British Sailors taken by Iran this morning.

[huisjen]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6484279.stm

Hmmm.

Dan

[Milo Christensen]

Day one of the British sailors and marines hostage crisis begins.

[Phillip Allen]

"seen before"

[Tristan]

Hooray! Now Dubbya can start the next war, have guaranteed funding, gets to use "the bomb," and declare himself "Emperor For Life."

[LeeG]

this isn't the first time, it's crowded.

[John of Phoenix]

Gulf of Tonkin déjà vu all over again.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

This happened before, in 2004. Eight RN men and Marines were released after three days.

Because the RN are patrolling the border to limit the smuggling of arms into Iraq, this tends to happen.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I've heard two versions.
That the men were taken by the Iranian Navy.
That the men were taken by a waterborn force of the Revolutionary Guard.
The last part is, obviously, more worrysome.

[Bill R]

Iran poking the west with a sharp stick?

Kinda like walking into a bar and punching the biggest, meanest, ugliest guy there?

[S.V. Airlie]

I'm hearing too many conflicting reports. He said, he said. He was, he wasn't ( okay used the singular. )
But
1) With GPS the British should have known with a good deal of accuracy, where they were.
2) It comes right at the time the big guys are debating sanctions in the UN..

Coincidence.. don't think so...

[George.]

I would think that with GPS and reasonable rules of engagement, the Brits could also blow the Iranian patrols out of the water - if they were really on the wrong side of the Shat el-Arab. ;)

Related to the UN sanctions vote? Naah... :D

[TimH]

I would think that with GPS and reasonable rules of engagement, the Brits could also blow the Iranian patrols out of the water - if they were really on the wrong side of the Shat el-Arab. ;)

Related to the UN sanctions vote? Naah... :D


They should have blown them out of the water...
enough games..

[George.]

Out of their water?

No wonder they want nukes...

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Hussein and Khomeini fought a long and reputedly bloody war over whether that bit of water was Iranian or Iraqi.

[TimH]

well apparently now that Saddam is gone Iran has succesfully claimed it.

[carioca1232001]

Andrew, who actually carried the brunt of the fighting and footed the bill, was Hashemi Rafsanjani. Khomeini was long gone and the hostilities just kept on dragging on.

I listened to an interesting debate on last Sunday´s BBC World Dateline that included an Iranian journalist, one Ms. Nasreen (cannot remember her surname). This charming, well spoken and intelligent Persian lady participates quite frequently on Iran-related issues on Dateline.

Well it seems, there is a great deal of public unrest in Iran with Ahmedinejad and his radical followers. So the incident with the RN personnel may well be a smoke screen.

Rafsanjani still leads the moderates that are the opposition. The West should not have let go of the opportunity to patch things up with (outgoing) Khatami.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Very true.

This is very twitchy stuff. If I understand it correctly, the Revolutionary Guards kidnapped the boarding party, and it seems that their action was planned in advance, rather than resulting from any confusion over territorial waters.

I suppose that any reaction must be built on the principle of not strengthening the Revolutionary Guards' position in the power structure.

[Kaa]

Hussein and Khomeini fought a long and reputedly bloody war over whether that bit of water was Iranian or Iraqi.

Reputedly? There were over 1m casualties, making it (along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) probably one of the bloodiest non-civil wars after WW2.

A lot of these casualties were the result of Iranian "human wave" tactics where large amounts of partly-armed soldiers were repeatedly thrown against prepared Iraqi defensive positions.

Kaa

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I have a reason for writing "reputedly". I was in Iran in 1983.