Taken aback by public comment

The fifteen British sailors captured in Iranian waters (says Iran)/ hijacked from Iraqi waters (says Britain) have been released amid a great show of largesse by the Iranian government and are on their way home as I write.

To a heroes welcome? Well I'm not sure they would have expected or deserved that but some of the comments flying around from their fellow Britons on the BBC's correspondence web site have made me squirm.

Just a sample and they are far from the minority:-

1) "Those of the 15 Service personnel that made those cowardly statements on TV and in letters betrayed their own limited sense of honour and damaged the reputation of their service and their country."


2) "Two questions:

(i) Why did they not resist capture in the first place?

(ii) When will their courts martial be held?


3) "The way that the British Sailors and Marines acted was just a joke.... The woman was the worst.

4) "Whatever happened to JUST giving your "Name, Rank and Number"?
and where were their uniforms at the end? What is happening to our once proud armed forces!"

5) "I think the soldiers should be questioned about their behaviour. I know that probably for them it was like being in the Big Brother house."


So there you have anger, resentment, a certain 'British Bulldog' attitude AND sexism, ie the prime contributor to our abject humiliation was the woman. My first reaction was relief that fifteen serving sailors were not to be put on trial by Iran and how careful Britain needs to be to ensure that the circumstances which led to these arrests is covered a little more carefully in future.

Who are any of these correspondents to condemn in the way that they do, and there are many many more like that. Who is to say what coercion the sailors were under to do as they did? Who is to say who is telling the truth in all this?

There are some people who think like former US Ambassador to the U.N.,John Bolton, ie that hostages are a worth while sacrifice as long as we go in there mob-handed and give Iran a bloody nose, but they are morons in my book. This is mediaeval thinking, this obsession with loss of face and prestige when human freedom and possibly peoples lives are at stake.

Yes sure there are situations in battle conditions where, sadly, you do have to accept the loss that troops are simply sacrificed for the greater good of their comrades and the war effort but this wasn't one of them, not by a long chalk! I'm just glad they are home unharmed and to hell with who scored how many schoolboy political points over the other!