Posted by
Tzimisce on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 12:38:03 PM
On Friday March 23, 2007 fifteen British soldiers were captured by Iranian gunboats while doing a routine inspection of an Iraqi Merchant vessel in Iraqi waters. Their torture at the hands of Iranian thugs isn't surprising.
What is surprising is their torture at the hands of the Western media. Left wing commentators have condemned the Brits for the being pawns of the United States and willing tools in an attempt to create an incident that could be used as an excuse for war. Right wing commentators have condemned the Brits for not putting up more of a resistance both during their capture and later after being imprisoned.
The truth is most likely understandable and in the middle. British satellite data shows that the troops *were* in Iraqi waters at the time of their kidnapping. It also shows no less than six Iranian warships with mounted weapons (designed to rip apart other warships) approached the merchant vessel. The Brits only had light sidearms themselves. The inspectors were armed for minor resistance from petty smuggling thugs, not for a full scale military assault like the Iranians were. Who can really blame the English for not shooting back? It would have been a needless slaughter. A bad comparison would be: border guards on the US/Mexico boundary being condemned for not stopping a tank that drove across the line.
The next leg of condemnation comes from after the Brits were captured. Right wing pundits condemn the soldiers for going on camera and giving Iranian talking points. (Of course left wing pundits all believe the talking points they espoused, but that goes without saying.) Again, who could blame the British soldiers? Interrogation is a part of most higher level of marine/naval training in most western nations. But there is training for it and then there is the real thing. It's much harder to think straight when faced with the real thing. Most of us have had to speak before a large group before. And for a lot of people it seems that no matter how much you rehearse, you go blank the minute you meet the gaze of your audience. I can't even imagine what it would be like when faced with real pain and death in the face of not playing ball. Now the captured soldiers tried to qualify their statements using language like "from what we are told" and "from what we understand" - but any good editor can cut those statements out as the Iranians did.
Iran is a master of mind games. Throughout the fiasco Iran used political doublespeak with western powers in general. At first, they said they would give up the Faye Turney. Then they retracted that a couple of days later. If Iran is yanking us around in such a fashion, what kind of games were they playing with the soldiers in their custody?
Now that the soldiers have returned home, the bashing hasn't stopped. One of them has been condemned for (literally) crying to the press. Others have condemned them for considering selling their stories to the media.
The bottom line is that no one really knows what these people went through. And there were times when each of them were isolated from each other. No one really knows what the individual experience was of these soldiers. There is no value from playing arm chair general and attacking these people for not shooting at their captors or being forced in front of Iranian TV cameras for propaganda pieces. So who can really blame them?