AA little hilarious in hindsight...

 

Female sailor was forced to strip

LONDON: The female British sailor captured and held by Iran for 13 days has told how her captors stripped her to her underpants and threatened that she might never see her baby again.

She also told how she was measured one day after hearing wood being sawn and nails hammered, sparking fears she was being measured for a coffin.

After the Ministry of Defence controversially relaxed its ban on service personnel striking financial deals with media organisations at the weekend, Faye Turney, 26, told The Sun her interrogators had taunted her with threats to her life.

"At one stage … [the interrogator] asked me: 'How do you feel about dying for your country?"' she told the tabloid.

"The next day, another interrogator said to me: 'You don't understand, you must co-operate with us. Do you not want to see your daughter again?"' For the first five days of her detention, after her capture on March 23, Leading Seaman Turney was made to believe the other 14 detainees - all men - had gone home, and she was the only one left.

"I was thrown into a tiny little cell and ordered to strip off," she said. "They took everything from me apart from my knickers. Then some cotton pyjamas were thrown in for me to wear, and four filthy blankets. The metal door slammed shut again."

The Daily Mirror carried an interview with Arthur Batchelor, 20, who said he was also stripped to his underpants and left in solitary confinement for several days. An interrogator reportedly indicated that if he did not co-operate, he w

I don't think so.Iranian would keep them for them and for a more important issue like getting new hostages of for covert actions.

BTW I think that Iran can easily get or copy US/UK uniforms in case of a war.They had US uniforms when they tried to rapt 5 US soldiers and they did not take US hostage before.

>>

 

It is done.

Some points:

 

1.  There is no conflict between UK and Iran and UK is not trying to keep Iranians away from someone else as per 'peace keeping'.  Quite rightly the RoE recognise this situation and require the Iranians to fire first.  These circumstances mean that normal military battlefield procedures and standards are irrelevant.

 

2.  The UK boarding party was carrying small arms only (in fact there is some reason to believe that they did not even have rifles since the pics show a carbine being carried). 

 

3.  The Iranians had more boats and heavy weapons, if shooting had started then the advantage was all with the Iranians.  15 Brit martyrs doesn't seem a very good idea, even if there were a few Iranians as well.

 

4.  The incident was not 'accidental' or 'chance'.  All the indicators are that it was well planned.  Since the Iranians are not idiots then it has to be assumed that they'd considered all the options for Brit behaviour and had a plan to deal with them.  It would be a foolhardy assumption to decide that the Iranians were unwilling to fire first.

 

5.  The question is should the RN/RM have tried to call the Iranians bluff and stood firm without firing?  What could the Iranians have done?  One option is obvious - holed the RHIBs mechanically and pulled crews out of the water.  The advantages of this aren't obvious to me, possible apart form denying the boats and equipment to the Iranians.

 

6.  If you take the view (and given the circumstances its not really relevant but may be indicative) that one of the first duties of a prisoner is to get away then saying or doing anything that furthers this and does not threaten you comrades seems reasonable.

 

7.  Brit officers are trained to see the bigger picture and think about the wider implications.  I cannot see how it would have been in UK's national interest to start shooting at a superior force, and suffer significant casualties.  Neither can I see how it would be in UK's interest to provoke the Iranians into shooting first. 

 

8.  That means that the Brit commander's immediate duty was to safeguard his crews and their collective duty was to get out of Iranian clutches as quickly as they could.   The implication is that the correct command decisions were those that furthered these goals.  This would include not stirring up the Iranians by trying to be clever.

 

 

Ah, this seems to be the problem. 
The Iranians are at war with you.  They are sending weapons and bombs to Iran.  The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is training people to blow up your troops and the people you are guarding.  They have planned to capture your military personnel to show that they not only don't fear you, but to demonstrate their dominance over you.  They executed a well coordinated attack on British military in Iraqi waters.

 

We better start keeping Iranians away or there will be no end to the conflict in Iraq except for what Iranians wish.

 

I'm very surprised and sad that British people here react while supporting their shamefull sailors /governement behaviour and justify this kind of cowardness.

I had a lot of respect of british forces years ago and now it is gone.

