Lying for Queen & Country

The Iranians manufactured a great deal of positive PR out of this exercise. I don't mean for the detention of the British sailors and Marines but for their treatment of them. The whole exercise of photos, video footage etc was all done to capitalize on a captive public convinced from previous U.S. rhetoric that the Iranians would behave like monsters they were portrayed to be. But instead of waterboarding their captives the worst thing they made one member do was wear a scarf. There's nothing quite like the humiliation of being treated well to dispel the myth of Persian evil.

In a sense then, the Iranian treatment of the British Sailors and Marines achieved two primary propaganda objectives. First, it portrayed a marked contrast between their treatment of detainees and the U.S treatment of detainees. This demonstrated that far from being the abject monsters portrayed by the COW centric media the public instead saw British Marines and Sailors talking candidly about the circumstances of their detention--a situation never before seen. One could almost hear the cries of neo-cons in their lounge rooms lamenting "why didn't you fight back!?" which really translates to "why couldn't you have just died in a firefight?" The media reports of U.S. frustration were palpable.

Don't get me wrong, we've seen captured troops before making confessions during the first gulf war but lets make no mistake that those videos were made under duress and obvious to all and sundry--different objectives. Seen in this light, harming the British Sailors and Marines then would have constituted a PR disaster for the Iranians and delivered a PR windfall to the the U.S. only too ready to lob a few cruise missiles into the pot. In other words, any poor treatment of the captives by the Iranians would have catalyzed public opinion firmly against them. It would have been the opportunity the U.S. were waiting for to be able to say "See! We told you they were cruel and inhuman."

The second propaganda objective as I see it was that it let the world know that the Iranians were not going to stand by and let their sovereignty be walked over by arrogant boarding parties from a far flung foreign country. This was Iran's way of saying we're not going to put up with your sh*t right on our doorstep.

Did it work? Well, taking in to account the number of comedian and talk show hosts who made the obligatory scarf and hot dinner jokes, the first objective was met. Also the reports of the British reviewing their boarding operation procedures in the disputed Shatt, the second objective was also met.

Subsequently, the British Government is in damage control attempting to apply counter spin to the Iranian PR coup by attempting to turn the Iranians back into the monsters they told everyone they were by permitting for the first time ever for active duty personnel to sell their stories of "torture" to the highest bidder.

I can't help but wonder, why the sweetener? What happened to lying for Queen and Country?

The British sailor hostage crisis and a gullible media

I think much of the confusion surrounding the whole British sailor fiasco is due to muddying by an attention deficit media. Specifically, the lack of attention to the fact that both sides, Iranians and British are arguing around two separate territorial incidents which the COW-centric media have haplessly merged as one.

Firstly, there is the catalyst incident commencing with the British inspection of the Iranian Dhow inside of the Shatt al-Arab, something even the British Navy acknowledges occurred even if they refuse point blank to disclose the precise location in the Shatt al_Arab.

Secondly, there is the apprehension of the British Sailors by the Iranian's some 20 kilometers outside of the Shatt al_Arab as they were disembarking an Indian vessel. We know this location because ironically, the British Navy have been only too willing to reveal the lat/long coordinates of this second incident.

Consequently, the media have seized the British Navy personnel's apprehension as the whole story by-passing the original territorial breech claims central to the Iranian justification for apprehending them in the first place. The British Navy then argues much like a burglar before the court that the case against him should be dismissed because he can prove that he wasn't arrested at the scene but after he had left it.

I can understand the burglar or the British Navy for that matter trying to put something stupid like this over the media but I confess I cannot understand why large sections of the media would be fooled by it.

Have the media become just as gullible as the public?

On the ground reportage: where's the point?

I see Michael Thurston's news story in The Australian from Tehran of Iran holding 15 British sailors. For a Journalist based on the ground in Tehran it's interesting to see that his report at no stage quotes Iranian officials about their side of the story. Makes you wonder what the point is in having him there when getting Iran's perspective was as easy as reading Iran's Press TV coverage on the web?

The Shatt al_Arab has been a disputed waterway between Iran and Iraq since before Saddam was a small boy. For the most part, since the 1975 Algiers Agreement and excluding the Iran/Iraq war, it has been a shared waterway and for good reason--it's very shallow and very narrow.

Michael's article disingenuously ignores that the inspection was of an Iranian flagged vessel most likely on the Iranian side of the Shatt (assuming of course that one can ever truly be on one side over the course of traversing the Shatt).

UN Security Council resolution 1723, which is what the British are operating under, gives them the right as afforded by the Iraqi government to inspect any and all vessels in Iraq's waterways but NOT in Iran's.

The Shatt then provides ideal opportunity for confusion about territoriality which I imagine is the reason why the Brits think they can get away with the odd--"my mistake" infraction of Iran's sovereignty in their quest to uncover a nuclear smoking gun.

Interesting also that this happens just in the lead-up to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's impending visit to New York to address the UN Security Council. One cannot help but think that the COW is looking to avoid another Chavez style outburst at the U.N. probably the reason why they delayed in getting the Iranian visas processed in time as well as I read now that Ahmadinejad has canceled his visit.