From the Telegraph (UK):
Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.
The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.
The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: “The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don’t change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will.
“Iran has come out of this looking reasonable. If I were the Iranians, I would keep playing the same game. They have very successfully muddied the waters and bought themselves some more time. And in parts of the Middle East they will be seen as the good guys. They could do it time and again if they wanted to.”
Americans also expressed dismay that the British had suspended boarding operations in the Gulf while its tactics are reassessed.
“Iran has got what it wants. They have secured free passage for smuggling weapons into Iraq without a fight,” one US defence department official said.
On the plus side, we probably don’t have many more “diplomats” to return to them. So, you know—pretty soon the west will be able to deter Iran just as Britain is doing now: preemptive surrender and public soul-searching.
Meanwhile, it seems that Iran is set to announce
the installation of 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment in the Natanz nuclear facility, the official Iranian news agency reported.
The announcement will be made as part of the Islamic Republic’s “National Nuclear Day†celebrations.
Writes Bryan Preston:
Basically, the vaunted international community is letting one of the most pernicious regimes on the face of the earth obtain nuclear weapons. Everyone knows what’s going on. No one is willing to do much about it. We stand villified for stopping Saddam Hussein, and would be villified all the more if we act any time soon to stop Mahmoud. When he gets the nuke and blows up a city somewhere, we’ll be villified for not stopping him. That’s how the international community works.
I’ve been holding out hope that the reason we were willing to capitulate to the Iranian pirates at all is that we having something planned for Iran that requires the support of Britain—and that our assistance in getting their hostages back will be seen as an act of goodwill from an ally, and will require quid pro quo when the time comes.
That the UN and the EU showed their utter cravenness didn’t surprise me much: we’ve been heading in the direction of their irrelevance for years now. But sadly, I think it’s going to take a major conflagration to change the west’s posture—which should have been changed after 911, and which, had free countries banded together and acted in the self-interest of western values (and not just their own self-interests), would have disabused countries like Iran of the notion that they are capable of taking on a committed and unified coalition of Old Europe, New Europe, Israel, the US, and a number of mideast nations, who would have, at the very least, remained neutral for fear or retaliation.
Instead, much of Europe decided instead to affect a stance of moral outrage—thinking that, in the end, all would be well, because the US will take care of the problem and protect them, just as they always have. Which is to say, they didn’t truly fear Islamic terrorism as much as they put their faith in the US—ironic, given that their posturing has made it far more likely that we will not be able to protect them. Or even worse, that we may no longer be willing to do so, if and when push comes to shove.
(h/t LGF, CJ Burch)
But sadly, I think it’s going to take a major conflagration to change the west’s postureâ€â€which should have been changed after 911,
Won’t happen. The same people who said that 9/11 was our fault will say the same about any further violence perpetrated against the West. We stirred up the hornet’s nest, after all, and shouldn’t be surprised if we get stung.
The crazed moonbat (Chiroptera lunaria psychotica) could be hauled out of his house at midnight with his family, watch them be beheaded by jihadis, and still blame the US.
The only thing that will work is if the fence-sitters get their backs to the wall enough that they tire of the moonbattery and elect tough guys to take care of business and tell the moonbats to go haunt a different cave.
Here’s the most entertaining part of the article:
Title for these paragraphs: How To Take Lemons That Have Been Enlarged to Football Size, Coated in Sand and Shoved Up Five Feet Up Your Ass With a Red-Hot Poker and Make The Sweetest Lemondade Ever!!
The British rewarded this behavior and they are now threatened with more of it. It is against common sense to reward behavior you deplore, yet somehow the west cannot keep itself from doing so. Like some people I know. Here.
*cough* hint *cough*
1. Pres Ahmadinejad had little to nothing to do with the capture and release of the hostages. His days are numbered as Iran’s president.
2. Why no harsh words for the despicable actions of those traitorous hostages, Jeff? Your readers are quaking with indignation over their behavior. And dreaming up cool escape scenarios they would used if it was them who had been captured.
