# British Sailors released!!!



## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

Folks, the Iranians have released the British sailors and marines that they seized!!!


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## Kacey (Apr 4, 2007)

Woohoo!!!  That's so great!!!  Were there any conditions, or did they just release them all?


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

Kacey said:


> Woohoo!!!  That's so great!!!  Were there any conditions, or did they just release them all?



Kacey, I believe they just... let'em all go. Outstanding!!

I figured that as time went on, the Iranians would realize what a stupid move this wasthey _couldn't_ come out of it looking good. But what I worried about was that there are two responses when you realize you've done something really dumb: admit it gracefully, or try against all reason to defend what you've doneon the grounds that if you admit error, you'll be perceived as being weak. And I didn't think the odds on the first alternative were particularly good. So that left the second, with potentially very nasty consequences, particularly for the British sailors. But apparently, they've just been allowed to walk, no strings attached.

Three cheers, eh?!


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## crushing (Apr 4, 2007)

That's great news.

It was President Ahmadinejad's Easter gift to the British people.  What a great guy!


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## Tez3 (Apr 4, 2007)

Exile you got there before me with the good news!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/


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## CoryKS (Apr 4, 2007)

crushing said:


> That's great news.
> 
> It was President Ahmadinejad's Easter gift to the British people. What a great guy! :rollseyes:


 
I agree!  This proves that Iran is clearly a rational, caring entity that just wants to do the right thing!  They even chastised Britain for sending a woman with children into battle!  And can you believe that they released them unconditionally?  It just shows that _some_ people's leaders have the humility to admit they're wrong!  Yessirree, Iran has come out of this smelling like a rose!  They couldn't have hoped for a more positive outcome if they had planned it that way!  *beams*


In all seriousness, I'm truly glad that the British sailors have been released.


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> Exile you got there before me with the good news!
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/



Sorry, it occurred to me a little while ago that you should've had the pleasure of announcing it... but then, you might have been off celebrating and taken _hours_ getting back on line, so... :wink1:


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## Tez3 (Apr 4, 2007)

[_quote=exile;763422]Sorry, it occurred to me a little while ago that you should've had the pleasure of announcing it..._ but then, you might have been off celebrating and taken _hours_ getting back on line, so... :wink1:[/quote]

Good heavens no! I don't claim anything here! I may just have a drink or two lol!


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## Sukerkin (Apr 4, 2007)

I'm a little astounded that the matter is over so quickly (ish) and cleanly.  I'm surmising that the chap at the top realised that the best way to come out of the situation looking as good as they can was to be magnaminous.

They'd played 'hardball' for the home audience and gotten the kudos from that - to pursue the issue could only have lead to things getting worse for all concerned.

I am most happy that our chaps and chappess are out from under the shadow of harm :rei:.


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## MA-Caver (Apr 4, 2007)

Somebody is gonna have to wipe the drool off Bush's lips since you KNOW he was :fanboy: over the possiblity of going to war with Iran (probably will *still* try) just to help out Britian under the pretense of a "rescue" mission. The last one didn't fare so well over there.


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## tellner (Apr 4, 2007)

So President Iwannajihad really is less than completely insane. Or at least he has some good political sense. _Mirabile dictu_. I predict that the British, the Americans, and the Persians willl all claim credit and declare victory over this one. One notes that the British prisoners were treated a hell of a lot better than the Americans and British treat the poor bastards who fall into their clutches.


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## exile (Apr 4, 2007)

tellner said:


> One notes that the British prisoners were treated a hell of a lot better than the Americans and British treat the poor bastards who fall into their clutches.



I think two things account for this: one, the Iranians probably had hopes of using the British captives as bargaining chips, and it was important for that purpose to keep them intact, and two, the incident had complete global attention for a week or so, with tremendous scrutiny on the Iranians right from the start. 

Of course, international attention didn't save the Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi, who was detained in Iran in 2003, and whose story ended in a grimly tragic and horrifying manner:

_Although Iran's regime insists that her death was accidental, Shahram Azam, a former military staff physician who left Iran and sought asylum in Canada in 2004, has stated that he examined Kazemi's body and observed evidence of rape and torture, including a skull fracture, broken nose, crushed toe, broken fingers, and severe abdominal bruising. The Canadian government, as well as Kazemi's supporters, consider her death to be a murder._

(from the Wikipedia Kazemi biography) So yes, we have a lot to be thankful for, that, in this later incident, things have ended as well as they have. My mind just does not want to visualize what could have happened to those people had things gone sideways...


