Iran and the (soon to be) freed Britons
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to be honest I'm not sure; lots of conjecture, no real 'definite' facts, diplomatic moves seem a bit of a mess, lots of rhetoric....but they are coming home, so that must be a good thing.
The Iranians are, by tradition, a hospitable and polite nation, as I know from my own dealings with Iranians in the past. The US and, to a lesser extent, UK governments tend to ignore the traditions of that nation and approach such matters in a way that is interpreted as insulting by Iran. This present situation is a case in point.
Thankfully, in this instance, Iran has seen that it can use the situation to its advantage in a rather different way, by illustrating the traditions I've alluded to above. This has caught us on the back foot. But, frankly, what were the signs that there was any duresse being applied to the British personnel? On video they appeared as relaxed and unstressed as anyone could given their particular circumstances, and I rather think that, if they are allowed to tell the truth on their return, we will find that they were treated with courtesy throughout.
I wish that somebody somewhere would set up an institution that would offer courses in the 'differences' between cultures and that all diplomats and foreign office staff, including ministers, were obliged to attend such courses. We really do need to develop and little more insight and understanding into how our actions might be perceived by other cultures and how we can better understand their own reactions.
Bet it's a very, very long debriefing. Give us 30years to hear the truth. WE DO NOT OWN THE MIDDLE-EAST OR IT'S OIL. HANDS OFF THE PEOPLE OF IRAN.
saying nothing till they're home.
Don't count your chickens till they're safe on UK tarmac.
The power structures in Iran are very complex and obstacles may yet be found to the release of the detainees.
Sorry to be a doom laden maiden, but I don't feel all that trusting.
Fifi
I'm with nikki noodle (@4) on saying nowt till they are back.
Hoping it's as soon as we are being promised at this point.
Why now Tony?
Just wait - say nothing at all until they are home.
nik
'The Iranian President didn't want to release them until he was given the chance to be in the limelight'
What nonsense.
Is the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ no longer a serious news organ?.
I am delighted that the service bods are coming home - their families must be thrilled and mightly relieved. I guess most are still waiting with baited breath until they touch down.
However, I have just heard that the Americans have detained Iranians for months and not allowed consular access to, or given any news about them. What on earth makes the US think that there should be one rule for them and another for the rest of the world?
As with n-n, Fif, and Chris. Once there's back, I will celebrate. Til then, no comment...
Your point, Izzy, is well made, and underlies my own comment.
The West likes to claim it has the moral high ground, but its actions don't reflect that on occasion.
noodle-dude; you have no influence- say what you think......?
Good heavens! Eddie's studio's crowded this evening. Four people in the studio at once? I've never seen such a busy PM webcam.
The piece about the Cambodian sex trade and sex tourism was very well done and had great impact. A worthy subject and one that we should all be aware of, but sex tourism is by definition a global problem. It is no less a problem in parts of the West either so what, I ask you, about the vast and almost totally unconstrained sex trade that prospers on our own shores?
Hundreds, if not thousands, of underage children as well as enslaved and destitute adults are legally and illegally brought into this country every day to fuel our rampant domestic sex trade. I am absolutely, utterly baffled by the almost totaly lack of interest that this crime receives from the authorities! I am disgusted! Certainly, whenever the police happen to come across an instance of a brothel employing (or more accurately, enslaving) women, children and sometimes men against their will, then I do not contest the fact that they take action. But what revolts me is that they don't go looking for it! I say hundreds, if not thousands, but who would know? Who in Government is actually counting? Who in Government cares?
In some other European countries it is fair to say that there is less of a stigma about visiting brothels or availing oneself of "professional" sex workers generally. Because of this reduced level of shame, individuals who come across young children in such places have no qualms about immediately reporting the fact to the police. Thus, it might be argued that in large parts of foreign parts, the sex trade is probably safer for all concerned.
But in the UK, oh no! We are, it seems, human enough to feel the baser urges and the need to satisfy them but not human enough to recognise and empathise with misery and enslavement and vile abuse of the worst kind. We'll have our way with 'em, but we won't lift a finger to save them from a fate we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.