I think the Democrats are really so enamored of their dream of a vast unionized work force searching every shipping container coming anywhere near the country that they eagerly await the impetus an Iranian nuclear test will give to their plan. Well, that and so they can blame Bush. This one’s a two-fer.
Let us applaud our cognitively-impaired friend for this insight: Prezzy-dent A-d isn’t going to be there forever. Brilliant. But since by Heet’s own words, Prexy-A had nothing to do with this hostage-taking, I’m not entirely sure why he says this now.
Here we have the consequences of the fifteen’s capitulation, and this fatuous oaf refuses to see it.
Heet, we nuanced folks can probably come up with something between desperate hand-to-hand combate/tunneling fron Teheran to the Persian Gulf and making sure the cameras get your good side as you star in the enemy’s propaganda extravaganza. Something like, oh, shutting the fuck up?
This morning someone on Bennett’s show speculated that the Iranians had been monitoring communications for some time and had figured out that that particular ship was a bunch of slackers. He said that in his experiences working with the Brits, none of the ones he knew would have cooperated with their kidnappers.
You’re not supposed to cooperate with the enemy when they catch you, heet. If they give you swag bags don’t accept them, and you definitely don’t cooperate with their propaganda pieces.
You give name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. Other than that, you keep your pie-hole shut.
TW: Or would that be too much work23?
Once again, Heet, though I love him passionately, is nothing. MY real support comes from peope who present terrorists regimes as reasonable alternatives to democracy and personal freedom.
Diane Sawyer, CNN and Mike Wallace are my truest supporters, and worthy of a great deal of media attention. Your best efforts would be spent making certain they receive it. You allow yourselves to become distracted by heet at your own peril.
Sooooo, what do you make of the fact that he “pardoned” them, heet? As a gift, right?
I’m still stunned by the excuse-making for Iran. Ahmadinejad had nothing to do with the regime’s critically important loyal troops carrying out piracy? Perhaps not—but I doubt the mullahs were out of the loop or disapproved. Considering the time it took Iran to let them free, and their attempts to use the hostages for PR, it’s pretty clear this wasn’t a rogue operation.
It’s also amazing to watch people who blamed everyone from the President down—excepting the actual perpetrators and the general in charge of their unit—for Abu Ghraib, despite the military investigation and punishment of those involved, while excusing and ignoring the war crimes committed by the Iranian regime.
But, hey, once you’ve decided to pay the Danegeld, I guess you feel you have to get your money’s worth. Or something like that.
Jeffersonian,
Maybe something like this fantastic bit of deluded right-wing propaganda, perhaps? Why, it’s just crazy, ain’t it?
The UN does very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out.
Blinkered, utterly bonkers.
We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. – CS Lewis
Faye Turney:
“I felt like a traitor to my country.”
Imagine that! Get on her, heet!
Didn’t Glenn Greenwald tell us just last week we couldn’t believe these centrifuge stories because ABC was the only one reporting the stories and ABC wouldn’t reveal their sources? Why is it that anonymously sourced anti-Bush stories are automatically so credible to the left?
Never mind. I guess that was really a rhetorical question.
Instead, much of Europe decided instead to affect a stance of moral outrage
Are you saying moral outrage has no value?
There goes the thread . . . into a black hole!
Unles you ignore . . . .
And yet Jeff won’t say that. Has he? If he has I haven’t seen it. Meanwhile, his keyboard kommandos spout revealing idiocy like :
Jeffersonian:
Yes! Such a nuanced view! The Brits deserve death at the hands of the Iranians!
Jeff, care to comment?
Impending aerial schitzel, over fields of mopbucket. Inevitably, lug nut marmalade.
heet, care to answer my question at 1:10?
No, I don’t. It isn’t my problem that you don’t know shit about Iran. Much like many things you try and talk about.