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## tellner (Apr 4, 2007)

In other words, the Iranians are no worse than we are. Torture has become standard practice for the United States when it captures people. It disappears captives by the thousands, possibly tens of thousands, to be tortured and probably killed all over the world. Our Marines even beat an Iraqi general - prisoner of war, wearing his issued uniform, no doubt whatsoever that he was covered by Geneva - to death to "soften him up" for questioning. The murderers and their commanders skated. We've squandered every single damned shred of moral authority we had to say "Boo!" to Tehran about the way it treats people. The UK may or may not be any better. But it's certainly complicit.

We're a nation that tortures and murders as a matter of policy. The rule of law is no longer in force, just the rule of megalomaniacal men. Yes, the mullahs are nuts. The Iranian president is an evil man. That doesn't excuse us from our own villainy. This time they were better and more humane than we.


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## Drac (Apr 4, 2007)

exile said:


> Folks, the Iranians have released the British sailors and marines that they seized!!!


 
Excellent!!!!


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## jdinca (Apr 4, 2007)

I think that's marvelous news! I'm glad that a little behind the scenes talking was all that was necessary.


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## tellner (Apr 4, 2007)

jdinca said:


> I think that's marvelous news! I'm glad that a little behind the scenes talking was all that was necessary.



Amen. This was a time for talking, not shooting.


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## jazkiljok (Apr 4, 2007)

tellner said:


> So President Iwannajihad really is less than completely insane. Or at least he has some good political sense. _Mirabile dictu_. I predict that the British, the Americans, and the Persians willl all claim credit and declare victory over this one. One notes that the British prisoners were treated a hell of a lot better than the Americans and British treat the poor bastards who fall into their clutches.



forgive me but this episode was a very calculated move by iran. they had no intention of hurting these guys, they had every intention of showing how really neat and civilized they are, yet tough with resolve. their actions were taken to display their own weight in the arab world.

and they got an iranian diplomat kidnapped in iraq released as a part of the deal.

england looks like a bunch of tea-sipping effete diplomats who got their handslap for sticking it too far into iranian territory (whether they did or not.)

and the US looks powerless and irrelevant to the situation.

score 1 to ambaddamaddjewbody and the mullahs.


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## Sukerkin (Apr 4, 2007)

I quite agree that this incident was very much about (an Iranian) someones internal agenda but there is, I would say, very little hope that it could've turned out any better than it has.

Iran has a big military and has a lot of relatively recent combat experience but, as barmy as their behaviour can sometimes seem to us, their leaders are *not* idiots.  In the past decade, they have seen their greatest 'real' (as oppossed to ideological) enemy be wiped away with consumate ease (militarily).  They know that any open conflict will result in the same outcome for them so they choose a different route for their posturing and sabre rattling (admittedly counting on the fact that, in the most part, the voting public of Western democracies don't actually approve of war).


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## Steel Tiger (Apr 4, 2007)

Sukerkin said:


> I quite agree that this incident was very much about (an Iranian) someones internal agenda but there is, I would say, very little hope that it could've turned out any better than it has.
> 
> Iran has a big military and has a lot of relatively recent combat experience but, as barmy as their behaviour can sometimes seem to us, their leaders are *not* idiots. In the past decade, they have seen their greatest 'real' (as oppossed to ideological) enemy be wiped away with consumate ease (militarily). They know that any open conflict will result in the same outcome for them so they choose a different route for their posturing and sabre rattling (admittedly counting on the fact that, in the most part, the voting public of Western democracies don't actually approve of war).


 
This is an important point.  Up until this incident with the British sailors and marines, the popularity of president Ahmadinejad had been slipping.  A strong stance and then a generous and peaceful conclusion will have does his position no harm.


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## Tez3 (Apr 5, 2007)

It's 1140h our time and I've got the tv on, the BBC is at Heathrow airport waiting to show them landing in about 20mins! I can imagine how the families feel! 
The only down side is that more soldiers have been killed in Iraq and we are waiting to find out what regiment. I'm saying silent prayers that it's none of ours which in itself is awful because they are all somebodies kin.


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## sankaku-jime (Apr 5, 2007)

Just this article out, says it all really



> *Call that humiliation?*
> 
> 
> No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch
> ...


