Iran Captures and Holds British Sailors - Page 2

When was the last time it was properly employed?

Ahhh. I take a few days away from AI to start a new business and return to find the ME is still in turmoil. At least there is some consistency in life.

Comparing defence budgets does not prove anything, as the current quagmire in Iraq illustrates so effectively. Allocation, training, and tactics change the game. The fledgling colonies defeated the most powerful military in the world to create the US by utilizing tactics unheard of t thhe British at the time. Somebody created several huge flying bombs without buying any fuel or retaining licenses for operating aircraft and the like; September 11, 2001. Budgest don't mean everything. (remember the US spends 80 bucks on a hammer you can buy for 12.95 at Lowes).

Iran might be trying to pick a fight. Their current expressed purpose in life is the irradication of Israel. Any confrontation would give them suffficient leeway to attack Israel with whatever nukes or other WMDs (remember that word?) they may or may not have, which might be exactly what they want.

I tend to agree sammi has a point: the story has quieted down and what info we have is rather weak. They have not mentioned anywhere the GPS data that the British ship by not doubt has about its whereabouts (even my small 26ft boat has a running log of its position which I can recall up to 2 years later). The news has not invesitigated the story or has left it at the word of the military. CNN was pretty crappy in their initial reporting of this, and I stopped watching after the first update.

Any war with Iran would be tough, at best. The American military is over-stretched already, and a new conflict would add to that. This would lead primarily to an air compaign (such as SDW suggested... did I just agree with him on something?) which would balance with whatever actions the Iranians take. If Iran nukes Israel, look for a major retaliation (would the US return to carpet-bombing of cities?) that would literally attempt to wipe out their military bases. It would be a messy job, though, and the fallout I can only dare to begin to imagine.

Nearest I can figure, about 1945. Perhaps for about 10 days during 1991.

Inchon is an example of proper deployment; hit 'em where they don't expect it at all and hit 'em hard as heck. Sadly, it was limited by an incompetant in the WH (ring a bell?), and only resulted in an cease-fire.

WWII

The rest of the century and this one has been pretty much a screw up.

It's in the nature of the war you see.

This is the key. This "kid-glove" war fighting is not war fighting. It's a glorified police action. Now, we are so afraid of collateral damage that we do not get to our objectives. Meanwhile, our enemies thrive on maximizing collateral damage.

It took hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties to break the will of the Japanese. The current enemy is no less determined.

Jeez...you can hear the salivating and slavering through my JBL Creatures.......is it a new feature of the 10.4.9 upgrade? I want to turn it off......

And you say I'm hoping for bad stuff?

You sound like you're rubbing your hands together salivating for this to happen.

" Licking your chops " was the term you used I believe.

I think the seizing of these sailors is yet another of Ahmadinejad's constant strategies to *divert attention*.

First, from recent snippets I've read, the economy in Iran pretty much sucks, with high unemployment and general economic malaise. Instead of actually addressing economic issues that would directly benefit the Iranian people's day-to-day existence, he spends his time stirring up international confrontations - to divert their attention from the fact that he doesn't seem to have a clue how to improve the national economy, and that it's getting worse by the day because of the trickle-down effect of sanctions and other ineptness of the Iranian leadership.

He plays games of brinksmanship on the world stage, partly to 'swagger about' and show that Iran is a 'player'; but mostly to keep the people from booting him out: i.e., how could they even 'consider' changing the leadership when their nation is in the middle (yet again) of an international crisis.

Second, he stirs up continual crises on the world stage to divert international attention from the Iranian nuclear program. For example, I still believe that the seizing of the Israeli soldiers - that led to the recent war in Lebanon - was just another Iranian-inspired diversionary strategy that took on a life of its own. (I realize that I'm oversimplifying here, but... whatever. )

There seem to be two alternative scenarios in the minds of those who wish to see something 'done' about Iran. One is to encourage the people to revolt and change the leadership to a regime more amenable to themselves (and to the West). This alternative is rather amorphous, uncertain, high in time requirements, and therefore unlikely.

The second alternative is to blow up the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. Quickly done, much more certain, and probably what will happen if Iran continues on its present course. The strikes would target nuclear facilities, and maybe any 'hard' military assets that might be used in response: airfields, aircraft, ammo dumps, missile-launch sites. I think a *huge* effort would be made to avoid human casualties in any first strike.

