Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

[Localizer]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

Not sure if I believe this, but possibly Iran isn't as irrational as we were led to believe. They did have the sense not to escalate things any further by keeping the hostages or killing them.

I frequently discuss these issues with my lab instructor who is straight from Iran and is a hippy with dreads. He consistently tells me a lot of the stuff we are watching is blown way out of proportion. It's all relative.

[88Mariner]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

to me, Iran has shown a high level of rationality in terms of self-preservation. Now Islam is a whole different story.

something interesting I caught on CNN a few minutes ago. a U.S. military official was being interviewed about what would happen if americans were captured and has the military prepared them for this possibility.

in essence, he responded that U.S. troops know that they have a right to defend themselves and that they do not have to ask permission to fire back or defend themselves if they were surrounded by enemy forces. I think it was a comment on the way british forces operate. This, i think, indicates how the british forces were captured.

hmm

[Miroslav]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

Not sure if I believe this, but possibly Iran isn't as irrational as we were led to believe. They did have the sense not to escalate things any further by keeping the hostages or killing them.

Ahmadinejad isn't irrational, at least not in the way many people would think of the word (crazy, foolish, impulsive). And I suspect most of the people he puts in his government aren't, either. My guess is he always knew exactly where he was going with the whole hostage situation.

He's actually damn smart. Google bios on him, and you'll see stuff about how the guy reportedly scored 132nd among more than 400,000 entrance exam test takers for supposedly the best university in Iran. He's a PhD in some field of civil engineering and used to be a professor.

He's also adept and charismatic enough to play a pretty good power strategy game and get a bunch of people to follow him. And he's also ambitious, deceitful, and ruthless.

All of which, of course, makes him so dangerous.

The real danger is: not taking him seriously and writing him off as just another nutjob.

[thesightless]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

he is smart like hitler was smart. both geniuses, both out to kill as many jews as possible before the world stops them. shit hitler took half of europe before anyone even slowed him down.

[superdave]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

Ahmadinejad isn't irrational, at least not in the way many people would think of the word (crazy, foolish, impulsive). And I suspect most of the people he puts in his government aren't, either. My guess is he always knew exactly where he was going with the whole hostage situation.

He's actually damn smart. Google bios on him, and you'll see stuff about how the guy reportedly scored 132nd among more than 400,000 entrance exam test takers for supposedly the best university in Iran. He's a PhD in some field of civil engineering and used to be a professor.

He's also adept and charismatic enough to play a pretty good power strategy game and get a bunch of people to follow him. And he's also ambitious, deceitful, and ruthless.

All of which, of course, makes him so dangerous.

The real danger is: not taking him seriously and writing him off as just another nutjob.

The news coverage I see and hear is that Ahmadinejad is irrational and can't be allowed a nuclear weapon because he would use it on Israel or worse America. And I'm listening to both Republicans and Democrats.

I believe that invading Iraq made the situation much worse with Iran. Although, Iran should thank us for taking out Saddam & the Sunnis from power. I think we scared Iran to get a nuclear weapon quicker to protect themselves from America. From Iran's perspective, their next door neighbor country, Iraq, just got invaded for allegedly being involved in producing WMDs. Iran which has known ties to terrorism thought they might be the next target of America.

Regarding not taking Ahmadinejad seriously - people that say he's irrational point to comments about him destroying Israel which people do take seriously. In light of the recent events with the British sailors, possibly we should not take him seriously when he makes comments like that. Is this just rhetoric to fire up the hard liners or is it sincere and we should be worried?

[thesightless]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

if i spent my life commiting crime, which he did, and also spent the time calling for the death of your family, wouldnt you be concerned if you saw me buying a gun? lets call a spade a spade here, he was and still is a member of the revolutionary guard, he was personally involved in the embassy hostage taking. and has spent the last few years warning us that isreal will "be wiped off the map"..... yeah, we want him and his hard line islamist buddies with a weapon that can wipe a city out in .4 seconds.

[Localizer]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

if i spent my life commiting crime, which he did, and also spent the time calling for the death of your family, wouldnt you be concerned if you saw me buying a gun? lets call a spade a spade here, he was and still is a member of the revolutionary guard, he was personally involved in the embassy hostage taking. and has spent the last few years warning us that isreal will "be wiped off the map"..... yeah, we want him and his hard line islamist buddies with a weapon that can wipe a city out in .4 seconds.

heh, you mean the October Surprise.

[Miroslav]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

The news coverage I see and hear is that Ahmadinejad is irrational and can't be allowed a nuclear weapon because he would use it on Israel or worse America. And I'm listening to both Republicans and Democrats.

