Iran keeps humiliating the West

Pardalis said:
No, of course not, but we got to show them our resolve and very vocally denounce what they are doing.
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I was being sarcastic btw. I have seen both governments vocally denouncing the hostage taking and have seen ciritcism from the U.N. and other contries, perhaps most importantly Russia and China. We should all continue to do so while persuing a diplomatic solution like the one in 2004.


Pardalis said:
I also find worrysome the fact that Americans are showing more interest in their own endless political bickerings btween Republicans and Democrats than this whole issue which is much more crucial in my opinion.
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Some of us feel we've got 150,000 troops trapped in a Middle Eastern country with no way home, so sorry that more of us aren't being more vocal about 15. That said, please don't get the impression that none of us are mindful of them and their plight and angry of Iran's brinkmanship. Many of us are, even if there hasn't been a lot of comments on this forum.
 
Is it significant that the US is holding five Iranians that Iran and the Kurds claim were diplomats?

Is it significant that the area where the soldiers were captured was disputed territory and that it was arguably Iranian ground that they were captured on?

How many thousands of Iranians need to be killed before we in the west can feel that the Iranians aren't humiliating us anymore?
 
davefoc said:
Is it significant that the US is holding five Iranians that Iran and the Kurds claim were diplomats?
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Are you so sure these were diplomats? These were captured during raids focusing on Iranian Republican guards helping the insurgency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011100427.html

Are these prisoners being videotaped and exposed to the world BTW?

Is it significant that the area where the soldiers were captured was disputed territory and that it was arguably Iranian ground that they were captured on?
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Where do you get that? The raids occured in Irbil, a Kurdish city.

How many thousands of Iranians need to be killed before we in the west can feel that the Iranians aren't humiliating us anymore?
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Who said anything about that? What are you even talking about?
 
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Pardalis said:
Are you so sure these were diplomats? These were captured during raids focusing on Iranian Republican guards helping the insurgency.
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I am not sure they are diplomats. In the past I would have trusted the American government, if they said they weren't diplomats I would have believed they weren't diplomats. Now I am sure they American government would lie about the possibility of the prisoners being diplomats if it thought it could use the lie to its advantage.

Are these prisoners being videotaped and exposed to the world BTW?
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You mean are they being treated like the Abu Graib prisoners were? No. I suspect the Iranians are treating the British soldiers a lot better than the Americans have treated a lot of prisoners in their custody.

Where do you get that? The raids occured in Irbil, a Kurdish city.
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I was referring to the captured British soldiers.

In response to davefoc's question about how many Iranians need to be killed before we in the west can feel not humiliated by Iran for capturing the British soldiers Pardalis wrote:

Who said anything about that? What are you even talking about?
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The OP post said that Iran was humiliating the west in all impunity. If the west is being humiliated with impunity I thought perhaps the opening poster of this thread thought that the west should do something to stop being humiliated with impunity and I presumed that the opening poster thought that if we started killing some people in Iran we could get over being humiliated with impunity.

My own thought, is that the west is not being humiliated with impunity by Iran. If anybody has been humiliating anybody with impunity it is the west (as represented by the US) who has been threatening to attack Iran for four years or so . My thought is that the west should stop threatening to attack Iran and the west shouldn't use the pretext of this incident to kill thousands of Iranians. If this incident can be diffused by conceding to the Iranians that the Iraq Iran border is ambiguous in the area the British soldiers were captured and by returning some of the disputed diplomats then that sounds like a good idea to me.
 
Humiliated? Who feels humiliated? I don't.

To feel humiliated, you would have to fall for the Iranian propaganda.

What the Iranians are doing is merely emphasizing the futility of such crude propaganda tactics. To put prisoners on display and force them to spout such things only fall back on the Iranians themselves.

I don't feel humiliated at all.
 
Can I ask a question here? Is Iran still the #2 producer of oil in the world? Or have they slipped a couple of notches?

If they are still in the top 5, wouldn't going to war against them be a Very Bad Idea(tm)? And wouldn't sanctions not work, simply because China and Russia would buy their oil and supply them whatever they needed?

These are honest questions, BTW.

Cheers,
TGHO
 
I thought the US has had economic sanctions against Iran for years now? Or did we end those recently? I remember you used to not be allowed to bring anything made in Iran into the US.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I thought the US has had economic sanctions against Iran for years now? Or did we end those recently? I remember you used to not be allowed to bring anything made in Iran into the US.
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The US has had extensive sanctions against Iran for a long time. Europe, not so much. They trade quite a bit with Iran.
 
CFLarsen said:
Humiliated? Who feels humiliated? I don't.

To feel humiliated, you would have to fall for the Iranian propaganda.

What the Iranians are doing is merely emphasizing the futility of such crude propaganda tactics. To put prisoners on display and force them to spout such things only fall back on the Iranians themselves.