You know, if *I* were an Iranian leader, and had been trying to divert world attention from nuclear enrichment facilities, I wouldn't go around making speeches broadcast round the world threatening to wipe other nations off the face of the earth. What a twit.

I think the sailors will be held for swapping down the road. They'll undoubtedly be tried, but I really don't think they'd be executed. Even Ahmadinejad isn't *that* crazy.

Another big problem we have is that we do not know at any particular moment which Iranian government is speaking, unless it is prez Tom himself. Both Dubya and Tom have problems running what happens within their own "shows"

Iran is a deeply divided nation- between the Mullahs and Proles... (Strangely familiar... like some other nation I know of well)

i lol'd.

come on, jimmy. add a lil more creativity.

Ahmadinejad thinks that he has god on his side. His logic is fundamentally different and I hope to hell we (Western Civilization) are incorporating that into our response.

Segovius; you seem to know the Iranians. Can you give us your best guess as to what they might be thinking? Are they trying to bring on the apocolypse or some damn thing?

V/R,

Aries 1B

Difficult to say.

I am starting to think it may be possible that Ahmedinejad is not playing with a full deck or otherwise losing the plot. This seems borderline verging on the confrontational....

Oth, maybe the Iranians got wind of impending unprovoked military action and maybe they want some sort of bargaining chip - human shield sort of thing?

Or maybe they caught these guys in the process of setting up a Gulf of Tomkin?

... or perhaps.... Muhammad_al-Mahdi

Why not? We already have the Dajjal.....

I hope so in a way.....we could do with some truth and justice for a change.

Are you referring to Jorge-Bin Saud -Walker-Bush-al-Dajjal?

Please don't encourage that. One of those is more than enough.



I feel sorry for the captured British sailors, but I think the Brits can and should handle the potential crisis themselves.

Good one. Those posts were how many weeks apart in different threads?

I don't necessarily believe that 'Apocalyptic Mahdi-ism' is the way to go but it is certainly makes you think doesn't it; how over 1500 years ago prophecies could so completely outline the Satanic nature of the Bush regime, the 'anti-Christ' aka western Xian fundamentalism and the murderous activities of the US along with global warming and the current 'Big Brother' Fascism....


All foreseen completely by a couple of guys in a desert wasteland... definitely food for thought.....

Yeah, well I guess it only makes some people think

"I have him"? I guess you really do put that much emotion into your posts.
But don't flatter yourself. They were quite easy to find. A couple threads apart. I guess I should've done your "countdown" before I got your replies.

"3....2....1" to GroupThink? Less than 15 minutes apart. Cute.

You're slippin faster than Jenna Bush after a night on 6th St. I expected better and meaner of you.

You on the other hand, didn't disappoint. Great joke! Very The 1/2 Hour News Hour-ish. Guess that's what happens when someone's left to post alone.

Seems that Iran has a legitimate right to arrest and detain the military personnel that were responsible for the incursion.

And that is from the Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray.

The ex-Ambassador said:


Looks like the impending slaughter will have to go on the back-burner while they think of another angle.

Here's a thought: what if the Iranians decide to interrogate the captured soldiers by "coercive means"? What if they put them on trial, but don't allow them to see the evidence against them? What if they imprison them without charges?

What will we say? Will we stand up before the world and cry "You can only do that stuff when you're fighting the most important war on terror ever!"? Do you say "torture is a barbaric breach of the norms of civilized conduct, unless you really really need to know stuff and the people you are torturing are really really bad"? That the right to a fair trail is a basic attribute of human rights, except if the accused is a vile Islamofascist, in which case, not so much?

And what are the chances of rallying world opinion, or pretty much any opinion, to stand with us to denounce the terrible Iranian thugs?

Some of us of made this point a while back: that the worst thing about the Bush admin's policies on torture, incarceration and access to legal norms was that it would gravely erode America's ability to claim moral superiority or drive international consensus when somebody we don't like very much tries the same stuff.

Naturally, the apologists will immediately say that it is different, that what we do is justified, or that we do it regretfully instead of eagerly, or that the gravity of the threat of terror eclipses other situations.

But just think about saying "Torture and incarceration without access to basic legal protections to is barbaric and wrong, and we call on (whoever) to join the world's civilized nations in forswearing this evil" compared to "Your particular implementation of torture and incarceration is barbaric and we are totally not hypocrites to point that out because our version was an entirely different circumstance, so don't do it".

