Where the British sailors wrong for what they did?

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

What they did with regard to fighting back makes PERFECT sense. Had I been in command of those troops give the circumstances they described I would have done the same thing.

I DO have a problem with them allowing themselves to be used as puppets. Iran would have let them go without that shit, they wanted to humiliate them on the world stage and have them be a part of the Iran propaganda machine.

They did choose soldiers other than american for this reason. We are "name, rank, serial number" almost without exception. Had they not let Americans go in a timely manner they know the consequences would have been dire. Such agressive action could have been seen as an act of war against the UK. If they chose to do this against the US we would have given them 2 maybe 3 weeks to release our boys before facing serious consequences.

Iran is the country that broke International Law with press conferences of prisoners. It was recognized long ago that you could coerce people to say just about anything. They had no obligation other than to identify themselves and country of origin. I would rather see more outrage about the behavior of Iran than the soldiers, but the British seem to have lost some of that stuck up will power and dicipline they once had. Perhsps it is reflected in the men and women in uniform?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by avsp

Over here any debate into why/how they were captured or into their possible 'co-operation' with the Iranians is now massively overshadowed by the fact that they were given special permission to sell their stories to the press upon their return

Blair has now admited that the decision to alwow them to do so was 'not a good idea' & the defence sec Des Brown has accepted responsibility for the decision

As it was obvious that them making money off getting captured without a fight & then 'co-operating' with the Iranians was going to be seen as in extremely poor taste then the obvious question has to be why were they allowed to do so? Was ot to draw attention away from the issue of the force size being too small at a time when the UK part of the CoW is trying its damnedest to leave ASAP.

The admin wants to leave coz it costs them electorially, the military want to leave coz they feel they can achieve little whilst suffering over-stretch & would rather be in A'stan where some good might be achievable

They should not be making money off this so soon. That's absurd. What they did was dishonorable enough as it is. I'm willing to cut them some slack for that.. hell I'll cut them all the slack in the world. They're home alive. But their first reaction when coming home should be sympathetic to their actions and not profit-motivated.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Iran is the country that broke International Law with press conferences of prisoners. It was recognized long ago that you could coerce people to say just about anything. They had no obligation other than to identify themselves and country of origin. I would rather see more outrage about the behavior of Iran than the soldiers, but the British seem to have lost some of that stuck up will power and dicipline they once had. Perhsps it is reflected in the men and women in uniform?

And what kind of laws did we break with the pictures of Uday and Qusay (sp)? Or how about the "examination" of Saddam when he was captured? How about the "I just got woke up and my hair is a mess" picture of the 9/11 mastermind picture? Please...

[avsp]

Originally Posted by JaJae

They should not be making money off this so soon. That's absurd. What they did was dishonorable enough as it is. I'm willing to cut them some slack for that.. hell I'll cut them all the slack in the world. They're home alive. But their first reaction when coming home should be sympathetic to their actions and not profit-motivated.

whilst i basically agree witrh you I think you miss my point, possibly

It is that they were unpreecedantly ALLOWED to do so. Public opinion on their action in taking the cash seems fairly evenly split some taking your stance some saying 'fair enough'.

There is even some indication that the admin actually encouraged them to sell their story.

Much comment is also made that their ordeal was not that bad really, as compared to actions of 'our' behaviour. 'They took my iPod & called me Mr Bean' vs Gitmo etc. Early days of the invasion saw UK troops in Um Qsa parading hooded bound detainees before the cameras with guns being placed on their necks, ..., using the media as a battlefield weapon, I suppose, ..., in which case maybe the selling of the stories is a blue on blue 'friendly fire' incident

Given No. 10's well known & sophisticated history of media 'spin' this massive error of judgement really stands out as some kind of 'deliberate mistale'

There is no aspect of this story that reflects well on the Royal Navy, UK or CoW, ..., except perhaps that the original contact didnt result in an immediate escalation in violence generally in the region

The fact that the forces werent patrolling in enough force to avoid this is what the Blair admin does not want discussed, ..., I suspect to the point of prefering to take this grief instead.

Worst of all, of course, is that the waterway isnt being patroled at all now.