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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6938719.ece

This only happened because the RN spinelessly let a bunch of sailors and marines get captured in 2007.

Back in the good old days we would have issued an ultimatum, then sank half their navy, and there would have been no more trouble from them.

bloody hell. Im proper sick of the fething Iranians, how many times has this happened now? Twice prior at least they were military personnel. Now they are just taking the piss.

Ive always had a dislike for the Iranians in that i served over in Iraq twice, and Afghanistan twice, and alot of the ammo and ordanance the enemy used was supplied by Iranians. This is common knowledge, so they are even doing it overtly!

In my book every British and American soldier killed in the last 8 years has died as a direct result of the Iranian regime.

On the bright side, they will doubtless carry on enriching Uranium and then the Isrealis are no doubt going to mash them.

Ah well, at least they don't outsource their torture like certain western powers

But I would agree with KK that we should have sunk their boats the last time this happened rather than giving up like a bunch of girls.

What de ye reckon First Mate Arbejinadad?


Arbe - They be pirates you can tell by thier pirate ship, keel-haul them Arrgh!

You know the british soldier I served with were some sick fearsome fighters(I love them for it). Their is a reason the UK is hailed as having the best trained soldiers int he world...SO USE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree that Iran must pay - at some point. But the kidnap of the Royal Marines couldn't have been avoided IMO. They were in a small light craft and hopelessly outgunned. It would have been suicide to open fire on the Iranian ship. Matty? Thoughts? We don't know what went on behind the scenes - the British Gov't is not in the business of making PUBLIC statements to the effect of 'release our troops or the next time you see Royal Marines you'll be putting out the flames on your children's backs!!!'. It's just not the British way. All I know is that they came back unharmed and relatively quickly. Can anyone offer alternative suggestions as to how Britain could have resolved the incident without bloodshed or a lengthy hostage situation?
But yeah, give us our yachtsmen back you tossers.

Kilkrazy wrote:This only happened because the RN spinelessly let a bunch of sailors and marines get captured in 2007.

Back in the good old days we would have issued an ultimatum, then sank half their navy, and there would have been no more trouble from them.

Exactly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Albatross wrote:I agree that Iran must pay - at some point. But the kidnap of the Royal Marines couldn't have been avoided IMO. They were in a small light craft and hopelessly outgunned. It would have been suicide to open fire on the Iranian ship. Matty? Thoughts? We don't know what went on behind the scenes - the British Gov't is not in the business of making PUBLIC statements to the effect of 'release our troops or the next time you see Royal Marines you'll be putting out the flames on your children's backs!!!'. It's just not the British way. All I know is that they came back unharmed and relatively quickly. Can anyone offer alternative suggestions as to how Britain could have resolved the incident without bloodshed or a lengthy hostage situation?
But yeah, give us our yachtsmen back you tossers.

You're forgetting the British frigate that was there too. British frigate vs. Iranian navy equals half of Iranian navy involuntarily becoming the Iranian submarine force.

LOL frazzled, honestly the brits know how to handle a lot of the problems in the middle east, and weather their people want to admit it or not, their soldiers rule by rightful fear as that is what most middle eastern people respond too. Sometimes war is the only way, it's sad but true. To let the iranians go unpunished at this point would be to invite more actions like this. DON'T CAVE IN, NEVER SURRENDER, TO THE HALLS OF VALHALLA MY BROTHERS WE WILL FIGHT!

Solution: somehow drive the Somalian pirates into the Iranian Gulf. Grab popcorn. Flip on news.

Then they won't complain about yachtsmen "invading" anymore.

In other news, Israeli button pushers are getting antsy.

Altered_Soul wrote:Solution: somehow drive the Somalian pirates into the Iranian Gulf. Grab popcorn. Flip on news.

Then they won't complain about yachtsmen "invading" anymore.

In other news, Israeli button pushers are getting antsy.

Issuing letters of Marque is still constitutional. Let free enterprise show us the way.

But yea, current guesstimates are Israeli bombers flying early part of next next year. Thats just a hair after Obama's timetable for negotiation ends.

British sailors, soldiers and airmen have a long history of disregarding the odds and attacking anyway.

Sometimes it was successful and sometimes it was disastrous, but the main point was it made everyone know if you gave the Brits hassle you would regret it even if you won.

Albatross, i knew one of the lads who got kidnapped the first time it happened personally. That occured because they were specifically told by command not to fire their weapons when a larger Iranian vessell approached their RIB.

