[justa-hairyape]

But I am puzzled that it doesn't seem (from here, at any rate), that the British public is particularly upset about this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It is hard to judge the British public through the mainstream media over there. Just as it is hard to judge the American public here through the mainstream media. The boob tube is after all, just for boobs. Now that there is proof that these people were kidnapped at gunpoint, perhaps the underlying sentiment will bubble up through the London fog.

It is ironic however that if an armed gang had kidnapped a group of policeman on British soil, the public would have been in an uproar by now, no doubt.

[livius]

I guess most people in any Western country would simply rather not be bothered and just go back to their game shows. But perhaps now that there is clear evidence that the Iranians just sailed in and grabbed these sailors at gunpoint in international waters, the issue will become clearer.

I'm sure the Brits have their Rosie O'Donnells, too, who start off with the assumption that it's all Britain's fault and the eeeevil West must have provoked those sweet lil'Iranians for some nasty purpose of its own.

[familyop]

justa-hairyape wrote:
"It is hard to judge the British public through the mainstream media over there. Just as it is hard to judge the American public here through the mainstream media."

I disagree. Our Senate just passed an unconstitutional deadline for withdrawal from Iraq and won't even consider action against Iran. Our politicians are being dogged by their most generous contributors to get out of the Middle East, because they don't want oil to go up much today. If oil were to go up much today, freight fuel for imports would go up sooner. And they don't care about what will probably happen a year or two from now. ...only what they can get today.

"The boob tube is after all, just for boobs."

Most of our American neighbors are glued to the tube and believe most of what is disseminated through it. An even higher percentage of Britons are against military action in Iran.