March 25, 2007

The capture of British Navy servicemen by Iranian forces is not simply an incident over sea sovereignty in the Persian Gulf. It is a calculated move on behalf of Teheran's Jihadi chess players to provoke a "projected" counter move by London and its American allies. It is all happening in a regional context, carefully engineered by the Mullahs strategic planners. Here is how:

for full article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/royal_navy_incident_irans_plan.html

 

[Gem]

Dirt Wrote:

Of course I do. Are you concerned about war?

But I'm curious to hear what you think the solution will be if it doesn't involve diplomacy.

Of course I am concerned with war. I think that a war with Iran should be avoided if at all possible.

However, I am, at this point, as concerned about making an enormous strategic blunder that will hurt more people in the long run as I am about war.

My vote would be a small special forces mission to get the troops out OR a negotiation with Iran that involves no bartering or incentives for Iran, but rather a firm no-nonsense demand for the British troops back with no wiggle-room. This would only work it the world community rallied around the British...I'm not sure the world is willing to do this.

 

[Dirt McGirt]

Dirt Wrote:
Of course I am concerned with war. I think that a war with Iran should be avoided if at all possible.

Hence diplomacy.

However, I am, at this point, as concerned about making an enormous strategic blunder that will hurt more people in the long run as I am about war.

My vote would be a small special forces mission to get the troops out...

That's suicide. A special forces incursion deep inside Tehran would only result in their deaths. Not to mention that it would be seen as an official act of war.

OR a negotiation with Iran that involves no bartering or incentives for Iran, but rather a firm no-nonsense demand for the British troops back with no wiggle-room.

AKA diplomacy. I'd even take it so far as to do an under-the-table prisoner swap if they called for one. The lives of 15 British sailors are worth more than some Iranian diplomat shithead.

This would only work it the world community rallied around the British...I'm not sure the world is willing to do this.

The security council was currently in the process of approving sanctions against Iran. Despite our current relationship with the EU, most of the world is in agreement that Iran stop uranium enrichment. I can't see why they wouldn't support the UK on this one since it happened in disputed waters.


But like I said before, I think this whole incident gets handled diplomatically real soon. Iran is already backing off on the charges.

 

[Paul Revere]

It was not a wise move on the Royal Navy’s part to have been within the twelve mile limit of territorial seas in a region they know full well is subject to maritime boundary dispute. The border between Iraq and Iran on the Shatt al-Arab waterway has been in dispute for decades.
The British weren’t doing their job of looking for weapons, they were investigating smuggling of vehicles, which is a tax issue, someone attempting to evade taxes. This was not their concern and was a provocative action on the part of the British.
This will be settled politically, I believe. After all the Iranians will not benefit from a war. They Know full well that without the support of China and Russia, they will not win a nuclear attack against them. The question becomes, will their allies honor their treaties and counter attack the US if the US uses nukes?

Bush and his insane clown posse, do have plans to use nukes in Iran. They planned a nuke attack on Iran for years now. It is CONPLAN 8022. Now they have ‘Operation Bite‘.


Expect to be served reports without substance or evidence by politicians who have a history of being less than truthful in order to lie entry into another war for oil and empire.


“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood just as it narrows the mind.......
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with FEAR and blinded with PATRIOTISM, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.
How do I know?
For this is what I have done.....
And I am Caesar"

 

[Avatar4321]

Let's help our Allies the Brits out. We can trade the captured troops for Jimmy Carter...

Seriously though kidnapping soldiers in Iraq now? Iran has attacked our troops in Iraq. Kidnapped soldiers in Iraq. Supplied weapons to insurgents in Iraq. At what point do we recognize they are at war with us (and the Brits) in Iraq?

Oh and I cant help but notice the liberals aren't complaining about the Iranian violations of Geneva convention here...