British navy suspends boarding operations in northern Gulf

Article : British navy suspends boarding operations in northern Gulf
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I used to think the British were brave soldiers but these cowards are sickening. One admits to crying like a baby in his cell and they all look like pathetic and all too willing puppets of the Iranian Islamofascist regime. American soldiers are the only soldiers left to do the job it seems. How shameful England. How sad. They should all be tried for treason.

ricky B... nice try. but as so many people of your ilk do your comparison of the 2 events is weak and over generalized.
The Iranians were captured in Iraq. The Brits were taken in international waters.
To even suggest the the media is friendly to the Bush and Blair administrations further demonstrates what an idiot you are.
you should be happy- the UK suspended its boarding because of this, and now more weapons will be smuggled into Iraq. I'm sure your quite pleased.
oh and By the way, you left out global warming, Big oil, and gitmo in your post, that surprised me.

Not 1 American at the Hanoi Hilton caved in to the enemy. They were told if they would sign a confession of what they did was wrong and the viet nam war was a crime, they could go home.
They suffered physical and mental torture, broken bones, solitary confinement, and still, not 1 would sign the papers for the NVA communists.
I always thought that the British were quite strong and resilient when they fought the germans for years before the US got into WW2.
Any traitor was dealt with severly.

but now?

These British 'marines' were certainly accommadating to the enemy. The admiral in charge of the operation should be court martialed, found guilty, demoted, and thrown out. Same for the ships captain. This had to have been the worst back up, cover me situation for a military operation.

the royal navy will now be the chicken of the sea in my book

ciao,
Harvey, nam vet

The sailors and marines are nothing more than cowards and a disgrace to their country. Great Britain has proved to the world that they are not able or willing to defend themselves. What a shame that a once great sea going nation has been neutered. It is time for you chaps to get your ships and go home. Leave the job to real men.....the men of the United States Navy. The United States once again has to do the job for you Brits. What a shame.

During boarding ops, the ship that sent away the boarding party hovers close by with weapons at the ready - to protect the boarding party in just such an eventuality as occurred, and to ensure the vessel being boarded does not simply bugger off with your boarding party embarked. There have been suggestions that CORNWALL could not close because the water was too shallow. Bullshit. It was deep enough for the merchantman they were boarding, which was apparently big enough to require more than one boat to board it. Were they out of range of the main deck gun? That'd be a stretch. Where did these Iranian boats appear from, and why weren't they recognized as a threat by the Operations Room? It sounds like the navy just got complacent and bored, hard to believe in that region. I'd venture a guess CORNWALL will have a new CO within a month.

What a disgrace the UK has become. Iran a third world clan of thugs has stuck it good to the once honorable western power. The UK is officially an impotent western democracy. The UK and its LIBERAL euro-socialist commie facist govt has demonstrated to the world that the EU is totally impotent and run by girlymen cowards. You can't even stand up for yourself or your cause without shaking in your shoes afraid of getting hurt or a bloody scratch. You can't even control your muslim immigrant population. they are using all your liberal policies against you and you're too spineless to keep them in check. This is Why the USA should stop listening to you sheepish UN appeaser COWARDS and take on those thugs alone and bomb them back to the stoneage, which is not very difficult if WE have the BALLs to PUT Iran and Company (MID-EAST) in their third world dust bowl.

Sadly, this seems to be a trend lest I remind people of our observation plane loaded with the latest electronics being forced out of the sky by obsolete Chinese fighters and forced to land at a Chinese airstrip and held for 3 days back in 2002.In a world full of political correctness and every war since World War Two fought with restrictive rules of engagement, it's not surprising this happened to the once proud Britsh Royal Navy. Let us hope that our forces deployed in harms way are taking note.

``the status of the five Iranian officials captured in a US military raid on a liaison office in Northern Iraq on January 11, remains a mystery.``

Sadly, the news media in the USA and world wide have decided to ignore the fate of these victims of Bush terrorism. Whenever the USA & UK victimize innocent peoples abroad, it is treated by those media as acts of heroism and of Godly virtues. But when the tables are turned they act as if ungodly acts have been committed. It is time for the media and for all people to apply the same standards of conduct and accountability towards everyone equally.

England was a great nation because...? They invaded other countries? Colonized, subjugated and exploited the people of those countries? If that's the case, you could claim that Nazi Germany was a great nation...or today's Amerika.

No, today Britain IS a gnat. They couldn't exist without the natural resources of places like Iran. Not saying Iran has a government to envy, but the situation is more like two Mafia gangs fighting over the right to terrorize everyday people.

It is a sad day to see how a once great nation with one of the greatest navy fleets has decided to become the cowards of the sea! Since England allowed a gnat of a nation to steal their citizens and defenders of their nation, permit their abuse, and established that this can be done without consequence; England has proven that they are no longer a military threat to be concerned about. What purpose does it server have a world class equiped and trained military, if its nation is unwilling to use it!

