Iran

Iranian Hostage Taking Scandal Continues…….

This is not the first time that Iran and its current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been involved in the taking of hostages, and one of the reasons behind my choice of headlines.

Finland’s YLE and Helsingin Sanomat decided on the ridiculous headline of : “Iran: British Soldiers Admit to Border Violations”. Perhaps they were keeping in line with their stated policy of “presenting different points of view”, no matter how far off the mark.

In what could be described as a classic cassus belli, —an open act of war by one state against another– Iran violated Iraqi territorial waters to capture 15 British soldiers that had bordered a ship sitting at anchor for a week. According to Iraqi fisherman:

“We’ve been working in this job for many years and because of our experience we can distinguish which is the Iraqi and which is Iranian side,” he said, adding that Iraqi boats never venture across because of tight security by Iranian coastguards.”

Iran is once again upping the ante by this recent blatant act of war, as well as its threatening to try these soldiers as “spies”, even stating the highly ridiculous claim that they have obtained “confessions”. The British Foreign Office is demanding their safe return, Charles Johnson at the LGF asks an interesting rhetorical question concerning the same, “what would Maggie do”?

I believe it’s safe to assume that Marget Thatcher would have already laid down the gauntlet by now. *L* KGS

Update: Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters correctly observes that the Iranian threat of indicting the fifteen UK Marines would violate the Geneva Conventions. The Iranians cannot try the men for espionage if they captured the sailors in uniform. Article 46 of the Geneva Convention states this clearly:

  • 2. A member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict who, on behalf of that Party and in territory controlled by an adverse Party, gathers or attempts to gather information shall not be considered as engaging in espionage if, while so acting, he is in the uniform of his armed forces.

This also further underlines how the media (at least Finland’s) wants to paint this recent development with Iran, bending over backwards to down play the seriousness of the hostage taking. To date, not one mention of Iran’s possible violation of the Geneva Conventions if it proceeds as planned and indites the British Marines as spies.

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