Join the dots

It's been an interesting week and there have been a few news stories lately which i'll list below. I wonder what the link, or common thread of these stories is?

1. Hostages released
2. 7/7 bombers charged
3. UK troops killed by IED
4. Bombers killed in Casablanca
5. Algerian explosions
6. Bomb attack in Australia foiled
7. Turkish airliner hijacked
8. More troops for Afghanistan from Aus
9. Posecutor in Bangladesh killed
10. Helicopter shot down in Somalia
11. Suicide bomb threat against Pakistan gov

All of the above news stories occcured in separate countries and i'm not suggesting that there is some overarching conspiarcy or organisation responsible but the one word that doesn't appear in my 'headlines' above is 'Islam'.

The religion of peace; yeah right.............

Ashamed to be British

Well the hostage debacle has proved to be an humiliation for all concerned. Any investigation has been quashed despite Tory calls for one.

I find it hard to work out who, the RN or the UKG, is trying to cover-up the episode, if there was any conspiracy behind giving the sailors meida rights or just what the hell is going on in the corridors of power; we'll probably never know.

I can't believe the state of our Armed Forces, particularly the RN personnel. Who are these people? 'Topsy' and 'Mr Bean', what a great advert for our troops!

Hopefully this isn't a reflection of the Forces as a whole but the personnel have hardly covered themselves with glory. I hear reports that not all of the 'frightened fifteen' caved in under pressure but we've heard very little about that, just endless footage of the fifteen having a laugh, reports of 'Topsy' giving 'mummy hugs' and horror stories of having your neck flicked.

I'm lost for words..................

They're to be released!

Well i never! Ahmadinejad has just announced the hostages are to be released as a 'gift' to Britain. Along with medals to the commanders invovled obviously.

I wonder just what assurances were given to the Iranians behind the scenes, they have obviously got what they wanted; on the face of it, mainly the humilation of Britain, the isolation of the UK from the EU and shown the impotency of the UN.

What they really got, we'll probably never know.

It'll be good to have the hostages back unharmed and i'd be interested to hear their side of things, assuming they are allowed to talk that is.

Games in the Gulf

So, nearly halfway through Blairs '48 hours' and what have we got? Nothing. We are into day 13 of this crisis and the best we have come up with is that the government are happy to have made contact. Made contact?! What the hell have we been doing for 12 days?

I must admit, i may have been a bit harsh on Captain Air earlier. It is hard to know what kind of duress they are under and the Iranians will be piling on the psyops. The latest photo

of Captain Air and the others, shows Lieutenant Carman and him next to each other clearly looking unhappy. Hopefully these two officers are at least dicussing the situation, and what to do about it. Their primary responsibility is to keep the group safe and hopefully they are fully aware of the games the Iranians are playing. The photo gave me heart that perhaps all is not lost.

Also interesting is the fact that none of the captives are wearing shoes. I think that this is probably a measure to make it harder to escape, coupled with LS turneys lack of headscarf, she wouldn't be able to blend in, and the lovely tracksuits.

The Iranians are playing their hand very well and it would seem that ours is being played by people who don't know the rules. Whilst many people are decrying comments made by people safe at home behind their keyboards, i think this is wrong. This whole game is being played out for the benefit of the 'viewing public', how this looks is precisely wha this is about and so the 'behind the scenes' diplomacy is affectively irrelevent.

All this talk of finding a 'face saving' way out for Iran is ludicrous, we should be looking at forcing them into a humiliating climbdown because that's exactly what they are trying to do to us.

The Iranians are playing a weak hold'em hand and are hoping that if we raise the stakes they can do a face saving fold. They however are finding that we are quite happy calling with our strong hand and if we aren't careful they'll hit a good hand on the river. We also have to take into account that we are being urged to fold our good hand by our 'friends'.

The Falklands, 25th Anniversary

Today, 25 years ago, the Argentinian junta invaded the Falkland islands. Suspecting the British wouldn't have the capacity to fight over a remote island, they were surprised when Mrs Thatcher decided to send a taskforce to liberate the islands.


The short campaign was ultimately sucessful and the islanders very grateful. It also showed the world that we, the Brits, still had some bulldog spirit left in us.

What a change from then to now, especially as far as the Royal Marines & Royal Navy are concerned. Compare the two images of Royal Marines below, how times change....

The picture above is disgraceful, we seem to have found that appeasement is our foreign policy.

Whilst the Falklands war was not without its controversy and its share of disasters, we prevailed and won a famous victory. We stood tall against tyranny and managed to stand firm in 1991 against Saddam and then finish the job in 2003.

Tony Blair has gone on record to say that he would have fough the Falklands if he had been in charge, one wonders if that was bluster. Will he continue to appease the Iranian/Islamic fundamentalists or finally discover his backbone and manage to stand up to tyranny?

I must say i am not confident of this at all considering the rumours of sending an envoy to Iran and talk of promising the Iranians we won't trespass again. If true, we are just running up the white flag. Is a there Churchill somewhere who will do what needs to be done? If not we won't see pictures like this anymore.

Royal Marine captain Air, spineless?

Well, it's day 11 today and still no movement on either releasing the hostages or doing anything about threatening the Iranians.

What is more galling, and frankly people should be spitting teeth about this, is the latest footage of a Royal Marine officer, a captain no less, acting like he's giving a fucking briefing, on Iranian TV!!!
What the hell is that about?

I can understand the lower ranking personnel doing pretty much anything the Iranians say but a commssioned officer in the Marines? Give me a break, this guy should be refusing to comply with any Iranian demands. Granted we don't know what kind of duress he is under but he sure looks pretty relaxed.

The Iranians are milking this for all they can get and even they probably can't quite believe how much they are getting away with. The media, the politicians and the public seem to be under the misapprehension that the Iranians are somehow inferior to us and are just 'larking about'.

The Iranians aren't stupid and to be honest they are much better than us at this game. The one thing that we should have is the will to win, the will to do what it takes, the will to not let a foreign power humiliate our armed forces. We have lost that will, we've even lost the will to even care about the situation.

25 years ago today a remote part of our 'empire' was invaded by a hostile power, in 12 weeks we managed to assemble a task force, sail 8 thousand miles and re-take our Islands. Sometime in the intervening 25 years we have lost that will. If the Falklands happened today, what would we do? Even if we suddenly found that will, the capability isn't there anymore, we'd just capitulate.

If this is the way our armed forces are going to act, we may has well shut up shop, disband the lot and then bend over the table and let all and sundry have their way with us.