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| Steyn: Taking of hostages by Iran is not Britain's finest hour |
| 2007-04-01 |
| Twenty-seven years ago, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a student in Tehran and is said (by a former Iranian president, for one) to be among those in the U.S. embassy who seized and held American citizens hostage for more than a year. Today, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is president of Iran and bears less ambiguous responsibility for Western hostages. This time round, they're British subjects: 15 sailors and Royal Marines. There are a few differences between this kidnapping and the last: Back in 1979, the Iranians seized their hostages by invading a diplomatic mission -- the sovereign territory of the United States. In 2007, they seized them in international waters. In 1979, two weeks after the embassy crisis began, 13 American hostages who happened to be black were released; the remainder were held for another 14 months. In 2007, the one woman among the hostages is being offered by the regime for early release, invitingly dangled in front of the TV cameras, though with her Royal Navy uniform replaced by Islamic dress; it remains to be seen what will become of the others. On Thursday, a new generation of "student demonstrators" called for the "British aggressors" to be executed. On this 25th anniversary of the Falklands War, Tony Blair is looking less like Margaret Thatcher and alarmingly like Jimmy Carter, the embodiment of the soi-disant "superpower" as a smiling eunuch. Rest at link. It gets more caustic. |
| Posted by:Dave D. |
| #5 Patrolling the Shatt al-Arab at a time of war, the Royal Navy operates under rules of engagement designed by distant fainthearts with an eye to the polite fictions of "international law": If you're in a "warship," you can't wage war. If you're in a "destroyer," don't destroy anything. If you're in a "frigate," you're frigging done for. quick way to disassemble a volunteer army... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-04-01 21:23 |
| #4 Simple: the media are not on the side of those who want us to fight and win this war. They are on the side of those who want the war to end quickly so they can get get back to their "important" issues, back to the only politics they know: the politics of pimping for parasites. To them, the war is an unwanted and unnecessary distraction. See today's Obama article for an example. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2007-04-01 20:24 |
| #3 How is it that someone as humorous, concise, informed and well-reasoned as this cannot get traction in the national media. He speaks for the vast majority of America (I forgive him being Canadian and actually would like him to change teams) and has a common sense approach to dealing with the looming insanity. Yet, like Victor Davis Hanson, somehow isn't heard by those who need to hear him. Tragic that he isn't quoated nightly by the MSM, not just on Hugh Hewitt, good though that is for some of us. |
| Posted by: JustAboutEnough 2007-04-01 20:17 |
| #2 Gawd is Steyn good. He can pump out incredibly well-written, often brilliantly witty, and analytically insightful stuff with regularity. |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2007-04-01 13:33 |
| #1 On Sept. 11, a New York skyscraper was brought down by the Egyptian leader of a German cell of an Afghan terror group led by a Saudi. Islamism is only the first of many globalized ideological viruses that will seep undetected across national frontiers in the years ahead. Meanwhile, we put our faith in meetings of foreign ministers. "It is better to be making the news than taking it," wrote Winston Churchill in 1898. But his successors have gotten used to taking it, and the men who make the news well understand that. |
| Posted by: KBK 2007-04-01 13:06 |