We should clearn up our own act before we start condemning Cambodia.
I would like to know why Mr Blair chose the path of 'restraint' in dealing with Iran and yet when Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbollah and Israel unleashed weeks of devastation, death and displacement, setting Lebanon back 'decades', Blair and Beckett said that this was necessary, that a ceasefire would be unproductive. Imagine if Britain had killed 1000 innocent Iranians and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. Then imagine that Blair later announced that Britain had set up the abduction as a pretext for bombing Iran – why isn't Israel subjected to similar rules?
One question that might be asked, once we have the sailors back home is, why was permission given for them to board the ship? We are all now aware that a defined and unambiguous border has yet to be determined. We also know that, because of the changing sandbanks, this 'border' has to be redrawn every ten years or so. It is overdue, so no action should have been taken which would be controvercial to the Iranians and, that would give them the political and diplomatic advantage. Is it possible though that this action was engineered to bring the Irainians to the table in order to resolve other issues?
Just listening to Blair basking in artificial glory on the steps of No. 10.
Absolutely brilliant news - IF IT HAPPENS!
I have one message for Blair. Don't count your chickens before they've landed at Heathrow.
Won't he look absolutely stupid if the Iranians go back on Ahmadinejad's announcement?
And lets face it, why wouldn't that happen? Ahmadinejad is not the supreme ruler of Iran and this entire situation has proven that beyond doubt. He doesn't even control all Iran's military forces. We know that beyond doubt, so we cannot be sure that they will be released until they're on UK soil.
Yeesh, why couldn't Blair wait just another 24 hours? He can't control his urges, or does he just not understand the concept of delayed gratification? Had to go gratify himself in front of the media at the first possible opportunity.
If I was Iran I'd delay the flight until Friday evening just to see the look on his face when the plane arrives and the troops don't step off!
Izzy and Big Sis
I attended a British Red Cross "Ideals in Action" course - Geneva Conventions and Rules of War training.
The trainers told us that Arab countries adhere to the Geneva Conventions more rigorously than Western Countries. They have a respect for PoWs in their care - it's part of their culture of hospitality. This surprised us a bit, but the Tornado pilots captured in Gulf War 1 were apparently treated very well by the army and abused when they were handed over to the Ba'ath party.
Westerners apparently lack this respect for the opposing forces. Their armed forces don't score so well on understanding and adhering to the Conventions.
I dare say the Gov't approach will be talking CCTVs in Basra...
Let's just get them home safe before we start discussing whether either country has been humiliated.
Just listening to Blair basking in artificial glory on the steps of No. 10.
Absolutely brilliant news - IF IT HAPPENS!
I have one message for Blair. Don't count your chickens before they've landed at Heathrow.
Won't he look absolutely stupid if the Iranians go back on Ahmadinejad's announcement?
And lets face it, why wouldn't that happen? Ahmadinejad is not the supreme ruler of Iran and this entire situation has proven that beyond doubt. He doesn't even control all Iran's military forces. We know that beyond doubt, so we cannot be sure that they will be released until they're on UK soil.
Yeesh, why couldn't Blair wait just another 24 hours? He can't control his urges, or does he just not understand the concept of delayed gratification? Had to go gratify himself in front of the media at the first possible opportunity.
If I was Iran I'd delay the flight until Friday evening just to see the look on his face when the plane arrives and the troops don't step off!
Karen: What you say is very interesting, but comes as no surprise.
As I've said earlier, we'd do well to study the mores of other cultures and not jump to conclusions.
As to the sceptics on this thread who fear that the Iranians may backtrack, I'll just say this: there is a tradition of keeping one's word in the Middle East, and things usually only go awry when the West fails to keep theirs.
Do you suppose that, being British, that young lady's mum will find time, very soon after welcoming her safely home, to give her a 'ticking off' about being seen 'smoking a fag' on the telly ??
I know my mum would do this, even if I had been to Guantanamo and back...
Great news that they are being released - and getting some Easter holidays as well !!