It’s your problem that you don’t know shit about Iran, heet, like that Ahmadinijad announced he had pardoned the 15, which shoots down your notion that it was all somehow beyond him. So, why don’t you put up or shut up, you ignorant twat? Or fuck off. Your call.
tw: friends58
Heh.
And perhaps you’d also like to comment on Faye Turney’s “traitor” comment, buddy.
Herbivore catamount asphyxia limeade, hematode!
Pablo, heet is just an angrier version of that which we do not speak. No actual abilities, just insults. It can be safely ignored.
Not a high-value82 target at all.
Oops, typo.
…should be “nematode.”
You guys keep throwng people out of the cool kids club because they don’t live up to your imagine of armchair honor, you might wind up in a very small club indeed.
No one was asking you to educate them on Iran or turned to you for a well founded lucid take on the matter. The point being made is that it is YOUR problem that YOU don’t know shit about Iran.
I dunno, “hematode” sounds like some sort of nasty cross between a poisonous frog and a leech.
Mikey,
I place a high value on entertainment, and heet provides it in spades, right up to the point where he runs away, or passes out or whatever it is he does when he finally shuts up.
Think of him as a speed bag, and it will make more sense.
Which, of course, distorts my point and provides you with one of the straw men you pretend to despise.
If you’re going to lie, Heet, at least lie about something that isn’t verifiable.
Raaargh! Pablo MAD!
Cheesey buttered danish puffy nut cakes with fledspar centers FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!!!
Fluffernutter pongo drab prootwaddle chestnut.
Ok, smart guys. If you are so goddamn right why hasn’t your blogmaster bothered to come out in favor of despising the hostages?
Maybe because it is straight up stupid and nobody with a shred of self respect would say such a thing?
Anyways, I’m done with you. Your money is on the bureau.
No, cupcake. I’m laughing at you. See the smiley? I put that there just for you because I know you’re too fucking stupid to detect nuance. And you STILL missed it.
Heh.
Nobody like Faye Turney who said: “I felt like a traitor to my country”?
Are you saying bad things about her, heet? And who said anything about despising?
It is indeed an interesting strategy to try to enforce orthodox speech on the site of a linguist by speaking baby talk.
Maybe JPT could enlighten us about what we don’t understand about Iran?
I don’t know about despising – strong word that – but the ex-hostages scrambling to make money off their stories after caving so quickly does leave me with a less than flattering opinion of them. Be that as it may, it’s doesn’t meet the test for heet’s strawman.
Fungo marble twitter gaggle? Chewy mackerel piddling tarts!
Orangutan calipers conflate the synergy of auditory capitulation in terms of the availability of coronary dilation. Broom broken dutch oven resists apparent spirituality. Naturally….
The British sailors and marines look more foolish than anything. Further, I would have expected much more leadership from the ranking officer among them. It’s interesting to note the different terms that are applied to the Brits. I have seen them called hostages, abductees, captives, detainees, arrestees, and honored guests (maybe not). Of course, the particular descriptor used betrays the user’s view of the whole affair.
The Iranians are blustering away about their mad skillz, and meanwhile the British have suspended their searches of vessels heading for Iraq. Apparently the Iranians were feeling left out of this merry conflict, and are just aching to join the fun. They could be playing into someone’s hands here. Just a thought, because I thrive on intrigue.
Only people who make the appropriate political donations should profit from war, JPT?
I just noticed this one. Odd way to frame his motivations for coming to the site – to get fucked.
them, I believe, all traces of the precise spot of the executions. other. At last, with the same devil in each bosom, they chanced to I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do. said Alice aloud, like them. When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam She was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, as if I dont think I see anything to-night, says Wendy, with a pleasurable interest, manifested by flashes of expression across his There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on fading light, and read how Alice and her brother were left alone trying to find her way out. I shall be punished for it now, I and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and wonder at the Mouses tail; but why do you call it sad? And its getting. She was close behind it when she turned the was occasioned by a plentiful crop of woodwax, which wears the on this haunted height, but never dream of paying funeral honors to and instilling something of her own excellence into the wild heart innocent who were to die, and the guilty who were to grow old in long her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking- that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without
trying.