Pretty persuasive stuff. I'm sure we'll rally the world to stand by our side.

Well that's one of the things being disputed. Was there an incursion into Iranian seas? One sides says "absolutely not" and the other sides says "Yes there was".

Doesn't seem like there is much to dispute....the Royal Navy tracks everything with GPS and this would prove the issue beyond any doubt.

If the GPS proved the British case then it would have been wheeled out illuminated on all sides like a Republican Campaign ad and run on continuous loop 24/7 on every News Channel from here to the constellation of Alpha Centauri.

As it is the deafening silence and the complete absence of any corroborating evidence - I think the best they could do was wheel out some semi-senile octogenarian Iraqi fisherman who saw 'everything' from a shoreline a few miles away - tells us all we need to know.

Listen bucko! I was thinking the exact same thing and since you accused me of the same thing I thought it only fair to bring this up at an appropriate moment.

You're always worked up ( not in a good way ) when there's military action pending.

You're watching too much James Bond...

Besides, I can show a log that says such and such and it would be completely meaningless with respect to "proof". The only thing logs from the radar and GPS do is keep the Captain of the vessel from getting shown the door from goofing up. Not convince skeptics of anything useful.

Vinea

The log is not only on the one British ship in question, but every major warship in the area; the US has three carrieers in the region, and other countries (including Iran) do, too. Any ship worth its salt will know where the Cornwall was operating, so the Iranians could pop the data, too. Data, however, on the open sea, looks just like that: open sea, so it will be tough to convince the other side. Also, territorial waters are highly disputed, with certain countries claiming certain ranges and others claiming other ranges, so it can be a sticky situation.

That said, I agree with addabox about the limits placed on how loudly the West (aka the UK brothers-in-arms of the USA) can complain about any abbuse the troops might face: none. The problem will come when the troops are released and say they were treated like kings (and a queen, or queens?); that would really fly in the face of the great protectors of righteousness.

Keep in mind were talking about inflatable boats here. Or half hull half inflatable jobies. Not ships. I'm sure they have GPS but most likely not sophisticated ship navigation and stuff-a-ma-junk.

I'm going to trust that the Brits know how to navigate water. They come from an island after all. Once empire of the world thingy. So if they meant to say on the Iraq side I'm reasonably sure they did. Maybe they meant to be on the Iran side. Well they got caught. For now I have to take their word for it. Like someone else mentioned the boat and the GPS and navigation logs are in Iran so only they and the captain know for sure.


To any rational person this is a ham-handed move on Iran to change the subject from enrichment. To Segovius it's a conspiracy of the West to beat the war drum against Iran.

I consider myself rational.

Ships such as the Cornwall carry sufficient sensor equipment to mark the position of the rubber boats, most likely Zodiacs (the engine housing is large enough to produce a radar image), and can mark them from a distance from the air as well by helicopter; the engine sounds underwater can also be tracked fairly well nowadays. Since the British patrol was so "open", the patrol boats would also likely have been conferring with the mother ship, thus producing radio waves that can be homed in on as well. The weather could have hampered tracking, but also would likely have kept the Zodiacs even closer to the Cornwall, thus making their position that much easier to truly know. So, even if the Zodiacs themselves are "missing", there would be several signatures that they would have left that could be easily tracked, not to mention the Iranian ships which sound a bit larger. These small craft don't usually operate that far from their mother ships (afaik from speaking to captains of US naval vessels), but normal operations may be different from what is relatively public.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ope/type22.htm


My previous message suggested that other ships would also have the data. Any carrier group in the vicinity would have it, any AWACs (now Joint Stars or whatever) would have it, a local fishing boat with a decent radar and navigation system (from West Marine). Lots of people have some hard data on this incident and they aren't releasing it.

I agree, the Brits have plenty of experience navigating at sea and if anybody should know where they are, the Brits should, so I tend to trust them when they say that they were in Iraqi waters. However, Iran might actually claim the same waters (Japan and China both claim certain waters around oil rich islands in the Pacific), or the mission might have actually been over a certain line. Both sides have plenty of data they could produce, but they aren't.

I don't think this incident was a conspiracy by Bushie Baby & Friends, Inc, though one could argue that the ship was ordered into a grey zone in the hopes that the Iranians fell for the bait; it has been done before. More likely, it is as you say an attempt by the Iranians to take the attention away from the nuke issue.