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2047110,00.html#article_continue


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## Drac (Apr 5, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> It's 1140h our time and I've got the tv on, the BBC is at Heathrow airport waiting to show them landing in about 20mins! I can imagine how the families feel!


 
Caught a glimpse of that myself..Fox News is showing that here..


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## MBuzzy (Apr 5, 2007)

It is wonderful that they were released and no one had to go get them.

I was very afraid that the politicians were going to drag more countries in to war.


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## CoryKS (Apr 5, 2007)

Good article about Tehran's Victory.


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## sankaku-jime (Apr 5, 2007)

CoryKS said:


> Good article about Tehran's Victory.



whats good about it ?

I thought it was overly biased, full of lies and Propaganda and Spin.


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## CoryKS (Apr 5, 2007)

sankaku-jime said:


> whats good about it ?
> 
> I thought it was overly biased, full of lies and Propaganda and Spin.


 
One could say the same about the Terry Jones drivel.  People have opposing viewpoints, and I believe there are those on this forum who will find it interesting.  I posted it for them.


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## sankaku-jime (Apr 5, 2007)

CoryKS said:


> One could say the same about the Terry Jones drivel.  People have opposing viewpoints, and I believe there are those on this forum who will find it interesting.  I posted it for them.



true, but the Terry Jone article spoke a lot of truth, he highlighted how brutaly muslim captives are treated by the west compared to how well the British Soldiers were treated by the Iranians.

What specifaly did you think was good about the article you posted ?


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## CoryKS (Apr 5, 2007)

sankaku-jime said:


> true, but the Terry Jone article spoke a lot of truth, he highlighted how brutaly muslim captives are treated by the west compared to how well the British Soldiers were treated by the Iranians.


 
The Terry Jones piece was, as you put it, lies, propaganda, and spin.  See?  Mileage may vary.



sankaku-jime said:


> What specifaly did you think was good about the article you posted ?


 
That it was a good analysis of the situation and what is likely to happen as a consequence of the way in which it was dealt with.


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## sankaku-jime (Apr 5, 2007)

CoryKS said:


> The Terry Jones piece was, as you put it, lies, propaganda, and spin.  See?  Mileage may vary.



I would disagree there, it is mostly the truth laid bare with very little in the way of lies propaganda, ok spin and a different angle.

Whereis your article was full of lies, for example these Sailors were captured in disputed waters, whether they were really in Iranian water we will probably never know the truth about that. Also they were not hostages merely captives.


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## crushing (Apr 5, 2007)

CoryKS said:


> One could say the same about the Terry Jones drivel. People have opposing viewpoints, and I believe there are those on this forum who will find it interesting. I posted it for them.


 
Both articles have their merits.

I liked the Terry Jones article.  Like any number of witty skits, he took exceptions and applied them as rules.  It's not as good as philosophers playing football or a slaptsticky as lumberjacks in drag, but it was an interesting take on the situation.


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## CoryKS (Apr 5, 2007)

crushing said:


> Both articles have their merits.
> 
> I liked the Terry Jones article. Like any number of witty skits, he took exceptions and applied them as rules. It's not as good as philosophers playing football or a slaptsticky as lumberjacks in drag, but it was an interesting take on the situation.


 
The skit that comes to mind is the Argument Sketch.  As a political analyst, Jones makes a good actor.


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## Tez3 (Apr 5, 2007)

Ahttp://www.nypost.com/seven/04032007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/wheres_winston__opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htmnd this?


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## jim777 (Apr 5, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> And This?


 
I think this is what you meant? I have to be honest here, I was stunned to see the British on TV apologizing. I would have thought it would take nothing less than welding torches to their testicles for that. But, we'll never know what really went on here, just what got pushed or leaked to the press. Maybe lives and limbs were threatened? I'm sure they did what they thought was best, and as long as they got home safe to their families, that's all that will matter to the families. I'm glad it seems to have worked out!

jim


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## Tez3 (Apr 5, 2007)

That's the one! thanks. I got it off an MMA forum (a UK one) and to say it's upset people is an understatement.


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## jim777 (Apr 5, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> That's the one! thanks. I got it off an MMA forum (a UK one) and to say it's upset people is an understatement.


 
Peters is a retired _General_, and a real "chew up steel and spit out bullets" type. He's not your typical news reporter, and doesn't mince words on anything. He certainly isn't right all the time, but he does say things others won't which at least makes him interesting.

