Cheesy suits.
In outfits supplied by their Iranian captors, Faye Turney and her fellow Britons
salute their release
Posted on 04/04/2007 9:58:35 AM PDT by IrishMike
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran on Wednesday freed the 15 detained British sailors and marines in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an Easter gift to the British people. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he bore "no ill will" toward the Iranian people. Iranian state television said the 14 men and one woman, who were seized while on patrol in the northern Persian gulf on March 23, would leave Iran on Thursday. An Iranian official in London said they would be handed over to British diplomats in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad's surprise announcement came at a news conference shortly after he pinned a medal on the chest of the Iranian coast guard commander who intercepted the sailors and marines.
"I'm glad that our 15 service personnel have been released and I know their release will come as a relief not just to them but to their families," Blair said outside his No. 10 Downing St. office. "Throughout, we have taken a measured approach, firm but calm, not negotiating but not confronting, either."
Blair added, "To the Iranian people I would simply say this: We bear you no ill will."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Akmed the Tailor?
Thanks for the correction.
So I am told. :-) But what happens in the public arena will be different.
I approve of the two guys on the right - no smiles or waves, just grimacing and making it clear (as I read it) that they detest the whole scene - one has his right fist clenched. Of course, this is just one snapshot, but they don’t look like they are cooperating with the propaganda-fest.....
They spent their first night of 'freedom’ under the supervision of Iran’s Foreign Ministry and are due to be handed over to British diplomats this morning.
Doesn't sound much like "Freedom" to me. They could as easily been handed over to the British Embassy (or interest section if the UK doesn't have an Embassy in Iran), or for that matter to a 3rd country embassy, like the Swiss or the Swedes, or even Kuwait or the UAE.
Absolutely true.
I was just sticking a claw into the comment that Trafalgar and the Battle of Britain were fought against MASSIVE odds. They weren’t fought against massive odds. They were fought against close odds, and the British won.
Or, more truthfully, the odds at Trafalgar favored the British, as the French and Spanish outnumbered them by only a small margin, but the Spanish and French crews were very green versus the battle-hardened and meticulously-trained British. Had the British lost Trafalgar, it would have been quite surprising. What made Trafalgar so dramatic was the size of the victory. The British should have won in any case, but that their victory was so sweeping is a testimony to Lord Nelson’s command and the quality of the Royal Navy of the time.
The Battle of Britain was a much closer affair, however. The RAF pilots were good, but they were evenly matched by the Luftwaffe pilots. Neither side had an advantage in aircrew qualities. Both were elite forces in 1940. (By contrast, at Trafalgar the British Navy was an elite force, while the Spanish Navy was competent by uninspired, and the French fleet were quite green recruits with a revolutionary officer corps). Spitfires and Me-109s were comparable aircraft, with advantages and disadvantages; neither had a decisive edge over the other. And the Luftwaffe had the advantage in numbers.
Had the Luftwaffe High Command had good strategic presence of mind and patience, the Luftwaffe should have been able to defeat the RAF in a long, grinding war of attrition in the sky. Neither side had the qualitative edge to be able to knock the other out, but the Germans had more planes and more production capacity than the British, and that should have told the tale. The advantage was with the Germans, and though it was certainly not a decisive advantage (obviously), it was a significant one. German numbers were superior to the British, and the Luftwaffe pilots of 1940 were an elite corps, with more battle experience (at the beginning of the fight) than the RAF.
The British had the advantage of home-field advantage (to wit: a shot down RAF pilot who parachuted to safety was back in the cockpit the next day. An uninjured Luftwaffe pilot sat out the war in a PoW camp), and had the advantage of radar, but a good strategy on the part of the Germans should have been able to overcome both. Basically, the German Air Marshall needed to keep sending his fighters and bombers straight at the RAF, smashing the airfields themselves, forcing the British into the skies to fight (or lose their planes on the ground), and using superior German numbers to whittle the RAF down to nothing through attrition. THEN the bombers could take out British factories unscathed and, when the time was right, Seelowe (Operation Sea Lion) could be launched and the Germans cross the Channel under the cover an air supremacy which would send the stately Royal Navy to the bottom as surely as the Japanese sank the US surface fleet at Pearl Harbor. Time, production and numbers were on the Germans’ side.
But patience was neither Goering’s nor Hitler’s forte. The RAF was in the toils, but not quite at bay when the Luftwaffe commanders redirected the German air force to start hitting British cities. This made a big psychological impact, and certainly did a lot of property damage, but it gave the RAF the respite it needed to regroup and survive. After that, it was the RAF hunting German fighter-bombers in the sky, a very different thing than the RAF itself being pushed back onto the ropes. While the Luftwaffe destroyed houses on the ground, the RAF destroyed German planes in the air, and pilots. And thus the war of attrition turned against Germany in the air, and the British were able to eke out a victory in a campaign that they really should have lost. British tenacity and bravery were indisputable, and what made the British victory in the Battle of Britain so glorious was that the Luftwaffe was an overmatch for the RAF and everybody knew it. Trafalgar was a great victory, but it was not a surprise. By contrast, the Germans should have won the Battle of Britain.