I can't help thinking that Ahmadinnejacked was doing this as a favour to Boris Johnson to help bury his 'bad news'...
Mike R - I think your view of 'our' reaction to sex slavery in Britain is very gender specific; and if I personally had any knowledge of trafficked women/ children/ men in my area I would be the first to go and report it.
And do you have any figures to back up your sweeping assertion that men who frequent brothels in mainland Europe actually do report the presence of young children to the authorities?
What will the neo-brutes who run the 'West' do as a 'gift for Iran'... bomb the hell out of them...as a secular humanist I have many Islamic friends and marched against the war in Iraqi in 2003 in London...hence, if these neo-brutes attack Iran; we should declare war on the 'Ruling Elite' for once and for all...the French Revolution is a good model, don't you think?
Aristotle once said that when the 'Brutes' take over society man is in trouble...what has changed, I could ask?
Brian V Peck
Published Author and Political dissident/satrist
I'm afraid that comment was based on anecdotes, personal conversations and general impressions. I should have indicated as much at the time.
I don't think my view is gender specific. I fail to see how this can be the case when I specifically referenced male as well as female sexual slavery. Sex punters who patronise brothels may be of either gender.
The reader is advised that my comment was written with no small amount of impassioned ire. I am at a complete loss to explain why we aren't pursuing this problem as vigilantly as many other crimes. We seem to brush sex slavery under the carpet too often and this I simply fail to understand. The fact that this is going on should be a source of public outcry. But all is silence.
Hope the sailors will be home by tomorrow.
I feel they should not have been there in the first place and yet again the incident show how blissfully the labour government is out of touch with the reality and how they badly mishandled this case. They misread the situation completely right from the start. With the little knowledge that I have from the Iranian people, I have never doubted that the sailors will be treated with respect and will be set free. Imagine what we would have done with their sailors in the English channel- Would have built them an Abu gherib or guantanamou camp and furnish them with hoods and electrical cables.
Yet again like the previous cases, such as the Iraq, may be the intelligent was wrong! that our government got everything wrong. Whatever it was, the case demonstrates our inability to understand the world outside our shores and we should not meddle in it. Right from the start, we should have used the diplomatic channels rather than going public and to the UN and EU. It was actually the Iranian government who had the sense to write the first letter which opened the diplomatic channel. Isn't this a proof our master did not handle the case correctly?
Mike R - I meant gender specific in the sense that it is men who use brothels and prostitutes so that your comment about 'we'll have our way them but won't lift a finger to help them' really would apply only to men and that women might be expected to have more sympathy with trafficked personnel.
I do not doubt your sincerity or indeed your totally justified anger at the seeming lack of effort invested in investigating and prosecuting those who promote this vile and inhuman traffic, which I share.
Ken (@16)
I seem to remember that it was the UN who "gave them permission" to board and search cargo vessels proposing to land cargo in Iraq. Isn't there a UN mandate or some such?
I understand that they pretty often find no cargo aboard the vessels they search -- which indicates to me, since mostly cargo ships (however small) don't trundle around at vast expense in fuel with empty holds, that something Iraq might be quite happy not to have landed on their shores, such as non-medical drugs or armaments, has been hastily thrown over the side of the vessel that isn't in plain view of the boarding party as it arrives.
There is absolutely no *need* to stray into Iranian waters to do this job, because the remit is to keep the stuff out of *Iraq* not Iran, and I'd suggest with deference that no officer in command of a Royal Naval vessel would encourage such stupid and inflammatory action by members of his ship's company. Apart from anything else, if they get into trouble he's answerable for it, and if it is really serious he's not going to be very likely to get another command: so many officers, so few ships...
On a slight tangent: I listened to The World Tonight in the car, and I swear I heard the American Vice-President say that the British naval personnel were in "American territorial waters". I do hope I misheard because of traffic noise, or something. Can anyone shed any light on that? Please?
Right.
My feeling is that it is was a local Iranian commander doing a small milatry grab without instructions, or thought of what to do with our personnel after.