EDIT: Wikipedia says he was Lieutenant Colonel, not a General at all.


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## Tez3 (Apr 5, 2007)

jim777 said:


> Peters is a retired (three star?) General, and a real "chew up steel and spit out bullets" type. He's not your typical news reporter, and doesn't mince words on anything. He certainly isn't right all the time, but he does say things others won't which at least makes him interesting.


 

I wonder how many of his people he got killed? A modern soldier is more than a mindless moronic killing machine.

As I posted earlier we were waiting to see if the soldiers killed today were ours ( from Catterick Garrison). They were. Two were women. One from the Intelligence Corps and one from the Royal Army Medical Corps. Of the two men one was also from the RAMC, the other from the Lancashire Regt.The names haven't been released yet but I already I know I will know who the medics and the intel girl are.

This is where I live and work
http://www.army.mod.uk/catterick_garrison/index.htm


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## jim777 (Apr 5, 2007)

I don't know much about him, only what I've gleaned from the ocassional read of the NY Post and Wikipedia.


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## Sukerkin (Apr 5, 2007)

Well, there's a link I wish I'd never clicked ... someone needs a reality check I think (did that chap ever actually serve in a military, of any description, and actually do anything (not counting flying a desk)?).


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## jetboatdeath (Apr 5, 2007)

Yes it is great they got released but, why is every one over looking the fact they were taken in the first place? Dont you think there should be some repercussions for taking them? Yea I here all you guys now, we take prisoners of war all the time. The main thing here is I was not aware of Britton being at war with Iran. To me thats like someone snagging a kid off the streets, bringing them back in a week and saying, hey look what a good person I am for bringing them back.


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## Tez3 (Apr 5, 2007)

jetboatdeath said:


> Yes it is great they got released but, why is every one over looking the fact they were taken in the first place? Dont you think there should be some repercussions for taking them? Yea I here all you guys now, we take prisoners of war all the time. The main thing here is I was not aware of Britton being at war with Iran. To me thats like someone snagging a kid off the streets, bringing them back in a week and saying, hey look what a good person I am for bringing them back.


 

Britain isn't at war with Iran and the Navy personnel taken weren't prisoners of war. I'm sure they could have fought off thier captors but what exactly would that have proved? That they were dead idiots? I think any repercussions will probably be done in secret which is unsatisfying for us but we don't actually want another front opening up in the Middle East and yet more bodies coming back however much Bush wants his war with Iran. However unpalatable dealing with Iran is after this, for the good of the whole it's better that we do deal with them as opposed to fighting them.


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## jazkiljok (Apr 5, 2007)

some interesting articles are appearing about some british public being critical of the formerly captured soldiers apologies and behavior during their captivity. 

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=310c8c06-a467-4a86-aba6-d03ec80b4f7b&k=28644

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17958875/


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## Tez3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Well whoever is criticising them is obviously doing it to non british sources because there has been a very united stand in the British media right across the board supporting the british troops. That's from the left and right wing papers and everything inbetween. 
It's fine criticising from the comfort of your own home isn't it?


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## donna (Apr 6, 2007)

Tez3 said:


> Well whoever is criticising them is obviously doing it to non british sources because there has been a very united stand in the British media right across the board supporting the british troops. That's from the left and right wing papers and everything inbetween.
> It's fine criticising from the comfort of your own home isn't it?


 
I totally agree. I find it hard to beleive any "Confessions" or "Aplogies" from any prisoner that is paraded on the media. We the public can never know the duress that has happened or will happen if a prisoner is not co-operative with a captor, for the sake of propaganda. These days I find myself more and more sceptical of the media.


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## Tez3 (Apr 6, 2007)

We've heard now from the navy personnel and most sane people think they did the right thing in the dace of considerable more hardship than appears at first glance. They were blindfolded, had weapons cocked behind their heads execution style, were kept in isolation and threatened. Quite rightly they judged fighting back against the firepower the iranians brought to bear on them was pointless. Discretion is always the better part of valour.
Our worst fears were confirmed when the MOD announced the names of the people killed in Iraq. The two medics we knew. 
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/D...anorDlugoszAndKingsmanAdamJamesSmithKille.htm


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## donald (Apr 6, 2007)

Thank you Lord Jesus for answered prayers...

1stJohn1:9


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## CoryKS (Apr 9, 2007)

Cause, meet Effect.  Buoyant Tehran warns of further kidnappings


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