British Detainees Leave Gulf for Tehran - Iran TV

Reuters ^ | June 24, 2004 | Staff

[Tommyjo]

There isn't going to be any military response. It's a diplomatic indcident. Where was the military response against the North Koreans in regards to USS Pueblo or EC-121 they shot down? Where was the military reponse to the EP-3E incident? It just isn't going to happen.

[Tommyjo]

The photos of the blindfolded are also for public consumption on the home front. They make the Irani government appear so in control and so macho

Blindfolds and hoodings were also used by Coalition troops in the Gulf during 1991 and hoodings during this conflict. If you are holding a group of detainees together it is essential that they are controlled and unable to gain any mutual support from eye contact etc. I agree that those images were pure propaganda stunts for Iranian state TV.

[MinuteGal]

I know we blindfolded Guantanamo prisoners and others, but it's a little stretch for the Iranians to equate seven clean cut Brit sailors with the thuggish, low-life, terrorist cut-throats that we capture.

But then, nothing is the same anymore.....our enemies are not logical thinkers. The sequence of public events with these British detainees were all muscle-flexing, and propaganda, as you so correctly stated.

Leni