To the British, not to the US. And of course France didn't really go "neutral", but a combination of occupied country and nominal alley to Hitler.
Only after the Japanese attacked America and Hitler declared war on the United States did the United States then, and only then, become part of the Western Alliance. Before that, the United States was as useless as Brazil in defending the world from either Naziism OR Communism.
I wasn't aware that Brazil had provided supplies, ships for example, disguised as "Lend Lease", nor that Brazillians were joining the RCAF and RAF in significant numbers.
Just as in England and France, there was a great deal of "Never Again" sentiment in America after WW-I. Misdirected in all those countries, into pacifisim, rather than the "Never Again" attitude of the Jews/Israelis following WW-II. Any of the three, France, UK or US, or any combination of them, could have stopped Hitler cold when he broke the treaty of Versailles and re-militarized the Rhineland. None of us did. All of us paid a heavy price for not doing so.
They did, one was released, somehow, and the Iranian government has been given access to the others. Which is more than the British government has so far been given, AFAIK.
The United States should bomb and destroy Iran’s oil pipelines, refinery and nuclear sites. This would shut down their sources of cash, remove the nuclear threat, and force regime change.
You let America off the hook too easily.
America let France fall in 1940. Poland, Belgium, Holland too. Stood aside and did nothing. There was no Lend Lease for France. America let Britain be bombed flat. Sent a few overage destroyers to fight the U-Boat threat...but then, the U-Boats were attacking American shipping too, so the Americans actually had an interest in that fight.
Once the US was attacked, America joined the alliance.
My comments about the US in 1940 are in juxtaposition to the constant vilification of France in the present. France did not, and does not, support the American war effort in Iraq. France never hid their opposition, and fought hard diplomatically to forestall it. BUT while the French were doing that, French soldiers were still alongside the Americans fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and still are. And French counterintelligence was working hand-in-glove with the Americans to track down Islamofascist terror, and still are. Now, the French have a full battlegroup in the Middle East operating with the Americans, but there is still this inveterate snarky hatred towards France, because France thought the Americans were committing a foolish and horrible mistake by going into Iraq and wanted no part of it.
And to vilify the French further, to really stoke up the bile and contempt, there is the reference to World War II.
Fine then. On those terms let’s do go back to 1939 and 1940. France FOUGHT Hitler. And lost. America that wouldn’t fight Hitler until Hitler attacked America. The French were militarily incompetent, no doubt about it. The French Maginot mentality is like the Bush Adminstration’s Iraq mindset: catastrophically incompetent from the get go. But France DID FIGHT. She, and Britain, and Canada, even, DID declare war on Hitler when Poland was violated. America refused to fight.
The French were incompetent, but by the terms hurled at France here all the time, the Americans of 1940 were moral cowards.
Cheesy suits.
In outfits supplied by their Iranian captors, Faye Turney and her fellow Britons
salute their release
I find the timing of Pelosi's visit suspicious.
If the U.S. released an Iranian and has allowed Iran access to the others, how is that a good thing?
Count on more hostage taking if Hillary or Obama become President!
I don’t think we should be critical of the UK’s actions here, for basically three reasons. First, just because we haven’t seen any fireworks yet, doesn’t prove that there won’t be any consequences. The UK, as I understand it, sometimes does a slow burn. The Brits may not jump up and down chattering right away, that doesn’t mean that they won’t be getting down to taking action.
Second, we don’t know enough about what happened. My own preferred solution was always the diplomatic one, involving an exchange of messages running something like this:
Blair: Release our troops right away, or we’ll sink your navy, and then see if you’re in a more cooperative mood.
Ahmanidgit: I find your gentle words subtly persuasive. Here they are.
Iran has been acting as though it wanted a war. Now, Iran is acting as though it’s decided that a war with the UK would be a bad idea. I don’t know what’s caused this change of attitude, but it may be that the messages from the Foreign Office have struck the right tone.
Third, comparing the way Blair handled this episode, with the way Carter handled the last Iran kidnapping, or the way Clinton handled the endless attacks of Al Quaeda, does not show the UK in a bad light. The United States has given the UK far better reason to give up on us, than the UK has given us to despair of them. Even if the British Government’s actions were the worst the uncertainty allows, I don’t see that the United States has the lattitude to be too critical. They have still been more steadfast than we.
They did not come back with honor. Several of their party made propaganda films for the enemy. If they were tortured, that is a different matter. Anyone is breakable - ask the American POWs in North Vietnam. But it took years to break some of them. Within days, members of the British military in this photographed cooperated with the enemy (their captors) and made statements against their government.
If there is a heroes welcome for them, I will be disgusted.
I think they are just pointing out that with your navy the size it is you cannot even take on a country like Iran if you had to do it alone. I would hope everyone here appreciates the British sacrifice in Afghan. and OIF.
You’re obviously not looking at everyone in the photo.
I see several colluders, a couple of “give-me-a-breaks”, and several more ‘(I could get banned for typing what their look says)’.
Then again, different folks interpret different “looks” in different ways.
Just trust us, there are 5 “FOAD” looks in the group.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
