|
Oh come on... 
That's an internationally disputed bit of water by the way, but anyway they got caught which is the first step in this process.
Some of the servicemen had publicly confessed to this "crime", apologised and said they were treated well, compared to the inmates at Abu Ghraib.
Iran claimed all of them admitted their guilt.
Tehran's ambassador in Moscow said last week that legal proceedings had begun and that the prisoners would be "punished".
Note the language there?
It sounds very, very familiar if you run the parallel of the coalition of the willing's model for handling a detainee under "crimes".
However...
There is no need to actually keep them
There is no need for the actual show trial
All they had to do was hang onto them long enough for all the nervous nellies out there to get in a fuss thinking theres going to be a war, the press to be frothing at the mouth expecting some heads to be hacked off and interviews with the distraught families that never expect to see their mums, dads and kids again.
Come on, it's really not that hard to see what Iran was angling for here.
It's not military
It's not terror
It's not even just to make a simple point that they can do it
Now in an argument, people often take a subjective high ground of strength.
Which one is one of the strongest?
Considering the parallel between Bush's well publicised, awful treatment of "criminals" captured by coalition forces and the parallel of the Iranians capturing the UK marines.
Which high ground does Iran now appear to the international community and all the muslim angry community, students in Che shirts and all the other pallid little wanna be warriors out there in their mums bedrooms to occupy after this 'show'?
I'll tell you rather than have you wondering all night.
They won the moral high ground compared to the coalition.
That is all, now all the people out there who wander through life like yourself and many others believing all the press tells you (and better yet if it's anti-american press) can go...
"Well baa, baa the Iranians don't torture people in baa, baa and stack them up in pyramids, baa, baa, rape the woman, strip them and stick them in solitary for 5years. Baa, baa, no, they let them go because they're decent people and baa, baa, didn't ask for anything, shake of the hand on the telly and then back home for tea... baa, baa"
And all the other little people out there who are pro-coalition can go...
"Well baa, baa, maybe those Iranians aren't so baa, baa bad after all compared to our governments... hmm baa, baa and they're not hacking off heads like the insurgent radicals in Iraq either. Maybe we can deal baa, baa with these people because they're civilised and not the monster our baa, baa western press has been portraying them as."
If you cannot see that, then really you've lost the point of politics in the most simple, objective sense that you must have an appearance to the public of being a nice civilised person in a nice civilised society. Even if you do have women beaten in the street, students dragged out of universities, enforce draconian dress codes, warmongering sermons and quite a lot of people shot for disagreeing with you and a long, long list of atrocities which happened during the revolution.
This is the new 'public image' of Iran, not the men with AK47's jumping around a burning US flag chanting "Death to America" and that is what the exercise of letting the marines go is all about. Because the world will not sell nuclear tech and materials to people who do the latter.
They will do it though to people who at least appear civilised and looking down the barrel of the gun more sanctions from ALL the UN, Iran needs as much ammo as it can lay its hands on, the moral high ground ammunition will serve them very, very well in the future for that purpose.
And that ends the last 2 weeks lesson on how to look good to stupid people. 
|
LOL
