For those still interested here's a rather interesting piece from the BBC - giving some good background and answers some of the questions I had earlier. Which actually given the number of Brits on here I thought for sure someone else would have answered. But I guess not. At any rate... it's a rather sober response. The Brits seem far less given to the whole bragadocio style of public response than do the Americans. Almost priding themselves on restraint and understatement. I sure can deal with that a whole lot better than all the fluff one hears from Condi Rice et. al.
It's interesting that you say that, because some of the media coverage over here has been sugegsting that the government isn't being tough enough with Tehran.
Of course, the opposition always tries to make political capital out of things like this.
(And FYI, the Royal Marines are part of the Royal Navy.)
They are not a seperate force in the US. The Us Marines are a branch of the Navy Department. Though they can operate seperatly at times, they use Navy ships for transportation, ground support, and Navy personel for medics. The marines are also have permanent duty stations on board larger Navy ships such as Carriers.
"Vice Admiral Charles Style said the British boarding party had been "ambushed" after the search of the vessel and that their detention was "unjustified and wrong".
He said the co-ordinates which showed the British personnel were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi territory had been confirmed publicly by the Iraqi foreign ministry.
And he added that the Iranian government had provided Britain with two different positions for the incident - the first placing it within Iraqi waters.
"We pointed this out to them on Sunday in diplomatic contacts. After we did this they then provided a second set of co-ordinates that places the incident in Iranian waters, over two nautical miles from the position given by HMS Cornwall and confirmed by the merchant vessel."
He continued: "It is is hard to understand a legitimate reason for this change of co-ordinates. In any case we unambiguously contest both the positions provided by the Iranians.""
Footage of the captured soldiers has also been aired. Isn't that against the Geneva convention?
Anyway, supposedly the woman who was among the sailors captured will be released tomorrow.
Can't imagine that would happen. I'm sure the Iranians are aware of recent troop movements near their borders. They're just making some noise with this and playing it for what it's worth.
True, but you'll note that the Iranian president has been unusually quiet on this issue. They may have muzzled him to keep him from saying something inflaofftopictory.