I fear that what our American chums are alluding to is correct though, and now the Iranians are doing it because they know that we will not react with violence and they now feel that they can carry out this type of thing with impunity.

I heard that the captain of the Naval ship when the first incident occured was aghast at his orders from higher command and was loathe to allow his men to be taken without a shot being fired, but alas, the "big picture" seemed to get in the way.

I suppose you could argue that the people that make the big decisions were correct in that all of the men were released unharmed as the primary reason for the whole thing seems to just be a targetted propaganda campaign whereby "Mad" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets to make himself look pleasant and merciful to the onlooking muslim community when he inevitably releases the captives.

I have to say, it seems like that was the simplest way to do things, if the intel guys at the top know its just more showboating, then of course, it wastes less life than having all guns blazing.

The Iranian ship that approached our RIB (a kinda small semi inflatable boat) had mounted machine guns and was a fair way larger, and they no doubt would have taken casualties if they tried to shoot their way out armed with only small arms (also bare in mind that only 7 were Royal Marines, the rest were Matelots (including one female wren) and they can shoot about as well as Iranians!) so you could argue fairy well that it was the "right" thing to do in this case. But i have to say, it would have been bloody hard to not go down shooting if i was sat in that bloody boat!

Anyway, expect this type of activity to continue, the Iranians are fully taking the piss out of us.

But as i said, the Iranians have killed American and British soldiers for the last 8 years. And i guarantee it is not going to get forgotten about. Also, the Isrealis are going to look after themselves as well, and i like the idea that the Iranians have started to think we are a soft touch...

Britain has the 4th biggest defence budget in the world, beaten only by the US, China and very very narrowly by France (less than a billion dollars IIRC but lets be honest, they should have three times ours because they cant fight)

When a few thousand green berets from the Royal Marines and some SBS/SAS boys rock up with their safetys off then we shall make them rapidly evaluate their opinion of us!

In fact, feth it. I might join back up.

Frazzled wrote:Issuing letters of Marque is still constitutional. Let free enterprise show us the way.

But yea, current guesstimates are Israeli bombers flying early part of next next year. Thats just a hair after Obama's timetable for negotiation ends.

I think Ron Paul is foaming at the mouth somewhere

As for Iran, the day they announce they have nukes is the day the facilities mysteriously vaporize. Let them fight themselves and other Arab nations who hate them more than they hate other things. These are stunts, and nothing else. I personally wouldn't want to waste even our troops time and effort, let alone lives, on them.

Altered_Soul wrote:

I personally wouldn't want to waste even our troops time and effort, let alone lives, on them.

WTF does that mean waste "even OUR troops". That comes across saying our troops suck so please explain further.

Easy now. He left off an "'" apostrophe, making troops' possessive.

We shouldn't even waste our troops' time and effort, let alone their lives.

Proofreading can stop flame wars in their early stages.

I want to hear more about these Letters of Marque. Where do we apply for them? Preying on enemy merchant shipping seems like it would be a blast.

Empchild wrote:

Altered_Soul wrote:

I personally wouldn't want to waste even our troops time and effort, let alone lives, on them.

WTF does that mean waste "even OUR troops". That comes across saying our troops suck so please explain further.

No way dude. I am saying our servicemen shouldn't even waste their breath (let alone their time, effort, or lives) on Iran. Not sure if that is still coming off right. Essentially I am saying we shouldn't bother with such crap, our soldiers have better things to do.

Gitzbitah wrote:

I want to hear more about these Letters of Marque. Where do we apply for them? Preying on enemy merchant shipping seems like it would be a blast.

President issues. No onnly a blast but profitable.

Lets sublease the Missouri and Texas and Lexington. They can take care of the pirates and do it in proper Orkey dakka dakka fashion.

Frakking middle east countries. It's like the git who sticks their fingers in the ears and just repeat "I'm not listening" when you have an arguement.

Here's a heads up... we aren't interested in restarting the Empire!!!! We don't give a monkey's what Israel does, if you have an issue with them sort it out, us Brits don't care. We aren't oppressing you!!! Taking out Saddam helped you!!! Just give it a rest, we are getting bored with your childish behaviour.

PS. Just be aware that if you are planning on making a nuclear weapon and using it... make sure you do a good job, because if you don't you will not get a second chance.

How do people keep "wandering" into Iranian territory? Christ, the "Hikers" were enough, why would you sail there? Not to defend the capture of civilians, they should be returned immediately, but thats just fething dumb.