However, that does not preclude me from making the following observations:
First off, TB and diplomacy - Rule 1 never mention the next stage whilst you're at the first stage. Cardinal rule. It could be seen as a threat. Yet he continued to use these phrases: rachet up, next phase, toughen up.
Also, why go to UN and EU before establishing high level one-to-one diplomatic links? What was behind this? Bad advice? or something far worse - bending an event to a political end?
Secondly with the US - they have 2 viewpoints, one of whom has just been to Syria, (with a letter from Israel) and the other has sent a surge to Baghdad and is holding Iranians in Iraq. The US really wants to 'win' the nuclear argument with Iran. Did they have a line on the British hostage situation? What was it? Did Bush communicate this line to TB (of course).
The UK - main interest must still be in Afghanistan, and the extraction out of Basra. Yet now we have agreed to open diplomatic links with Tehran, which puts us at odds with US
Timing of this event is odd, too.
Then there is Israel - worried about the rhetoric of being wiped off the face of the earth and nursing the after-effects of last summer's war. Israel wants to neutralise that threat.
Of course there is Iran, Hezbollah, Fattah, Gaza and Syria. Pakistan may yet prove to be a major player, at least if the government holds sway.
To sum up, I think it was a 'local difficulty' but the implications of another little local difficulty, given all the baggage is huge.
...and somewhere in all of this is Alan Johnston.
Let's rejoice one step at a time, once all their footsteps are heard back on British Soil.
nik
I didn't hear much of last night's programme, but it sounded as though Eddie was not following Frances O's advice on how to pronounce the name of President DJ. Or was he thinking of it, and thus distracted?
Oh Vyle (30), it is a minefield for an incompetent.
Eddie: You overcame your stumble with elegance and aplomb (now can I stop licking your boots?)
BigSis (2);
It's all very well to remind us about the hospitality of the Iranian people etc. Who could doubt it? Only thing is that those people should not have been in Iranian custody in the first place to 'enjoy' their hospitality. They were conducting UN-mandated stop-and-search operations. This is a propaganda stunt by some part of their regime. Their usefulness has ended, may as well let them go.
Free Bird (3);
You're an idiot. No-one I've heard has claimed that we own the oil, nor did we have our hands on the people of Iran. Stop polemicising and make a coherent point.
Boldscot;
Fair enough, but their politics is not as we would recognise it. There are factions all vying for a slice of power. For one of them to have a chance of a place in the limelight might be very valuable to them. It was a fair point to make.
Si.
I heard Bob Stewart on Today this morning; I believe this is the same one ex-service bod that was on PM talking about women in teh services.
Couple of thoughts struck me: he kept saying something along the lines that it was right 'by law' that women served on the front line, suggesting the it may be wrong from other points of view.
Also the sweeping generalisation that there is public unease at women serving on the front line. Where did he get that from?? I would suggest that a lot of media coverage came from a) she was the member of the service personnel to be put forward as a 'spokesperson' by the Iranians b) secondly that she was made/requested/shown to be wearing headscarf/hijab c) that it was reported that she was held seperately from the men. This raises cultural issues that may not have arsien had the hostages had all been men and is somewhat seperate from 'should women by on the frontline'.
Haven't expressed that ever so clearly and I'm sure some can do better....!
Simon: My point was merely that there was a great deal of hype in the media which seemed to indicate that others thought their lives or welfare was at threat.
I won't be drawn into debating the rest of your point other than to say that I'm not entirely convinced that this was a planned action by the Iranians (the capture, that is). I believe there is a great deal of debate over the line for the territorial waters in this area due to shifting sandbanks, which means it has to be reviewed at regular intervals. I also think the Iranians have historic reasons to be distrustful of the actions of other nations. There are a number of points of view on this one, it is certainly not clear cut.
Witchi;
Colonel Bob (yep, same guy) is a regular 'talking head' deployed by the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ whenever a conflict needs discussing on-air. He had a relatively distinguished record in his time. But he has not served for many years now and his knowledge and opinions are somewhat out of date. IMHO the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ should be looking to replace him with someone more 'fresh' and up to date with current military thinking and attitudes. He also represents the officer corps, I'd like to see the 'Lower Deck' represented in these opinion pieces from time to time.