Sorry for anyone who bothered to read my reply to the telephone pole above.
I figured if it was going to spam the comments, I’d spam it back (and the above was taken word for word from recent spam) and maybe they could make some sense out of each other.
The important thing being to piss all over another group of soldiers who failed to live up to wingnut standards, scotch?
Support the troops and all that?
What poor trolls. And somehow even poorer than usual.
I know something about Iran.
They have thousands of centrifuges to enrich urnaium to weapons grade levels to make nice paperweights.
That will make a crater out of Tel Aviv.
But don’t let that stop you from hating the President, lefties.
Yep, the US Military Code of Conduct
Real wingnut standards there… and amazingly those are the ones that keep ungrateful schmucks who spit on vets or kick Marines out of Target safe to spew another day.
alphie –
Toga imply teat bongo theory pass ailment oil anchor gape or soil wanker frog tattle leak ultimate tail weak subtle, Scooter?
Strike tale table anger ape treat?
Do you think Tommy Franks deserved the $5 million book advance he got for the tale of his success in capturing Osama and bringing peace to Iraq, Darleen?
I anxiously await the enlightenment that heet can bring me regarding Persia. I guess I can wad up that masters degree in history and throw it out….and stop my Farsi lessons too. But remember, none of us know anything about Iran.
Oy.
heet does seem a lot quicker to the angry exit lately….lexapro prescription run out?
Darleen, if I may suggest the following reply to “a”:
Nunc pro tunc, fiat lux sed quis custodiet ipsos custodiem? Res ipsa loquitor. Ha ha ha – Sine qua non!
Alphie
Turkey trots to water GG Where is rpt where is task force thirty-four RR The world wonders
wishbone: I don’t hate the President. That’s petty and counterproductive. Why yes, I do deplore this administration, although I give them props for bailing Britain’s butt out of an untenable situation. And yes, I know the Iranians are dancing around the nuclear Maypole. So, what do you propose to do about these bravado monkeys with their nuclear ambitions?
Your Latin is a little rusty, Major.
Oh, for God sake, you guys are stuck in the same hamster exercise wheel.
Make it as painful as possible with the understanding that Hezbollah and other Iranian surrogates will strike back and oil prices will spike.
No invasion, but a heavy air campaign augmented with a naval blockade.
It’s preferable to an Iranian/Israeli nuclear exchange.
No no no… Pablo doesn’t know shit about anything. It doesn’t matter who pardoned the soldiers, the orders came down from Qom and the Supreme Leader. Maybe the intellectuals, who knows for sure? Do you disagree, MJ?
At least it isn’t a benzodiazepene. Like, oh I dunno, Klonopin.
Sounds good; I wonder how the Sunni will respond,
So that’s who is driving the nuke train, too.
I feel so much better now.
Look! Unicorns!
Steyn, from this time last year:
If you don’t know, then how do you know, fucknuts? You’re one dumb son of a bitch, heeet.
Yeah, hope he didn’t leave too much. Poor little feller didn’t even get a reach-around.
I have two questions for everyone. How many of the “15” appeared on television? How many recited lines? I don’t watch much television so I really don’t know.
I don’t think we should lump anyone that didn’t appear with those who did or anyone that didn’t speak with those who did.
Maybe we should be referring to the “X” where X = number of those who participated in Iranian propaganda.
heet, alphie. If X < 15 then the X just look worse by comparison to the (15-X). You two must have lived very sheltered lives to imagine that putting up some kind of resistance is beyond the ability of most people.
Preview TW: below33 — I dunno, the combined age of heet and alphie?
Submit TW: child64 Cut that out!
Who would be putting up the resistence for, SLD?