I don't feel humiliated at all.
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Agreed. I don't feel humiliated either. The Iranians do something stupid and I'm supposed to be humiliated? How does that work?
 
Pardalis said:
So why not surrender them back? Why even take them into custody in the first place?
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Perhaps because the President of Iran is trying to force our hand. Do you think we should be so easily manipulated? It's obvious that any military actions on our part (or the UK's) would garner more support for him from moderate Iranians, or even those who oppose Ahmadinejad.

Not much of an invasion force, these 15 soldiers... :rolleyes:
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No, but just about the right size for a group clandestinely doing recon. I keep hearing that the Brits have proof (supposedly GPS) that their sailors were in international waters, why haven't they shown it? I can remember several instances in the recent past where Western troops have either accidently wandered into "enemy" territory, or we've admitted that they were actually there to gather info. Don't get me wrong, I'm not immediately placing blame on the British sailors, but if one has actual proof of innocence, it's usually the first thing on the table.

You're playing the Iranian propaganda, which doesn't make any sense when you think about it.
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And you're drinking the Western Kool-Aid which also doesn't make any sense on a skeptic's board.

So it's the West's fault for having hostages now? What kind of topsy-turvy thinking is that?
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Well, we HAVE allegedly kidnapped suspected terrorists off Italian streets, we HAVE admitted to running secret prisons where we've outsourced the torture of suspected terrorists, we HAVE spirited suspected terrorists away to Gitmo without notifying their relatives and with no hope for a trial. As I said in another thread, it seems our rationalizations for this behavior has turned around to bite us on the ass. The Britons are guilty by association and were easy targets.

As for paying more attention to our politicans who are f**king up, it makes perfect sense to take care of the problems at home before pointing at other countries. Besides, it is precisely the thinking of those politicians that got us into the trouble we're in now.
 
The only REAL answer to Iran and the whole middle-east mess is to stop using, or at least reduce the use of oil by huge margins.


If we made a commitment to switching to / finding a viable alternative fuel like ethonal for example, we wouldn't have to worry about the middle east.
 
Pardalis said:
I also find worrysome the fact that Americans are showing more interest in their own endless political bickerings btween Republicans and Democrats than this whole issue which is much more crucial in my opinion.
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Save some of that concern for the EU -- since it just declined to support Britain's request for further economic sanctions and/or cessation of trade until the hostages have been returned.
 
Magyar said:
The only REAL answer to Iran and the whole middle-east mess is to stop using, or at least reduce the use of oil by huge margins.


If we made a commitment to switching to / finding a viable alternative fuel like ethonal for example, we wouldn't have to worry about the middle east.
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But Magyar, you're proposing a solution that wouldn't allow us to whip the American people into a nationalistic frenzy and gain votes by ensuring that the the current administration is seen as "strong on terrorism." ;)
 
Ziggurat said:
IYou're playing the Iranian propaganda, which doesn't make any sense when you think about it.

So it's the West's fault for having hostages now? What kind of topsy-turvy thinking is that?
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The West decides to police the waters without sufficient means of enforcing the rules, or even defending themselves. Indeed, what kind of topsy-turvy thinking is that?
 
Mephisto said:
No, but just about the right size for a group clandestinely doing recon. I keep hearing that the Brits have proof (supposedly GPS) that their sailors were in international waters, why haven't they shown it?
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How hard did you look?

http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070328-071438-3482r

Earlier the same day, Britain had produced evidence that it said proved 15 of its sailors and marines held by Iran were "ambushed" in Iraqi waters, as Tehran insisted they had infringed on its territory.

Military chiefs at the Ministry of Defense (MoD) used maps and GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates to argue that the naval personnel were clearly within Iraqi territorial waters at the northern end of the Gulf when they were seized last Friday.
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This was supported by photos taken on the ship where the boats were picked up by the Iranians -- showing the GPS screen.

Meanwhile, Iran released coordinates that they said were correct, but when those proved to be outside Iranian waters, they moved the spot. Their say-so only, no other support.


Of course, the Middle East Times is not regular reading.

But there's PBS

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june07/iran_03-29.html

Newsbreak for Aussies

http://newsbreak.com.au/search.ac?relkey=a825718

the Daily News

http://www.tdn.com/articles/2007/04/02/ap/headlines/d8o8flg00.txt

And from personal knowledge, it ran on either a major network news program or CNN, since I learned of it on television first.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not immediately placing blame on the British sailors, but if one has actual proof of innocence, it's usually the first thing on the table.
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Of course, the British sailors have "confessed," for Iranian TV [ http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=4693&sectionid=3510101 "All British Sailors Confess to Illegal Trespassing" ] so feel free to ignore the above.
 
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