His terminology may have been a bit loose, from what you say above. No law was passed or required, so far as I can recall, to permit women to serve in certain front-line roles. The Major Government (for it was they) simply announced that they were going to do it. It caught the leadership of the Forces off-balance and didn't seem to have been widely consulted on beforehand.
Certain trades are still barred, for differing reasons. My old workplace in submarines is barred, for *certain* human biological reasons affecting women. The infantry and armoured branches of the Army are still barred for our own cultural reasons.
In this regard; Col. Bob was correct, if somewhat old-fashioned, in his PM commentary last week when he said that most men still regard women as something special, to be protected. That is still a prevalent view on the front-line. An injured woman would potentially cause a breakdown in discipline in an infantry unit under fire, where an injured man might not. It's a sociological thing. There are still many men who put the distaff side on pedestals. And institutions like the Forces are where these attitudes persist longest.
It was this sociological attitude that would have made the Iranians select her for TV exposure, and the same attitude which made her a talking point over here.
It is certainly wrong from other peoples' points of view for women to serve in the Forces at all, never mind at the front. c.f. the comments of the Iranian President as to why we let our women serve in the Forces. He might well regard us as barbaric for permitting that.
For the same cultural reasons that compelled LS Turney to wear a headscarf, so is the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's correspondent in Iran, who has been busy over the last few days, even though she is (presumably) in a closed studio with her videophone.
Naturally LS Turney would have been held separately from the men, or at least given separate quarters and facilities. But that's also true of Big Brother. And warships. The 'Wrens' (another historical epithet that isn't relevant any longer)have their own bunkspaces, hygiene facilites, etc. separate from the men.
Si.
Si (@33)
"Only thing is that those people should not have been in Iranian custody in the first place to 'enjoy' their hospitality."
Well, yes. It may be good manners to treat guests nicely, but it isn't good manners to abduct and imprison people even if you don't also torture them, and you're civil to them afterwards and make little jokes about "free holidays".
Big Sis and others (about women in the forces and so on). As I said about ten days ago, there's a purely pragmatic point here, and to blazes with the media circus about her: Because one member of this party was female, her captors had some justification for keeping her in solitary confinement according to the rules that apply in *their* society. After all it would be wrong for a married women to sleep in the company of a lot of men, wouldn't it... or so it could be claimed. So she was isolated and afraid and had no support from her colleagues when considering her position. I noticed that she was the one who was first to start saying what was required of her (I don't fault any of these people for doing that) and I'd think this was because she was under far greater pressure than the other fourteen. Maybe a simple answer would be only to send women on boarding parties in pairs, even though "chaperonage" is something we grew out of at least fifty years ago. It is right to consider the mores and behaviour of the peoples in the areas we're dealing with rather than assuming they follow the same rules we do.
Si W -
Thanks for that! I do find the social ramifications of all this quite fascinating. I guess its partly due to being of the generation that have been brought up to think that women can do anything (which brings a whole shed load of different issues regarding expectations of both self and society) and finding that this isn't necessarily the case.
Again, thought-provoking/informative stuff.
Chris G: When cultures collide, there will always need to be compromise or expect fall out. We are in agreement on that point. I think the best spokesperson for how she felt will be the woman in question. Strangely, though, she may feel at least as constrained to speak freely to the media about the incident here as she might have done in Iran. Different types of pressures perhaps.
On the general point of women serving in the Armed Forces, of course I'm not suggesting that there won't be tensions and that it doesn't throw up challenges. However, given that we live in a culture where women are considered equals to men, it is OUR challenge to try to meet these.
Oh, so it was (Vyle, 30) MY fault, was it?
;o)
It'll be interesting to hear what they say after their de-briefing
Chris G (37), 2nd paragraph;
I think that was the exact point I was trying to get across.
And your point about segregation was also covered in my (36) which you wouldn't have seen.
Witchi (38);
You're welcome!
Si.