The tiny endless War Against the Other crowd?
A majority of Brits and Americans just want our troops to come home.
We find the whole fiasco rather embarassing, really.
^^^^^^IGNORE^^^^^^^
Well, I’m done with this place. not that it matters. Too bad; I truly respect the attitudes here.
Agreed wishbone.
I tried to pose some intelligent questions and all I got was four lines of wtf?
which did nothing to increase84 anyone’s understanding.
I’ll just try and google up answers to my questions about how many of the captives cooperated. Though I hate digging through heaps of veiled opinion and sensationalism to get to facts that should be presented up front.
You see, alpee, that the other is really metophoric to the analogy that the same is wont to posit in the past and future. Yet if we were to approach the question in geometric fashion we’d find that the same stays and the other comes and goes in an almost planetary fashion after “What Not to Wear.” On the other hand, otherness can be nothing but a simile of sameness and done quite on the cheap as demonstrated by “Design on a Dime”. But your crowds may get different milege.
Sporklift
Clue
As crass and naked a comment of moral confusion from a military person that I’ve had the misfortune to read…however, if he is correct, 13 out of 15 eagerly collaborated.
Depends on what you call cooperating. Several, but not all, did the on camera mea culpa. 6 maybe? There’s a number of different videos, so it’s tough to keep track. All of them did the smiling like goons while digging through their gift bags in their new Iranian suits bit.
Darleen, you forgot to mention that tangential to the scalar vector of facsimiles predicated on the emergence of the Miskatonic Hypothesis, random but not insignificant manifestations of circumpolar declinations will pertain to the right ascencion of the Anthropic fallacy only insofar as the observer is cognizant of their state of being-in-the-world. After all, as Euler observed to Diderot, “Sir, (a + bn)/n = x, therefore God exists. Refute that!”
Or so I’m told, at least.
Oh… BTW, if that little reprobate heet is still around
this is the way Marines behave, even when Jimmy Carter lets them rot for 444 days.
Hey, cynn. Hope it’s just that you’re having a bad day.
If so, aloha, if not, adieu.
Aaah, there’s that word moral again from you, Darleen.
It’s okay to invade a country by mistake and then turn it into a slaughterhouse, but don’t smile for the cameras?
Thanks Darleen, Pablo.
I must be retarded when it comes to google, skimmed through stories from all the biggies and many smaller news sources and all I ever got was “few”,”some”,”several”, Never an actual number.
Don’t ever bet the farm14 on being able to find the info you want in less than 5000 words or less.
Darleen, I’m very happy that you have casually done what is probably second nature to you by now : depend on the courage of others to determine your opinions. Again, you have revealed yourself to be an empty and soulless shell willing to mouth platitudes to the soldiers up until they show the faintest amount of weakness.
All you know of the military you’ve been told by your betters. They’ve lied to you, Darleen. Or you’ve willfully misunderstood because it is easier than thinking for yourself. Soldiers make mistakes. They get scared for their lives. They are are sometimes inadequately trained for their mission. They are put in untenable situations for reasons outside of their control.
Tell me, Darleen, what courageous and heroic action have you taken to ensure our victory against Iran? What have you done besides lecture others on their failures of responsibility?
Jack. Shit.
You and the other bullshit artists deserve nothing but contempt, derision, and mocking. Tell yourselves you are doing righteous work but don’t pretend to judge those who are doing the job you take all the credit for.
Are you saying that we’re at war with Iran, heet? That’s not very progressive, WARMONGERER!
For someone who clearly reads plenty of internet prose, you sure get mixed up by simple things.
Then clear it up, heet. Are we at war with Iran? And if not, how do you propose we have the victory over them that you feel a SoCal Grandma should actively participate in?
Wrong tack, Pablo.
Heet–let’s hear YOUR ideas on an Iran policy. If consists of anything other than abject ostrich behavior and BDS, I’ll be shocked.