And I'm not alone:

 

Since January, the Blair government has broadcast its intentions of gutting the Royal Navy's surface fleet. At the same time, it also announced its plans for withdrawing 2,500 British troops from Iraq. The result? First, the Royal Navy is finished as a credible military force. Second, the British Army's redeployment from Basra has been widely interpreted as abandonment of the Iraq mission, rather than as moving on to Afghanistan after a job well done, as Blair insists.

And I could point out that french reacted very differently in similar situation in Kosovo.See my post above.

Some people say that Iranian were less numerous than the brtish sailors.To be check.

An other exemple.of what other people thinkI have nothing to add.

 

WHERE’S WINSTON?
IT’S IRAN 15, BRITS 0 IN THE GULF
by Ralph Peters
NYPost

April 3, 2007 — THE greatest shock from the Middle East this year hasn’t been terrorist ruthlessness or the latest Iranian tantrum. It’s that members of Britain’s Royal Marines wimped out in a matter of days and acquiesced in propaganda broadcasts for their captors. Jingoism aside, I can’t imagine any squad of U.S. Marines behaving in such a shabby, cowardly fashion. Our Marines would have fought to begin with. Taken captive by force, they would’ve resisted collaboration. To the last man and woman.
You could put a U.S. Marine in a dungeon and knock out his teeth, but you wouldn’t knock out his pride in his country and the Corps. “Semper fi” means something. And our Aussie allies would be just as tough.

What on earth happened to the Royal Marines? They’re members of what passes for an elite unit. Has the Labor government’s program to gut the U.K. military - grounding planes, taking ships out of service and deactivating army units - also ripped the courage from the breasts of those in uniform?

The female sailor who broke down first and begged for her government to surrender was pathetic enough. But when Royal Marines started pleading for tea and sympathy . . . Ma, say it ain’t so!

Meanwhile, back at No. 10 “Downer” Street, British politicians are more upset that President Bush described their sailors and Marines as “hostages” than they are with the Iranians. Okay, Lord Spanker and Lady Fanny - what exactly are those sailors and Marines? Package tourists?

Naturally, the European Union has praised Britain’s “restraint.” We’ve now got another synonym for cowardice.

I’ve always respected the Brits and quite liked those I worked with when in uniform . . . but I’m starting to wonder if I bought into a legend. While criticizing our military’s approach to everything, the Brits made an utter balls of it in Basra - now they’re bailing out, claiming “Mission accomplished!” (OK, they had a role model . . .) In heaven, Winston Churchill’s puking up premium scotch.

The once-proud Brit military has collapsed to a sorry state when its Royal Marines surrender without a fight, then apologize to their captors (praising their gentle natures!) while criticizing their own country. Pretty sad to think that the last real warriors fighting under the Union Jack are soccer hooligans.

Of course, bravery isn’t equally distributed. One or even two collaborators might be explicable. But not all 15.

Yes, journalists and other civilian captives routinely make embarrassing statements on videos, chiding their governments and begging to be swapped for a battalion of mass murderers. One expects nothing better. But military men and women in the English-speaking tradition historically maintained high standards over long years in brutal captivity - and this hostage situation has barely lasted long enough to microwave a bag of popcorn.

Think about Sen. John McCain with his broken limbs undergoing torture in that Hanoi prison - and refusing an early chance to be repatriated because he wouldn’t leave his comrades behind. Think he’d do a Tokyo Rose for Tehran?

The Iranians judged their victims well: The British boat crews didn’t make even a token effort at defending themselves. Now their boo-hoo-we-quit government isn’t defending them, either. Was Margaret Thatcher the last real man in Britain?

The correct response to the seizure of 15 British military hostages - if not released promptly - would’ve been to hit 15 Revolutionary Guards facilities or vessels along the Iranian coast, then threaten to hit 30 deeper inland the next day. By hammering the now-degenerate Revolutionary Guards, the Coalition would’ve strengthened the less-nutty and less-vicious regular military and emboldened President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s growing number of opponents within the government. (It was telling that the Revolutionary Guards could only muster about 200 demonstrators to harass the British embassy - it didn’t look much like 1979.)

Instead, we allowed the Iranian hardliners to humiliate a once-great military and encourage hostage-takers everywhere. At the very least, the British naval officer commanding in the zone of operations and the vocal collaborators among the hostages should be court-martialed. And the Royal Marine company to which those wankers belong should be disbanded and stricken from the rolls.