I believe that invading Iraq made the situation much worse with Iran. Although, Iran should thank us for taking out Saddam & the Sunnis from power. I think we scared Iran to get a nuclear weapon quicker to protect themselves from America. From Iran's perspective, their next door neighbor country, Iraq, just got invaded for allegedly being involved in producing WMDs. Iran which has known ties to terrorism thought they might be the next target of America.

Regarding not taking Ahmadinejad seriously - people that say he's irrational point to comments about him destroying Israel which people do take seriously. In light of the recent events with the British sailors, possibly we should not take him seriously when he makes comments like that. Is this just rhetoric to fire up the hard liners or is it sincere and we should be worried?

good question...I would still say:

Ahmadinejad is not irrational; he is power hungry and ruthless. Big difference, still very dangerous to let him get a nuclear weapon. The short answer to your last question, in my opinion, is: yes, a lot of what he says is rhetoric to fire up the hard liners...and yes, we should still be very worried.

I've wondered whether Ahmadinejad is really as religiously zealous and trigger happy with respect to Israel as he portrays himself to be, or whether he simply recognizes the benefits he receives from being perceived that way right now; he gains popular support from Muslims, feeds hatred and division between the Muslims and non-Muslims (this only works in his favor), and scares the shit out of his enemies.

I'm guessing that a nuclear weapon in his hands would be a continuation (although very scaled up version) of this approach: a way to breed popular support, maintain national/cultural divisions he can exploit, and scare the shit out of everyone with the threat of a nuclear the weapon - without necessarily ever using it. A nuke in his bag is a great way for him to simply cross the line that America and others draw and say, "so what are you going to do about it?" It totally shifts the balance of power in a way that is favorable for him.

My guess is that Ahmadinejad recognizes all of this very well...he knows the value of perceptions and he knows he doesn't need to fire the nuke to derive a lot of power from it. He also knows the value of pragmatism. Still, there are dozens really, really ugly scenarios for Israel and the West (not to mention his oil-rich neighbors) stemming from a highly ambitious Iran with a few nukes in hand. Ahmadinejad doesn't need to fly off the handle and fire a nuke to be very dangerous; it's enough if he just has one.

So we should take him very seriously. Don't be fooled by his soft-handed approach to the UK troop situation. It served him well to let them go; he would have slit their throats if it had served him better. That's rationality for you.

[Miroslav]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

big shocker: Iran bound, threatened captives

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_re_eu/iran_britain

I hope this was the kind of publicity that Ahmadinejad was hoping to achieve within the international community

Iran of course denies it all and claims the whole news conference was just a fabricated publicity stunt. too cute

[88Mariner]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

yeah, just reading the transcript of the interviews right now. very interesting stuff, but most importantly, they said that Iran entered Iraqi waters to capture them.

[Miroslav]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

Miroslav, what proves to me that the soldiers were on Iraqi waters ? and weren't actually in Iranian waters? the stupid GPS that both sides showed on TV , I am sure not going to belive the British government , not anymore since the invasion of Iraq and at the same time I don't trust Iranians that much , this is why I kept my mouth shut, comming back to the video footage , I see alot of people vomiting out out of disgust in their posts , Geneve war convention were violated , lets not forget Sadam's video footage when he was caught , and thats only one of 1000 times western governments broke the Geneve conventions, Abu ghraib and Guantanmo bay ring a bell .

Finally got around to reading this, missed your response earlier. Yes, I fully admit that you are right on the American sins committed at Abu Ghraib and other places. But you have to admit after all of this...those Iranian officials are some weasely assholes, too!

[subterFUSE]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

Yep. Same with the Iraqi officials under Saddam.

Remember the infamous intelligence minister? "There are no Americans in Baghdad! Never!!!"

[subterFUSE]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

Geneva Convention is not being violated at Gitmo. Enemy combatants who violate the rules of war do not get Geneva protections.

[thesightless]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

interesting that the UK allwed the prisoners to do a tell all of what actually happened.

international shitstorm here we go.

[subterFUSE]

Re: Iran captures British Forces at Gunpoint

I was going to say this earlier...... but had I been captured, I never would have agreed to the confessions as they did.

Bottom line..... I know that Iran had no right to capture those sailors, and they certainly could not afford to kill them. So whatever they threatened me with, I would have just spat in their faces. Fuck them! They couldn't do shit, because if they did.... they would get bombed into the stone age. I know this to be true, and would never have given them the satisfaction of confessions under duress. Of course, nobody is going to press this issue, because of fucking dipshit political correctness. But it's the goddamned truth. Soldiers are trained how to deal with hostage situations. And I'm not a soldier. And I know that they couldn't do shit to me in that situation without dooming their country. Plain and simple. In fact, I'd almost wish they would do somthing, just to give us an excuse to exterminate the lot of them.