This is all just a political game anyway, they'll be returned after a few months of posturing.

I agree Shuma, but at the end of the day, lots of young civilian chaps remain blissfully ignorant of this type of stuff.

I mean, when i was in Baghdad some young Japanese kid got killed cos he was BACKPACKING and ended up in Iraq?!

Sure they are fething dumb. But ...well..i really feel sorry for them. Extreme Tree Huggy types will always go to these places regardless though because they think its all "the media" and these type of places are actually "really nice"

hundreds of ships are in US waters everyday. We don't run over and blow them out of the water, or caputure them and put them on TV.

Maybe we should.

I mean, we could start having "Capture A Sailor Day" and go nuts.

Ooh! Gladiatoral combat!

Frazzled wrote:hundreds of ships are in US waters everyday. We don't run over and blow them out of the water, or caputure them and put them on TV.

*puts down RPG while standing on the pier* oh.... um.... I was just sighting it for deer hunting....

Frazzled wrote:hundreds of ships are in US waters everyday. We don't run over and blow them out of the water, or caputure them and put them on TV.

We do if they're cuban, mexican, or unidentified.

We also don't border two wars and aren't under international sanctions imposed by countries who have boats flippantly sailing through our territorial waters. How many Iranian citizens were in Gitmo again?

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:hundreds of ships are in US waters everyday. We don't run over and blow them out of the water, or caputure them and put them on TV.

We do if they're cuban, mexican, or unidentified.

We also don't border two wars and aren't under international sanctions imposed by countries who have boats flippantly sailing through our territorial waters. How many Iranian citizens were in Gitmo again?

Once again Shuma foams at the mouth without having a clue as to what he's talking about.

How many Cuban crews are currently on TV? How many Mexican? Admittedly they may show different things on your local news than mine but here in the Real World (TM), there is no such thing.

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:hundreds of ships are in US waters everyday. We don't run over and blow them out of the water, or caputure them and put them on TV.

We do if they're cuban, mexican, or unidentified.

We also don't border two wars and aren't under international sanctions imposed by countries who have boats flippantly sailing through our territorial waters. How many Iranian citizens were in Gitmo again?

Once again Shuma foams at the mouth without having a clue as to what he's talking about.

How many Cuban crews are currently on TV? How many Mexican? Admittedly they may show different things on your local news than mine but here in the Real World (TM), there is no such thing.

Admittedly whenever the inside of an offshores U.S. prison gets shown on TV your crowd foams at the mouth about the loss of national security. I suppose we're more quiet when we do it (likely because we're attempting to gain spurious intel VS the Iranians just trying to insight nationalism at home), though the number of times Lou Dobbes has breathed all over a story about intercepted illegal immigrants makes me wonder how selective your memory is.


Also aren't we having this conversation in another thread? How do two wrongs make a right? What the hell do our own actions towards our territorial waters have to do with those of a "rogue regime" that was on the "axis of evil" list, is under multiple international sanctions, has a very questionable human rights record, and is currently in a massive international row over nuclear weapons development and terror funding. Where in that sentence did the words "good sailing waters" come up?

You started the incredibly wrong strawman argument.
The US and UK both routinely have ships in our waters. japan, RUssia, China, and Mexico alone have hundreds of fishing vessels in our waters. I am sure there are lots of similar ships in UK waters. Last I saw neither the US nor the UK were seizing Canadian catamarans and putting the crews on the TV.

The comparison is just mindnumbingly stupid.
Edit: forgot its also an act of war. The US has had a couple of wars start over this stuff.

*Barbary Pirates
*Quasi War with the French
*War of 1812
I'm sure the british have gone to war over such as well.

I would just like to point out that attacking other members in the forums is against the rules and should such attacks continue the thread will have to be closed. Let's keep this civil.



Good lord, I've always wanted to say that.

mattyrm wrote:Britain has the 4th biggest defence budget in the world, beaten only by the US, China and very very narrowly by FRANCE(less than a billion dollars IIRC but lets be honest, they should have three times ours because they cant fight)

France?

Holy cow I didn't think they spent much on defense at all, prefering the U.S. bodyguard approach. That's interesting.


and by the way remember Khadafi? THIS IS THE LINE OF DEATH!!!....... Oh.... wait.. nevermind...........this is the line of death!.......(BOMBS) .....Ohhhh forget it.

GG