Impugning the motives of others without some kind of mental rigor on your side is nothing more than that bastion of lefty discourse: Willful Intellectual Dishonesty.
I’m on recrod above as to what I think it will take. How about you?
Iran would be a heck of an ally for America, wish.
A lot better ally than Saudi Arabia.
Whatever the rights or wrongs of the initial decision to be captured without engaging, the subsequent behaviour of all of the captives was unworthy of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines and I shall be surprised and disappointed if any of these people are retained in the services.
The conduct of the commissioned officers was inexcusable.
You are getting carried away with you fantasies, heet. All soldiers aren’t progressive heroes, in fact only a few turn out that way.
Heh. I get that reference.
TW: military99. I tell you, that thing’s scary!
Sequenced and loquatious, tunneled in dubious cement and planted by fields of All Clad. Insipid prunes bounce morose aphids over Mile High Dirt Bermsâ„¢. Passion smegma contra-indicates festering snowpeas contemplating reckless oxymorons along Balloon Fence Missile Shieldsâ„¢.
Canned ham pursuing patterned bovine incineration? Perhaps homogenious plowshares maximise chimp fevers planting peace in our time dilation.
Spork?
Right here BJ
TW: placed46. That’s just eerie.
And they call themselves progressives…
“Pablo mad”, asshole? I’d say he’s taken you out for dinner and drinks, you shameless fucking idiot.
*Nunc pro tunc, fiat lux sed quis custodiet ipsos custodiem? Res ipsa loquitor. Ha ha ha – Sine qua non!*
Holy crap, I understood most of that. Thank god, my law degree finally came in handy.
Thanks Major John ! =0
I’m a soldier. I’m bound by the US Code of Conduct. Grovelling around like a British sailor isn’t even an option for me.
Sure, sometimes you’re scared for your life, but you still can’t do anything you can’t live with afterwards.
I couldn’t live with myself if I did what those Brit officers did.
I guess I just didn’t grow up in a ‘post-honor’ society.
heet
What are you? 15? Or did you just emotionally arrest at that age?
Your channelling Pee Wee Herman “I know you are, what am I?” by way of a theausaaurus in an attempt to bait me is pretty pathetic.
I’ve both addressed the ROE and possible lack of training, and those could be mitigating conditions that allows for the Brits to quietly resign rather than courtmartialed.
Yet, it doesn’t alleviate them of their primary responsibilities as Royal Marines not to side with their captors.
I even gave a link of a firsthand account of American Marine behavior during 444 days as “guests” of Iran.
And I know you won’t get this due to your obvious inadequacies, but being scared is not, nor ever been, the criteria by which I (or others) have judged the Brit hostages.
To be brave and courageous is not an indication of not being scared… it is an indication of behavior inspite of being scared shitless.
Again, look at United 93, look at civiiians who wrestled the Shoe-bomber to the floor
THAT is heroism…by civilians no less!
We should reward behavior by the Brit hostages that doesn’t even begin to rise to that level?
There are two kinds of people in this world. The first person is the one that understands their fear and uses it. They manage their fear and make decisions.(444)
The second person does not understand their fear or denies its even there. That person is managed by their fear, and the fear makes the decisions for them every time.(15)
Darleen:
I’m not trying to bait you, I know nothing can penetrate that “perfect mind”. I’m just telling you what I think of your pathetic attitude and unearned, holier than thou preaching on responsibility.
Translation:
“I’m a feculent weasel with a yellow stripe therefore everyone else is too! ‘Cuz you can’t be better than me!”–heet
The dangers of unearned and untested self-esteem on display….
So heet is arguing we can’t criticize cowardly behavior from hostages because we have never been cowardly hostages, does that mean he is accusing us of being… brace yourselves…
CHICKENCHICKENS?
In other words, you don’t have a goddamned thing to add, save ad hominem.
All heet, no light.
And we couldn’t possibly have made it through the day without such generosity.