1 I.e. all 15 brutally tortured.

2 Well, shit they seem damned near happy to confess.  Tea and crumpets all round, and all that rot.

Just my initial opinion....

3 I don't see any reason to think that they were tortured.

4 John Ryan: You are a punk.

5 And just what the hell are they confessing to. Are all of them navigators? All of them steering the ship? Catching pigfish?

6 These "soldiers" had sophisticated navigation equipment that is fully capable of keeping them where they are supposed to be.  They were intercepting a vessel on a predictable course to inspect it and under the command of an even more sophisticated ship that tracked them carefully.

They knew where they were.  Would they really have entered Iran without being prepared?  And how did Iran know they were going to enter Iran?  They must have planned this ambush out very carefully, am I to believe that the Brits really entered coincidentally at this time (and at the time that the Iranian president just happened to make world-wide news for his UN inbroglio?

Also, we know the Iranians are not honest about anything.  They said they had to nuclear program, then they announced that they did.  They lied about the holocaust, and they routinely mistreated their prisoners in 1979.  not to mention, many Iranians hate the British more than they hate the USA.

Anyone who believes that these sailors were not coerced into saying what they are saying -knowing how unlikely it is that the Brits did this and knowing how ruthless the Iranians are being right now in Iraq- is a fool.

I don't know if they were tortured or drugged or starved.  I have no idea waht kind of threats are being made to them.  We will find out.  I wish these sailors would find a way to show the world that  they were under duress, because sadly many people are actually buying this crap.  Look at the Pueblo, and how those tortured souls managed only subtle signs of duress.  It's harder than it seems in the imagination.

Anyway, we obviously can never negotiate with Iran.  They are violating their geneva treaty obligations writ large, and we'd be a fool to bother with any other treaties or payoffs.  They will break their end, every time.

7 enough already.

8 I don't know what the British military code provides, but basically
every country has a "name, rank, serial number, birthday" limit one
what POWs are to say.  Cooperating with the enemy, and participation in
their propaganda is disgusting, cowardly, and disgraceful.  If you aren't willing to at least take a beating before laughing it up on camera, you deserve one hell of beating when you come home.

The only one of the troops who should be doing any talking would be the ranking officer.  Every other member who appeared on one of these videos should be courtmartialed and jailed for several years.  Especially the cunt.  The death penalty - for treason - should be an available option at the courtmartial.

If the British aren't willing to step up and show some backbone, I have no use for that nation of limpwristed limeys.

9 "If you aren't willing to at least take a beating"  Well I do know you can torture someone and cover the marks with clothing, and you can also gain a measure of compliance with drugs. Additionally, drugged victims may exibit inappropriate emotion, such as laughing, when under stress. Further, any decent villain will threaten the well being of others in the team, to try and coerce the response they desire. Likely they are kept seperate from each other when not on camera, to add to thier stress, and reduce thier co-operative resistence.        So I'm going to believe they are doing thier best.     
 Everyone has a weak spot, and we don't know what they were subjected to.                                       USA, all the way!
 

10 No offense, but it's easy to talk tough about 'resistance' when your not there. This isn't a 'chickenhawk' attack. I'm saying you don't know where your own breaking point is, unless you have been driven to it. Anyone who hasn't experieced it, can really know what it is like. There are people who are experts in getting you to that point. If you survive it once, it can make you stronger the next time, or it can break you for good. Each according to thier ability.              
              USA, all the way!

11 If it turns out they were drugged up (which is entirely plausible), then they could be let off the hook.  I'd gladly eat crow in that situation.  It just doesn't look to me like they are on anything, and no matter how cleverly the Iranians edit the footage, the POWs are still cooperating way too much.

If they weren't willing to make the sacrifice, they should not have entered the military.  Being a marine means you may die.  There is no room in the marines for someone who puts their own hide above their country.  The claims that there was "a gun off camera" means nothing to me - a gun should not be enough to get a marine to betray his country.

We have men like McCain who suffered years of torture as a POW, and still refused to join in enemy propaganda films.  These limeys broke in a matter of hours!

12 I'm sympathetic Wooga, I just feel if we don't know the circumstances, it would be polite to extend them the beneift of the doubt. McCain's story is one of the reasons I cut him so much slack regarding the details of his politics.               USA, all the way!

13

Now I'm thinking of that 'Bond' flick, wasn't it "Die Another Day!"?  Admittedly, 'Bond' is sort of a superhero, but we still expect our troops to hold out, like in the movies. I know it does happen, and the real heroes can't just go to thier trailer after the 'torture' is concluded. I wish we could just blast the Mullahs to pieces and move on.                              USA, all the way!

14

I ran across this today,

(Mashallah, an auto-parts trader who spent seven years in prison after his involvement in leftist activities at the beginning of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, says he can guess what the 15 British marines and sailors may be experiencing.

"This government is expert at psychological pressure," he says, analyzing the performance of the British detainees who have been seen here on videotapes released to the media.

"They may have put them in isolation for two days before their first confession and told them that if you don't apologize, Britain and Iran may go to war," he speculates.)
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070403/wl_csm/oiranscope;_ylt=AoBhhpyCBzbTqQl3rsw1kDHMWM0F
 
USA, all the way!

15 Ralph Peters is on the same page as me on this:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04032007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/wheres_winston__opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

And John Derbyshire:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGNkYmUxOTAyMmZkNWU5ZGQ2YTAxMmJiNmQ3MDRmNmU=

Derb said it perfectly:
The only coherent response I get to these sentiments is: "How do you
know what they've been through? How would YOU stand up?" To which the
obvious reply is the one Dr. Johnson gave in some similar case: "I may
criticize a carpenter who makes me a bad table, though I cannot make a
table myself. It is not my job to make tables." It is the job of a
Royal Marine to fight, and if necessary suffer and die, for his
country. They know that when they go in. It's what they are told!
I nurse a quiet hope that if put to the test, I would stand up as well
as any Marine. Whether or not I would, however, is irrelevant. Whether
or not I could stand up well to torture, I expect Marines to.

16 "I expect Marines to"    As do I.  We do agree on quite a bit here, I'm just not ready to say they are wusies, yet.     USA, all the way!