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES


ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third. Ambrose Bierce


As the Western media turns its attention to and prattles about the fate of the 15 Britons detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters, the status of the five Iranian officials captured in a US military raid on a liaison office in Northern Iraq on January 11, remains a mystery.

Even though high-level Iraqi officials called for their release, for all practical purposes, the Iranians have disappeared into the US-sanctioned 'coalition detention' system that has been criticized as arbitrary and even illegal by many experts in international law. The US forces had raided what has been described as a diplomatic liaison office in the northern city of Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and detained six Iranians (one of whom has since been released), infuriating Kurdish officials in the process.

In response to the request by the Iranian authorities to the US-led coalition to investigate the circumstances involving their detention and to release the five men, the US State Department replied that "the investigation is not complete, and we don't comment publicly with respect to ongoing investigations".

What a slap in the face! The Iranians who are being held as 'security detainees' are not being charged with anything and so are being held unlawfully. On the other hand, the US administration has already ruled out any possibility of prisoners exchange with the 15 Britons held by the Iranians as, in the words of Sean McCormick, spokesman for the State Department; "There is no comparison between the two issues".

The UN secretary-general's office has not commented on the detained Iranians or Iran's detention of the 15 British sailors, describing both incidents as "disputes between individual states". "We've left it to the respective countries to work it out among themselves", said Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman. In spite of which, the UN had backed a watered-down version of a resolution calling for Tehran to immediately release the hostages, while there was stronger support from the European Union. The EU statement demanded the unconditional release of all the hostages and threatened 'appropriate action' if Tehran failed to act.

The timing of this incident couldn't have been more provocative if it had been planned that way. And evidently it was! The question is, however, who did the planning?

It happened on the eve of a vote in the UN Security Council to impose stricter sanctions on Iran. On top of that. one must include the kidnapping of the Iranian consular officials in Irbil, covert US support for terrorist attacks inside Iran, the 'disappearance' of a high-ranking official in the elite Revolutionary Guards unit and the strong suspicion that the Mossad had a hand in the killing of a renowned Iranian nuclear scientist. Add it all up, and there is little doubt as to who would have planned such a brazen provocation.

Doesn't all this have the likelihood of a Gulf of Tonkin-style incident in the Persian Gulf? Well, predictions are proving too accurate! Is it Western brinkmanship at its prime or a 'false flag' operation? Anyway, it could well end up as a 'casus belli'!

On the US front, the Israel Lobby is preparing the ground by softening up any possible opposition and is pushing hard the US to go to war with Iran.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is mad as hell. "It is cruel and callous to do this to somebody in this position and playing this kind of game -- it is a disgrace", he said. He even labelled their seizure as "blatant aggression". These are strong words. But maybe that, in his phony outrage, he would contemplate on, at least, two other words -- Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. It seems that even Chancellor Brown's memory is failing as he too denounced Iran's treatment of the sailors as "cruel, callous, inhuman and unacceptable". They (and the sailors) are lucky they weren't detained by US forces! What Iran is doing - allegedly coerced statements and ridiculous TV interviews - to the British sailors is positively humane by comparison.

Most Britons oppose immediate military action to free the navy personnel and believe that the government will resolve the crisis peacefully.

The only good thing that Blair has done so far was to tell the Bush administration to stay out of it. It's just the sort of support Britain doesn't need!

And if this is Blair's idea of "blatant aggression", what the hell was invading Iraq under false pretenses? A picnic?

According to the British medical journal, 'The Lancet', over 650,000 Iraqis and 130 British personnel have been killed in Iraq.

What Blair should have viewed as a "disgrace" was his failure to meet with the military families of his own country, although he accepted to meet the families of the Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hezbollah.

And lastly; when is the British media going to stop playing on the sentiments of its gullible public?

Their immediate reaction to the televising of the only captive woman sailor set them off searching hysterically family albums to depict her as a distressed sweet young mother. Quite rightly, although seemingly stressed, she did look healthy, without any sign of violence, not handcuffed, wearing civilian clothes, smoking and smiling -- not in a lurid orange boiler suit, like the other human beings paraded for a global television audience. However, none could have missed her other photo showing her in full battle uniform and cuddling a machine gun. Oh, sweet mother, whose kids and toddlers would you be killing in case these may be 'terrorists'? Isn't it a charming contrast?

Maybe these comparisons sound odious, but unfortunately truth sometimes hurts!
The noble art of losing face
Will someday save the human race
Hans Blix

Joseph M. Cachia
jmcachia@maltanet.net

every day that passed when iran kidnapped those marines, if blair had any thatcher or churchhill in him at all i would of sank one iranian navy vessel each day until they were released.blair is a pussy.

Iran 1, Great Britain 0.