Yachtsmen Threaten Iran's Security by Geezer

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Yachtsmen Threaten Iran's Security

POSTED BY: GEEZER
UPDATED: Thursday, December 3, 2009 04:30
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 4:12 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
An Iranian official has said "serious" measures will be taken against a UK yacht crew it if is proved they had "evil intentions".

The five Britons are being detained by the Iranian navy after the Volvo 60 yacht was stopped on 25 November.

The Foreign Office said Luke Porter, Oliver Smith, David Bloomer, Oliver Young and Sam Usher may have "strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters".

The Team Pindar-backed yacht was sailing from Bahrain to Dubai.

Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie, President Ahmadinejad's head of staff, told Iran's Fars news agency: "Judiciary will decide about the five... naturally our measures will be hard and serious if we find out they had evil intentions."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8387740.stm

I'm betting that the gung-ho skipper of a Revolutionary Guard gunboat (who's now in deep doodoo) picked these guys up without checking with higher command, and the Iranians are now stuck with them. They can't admit a mistake, so thay have to play hardline. The guys from the sailboat will probebly spend some time in jail and when things die down will be quietly repatriated. Bet Iran keeps the boat, though.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 5:23 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Maybe they should be treated as "enemy combatants" and sent to a secret prison where they can be "harshly interrogated" to see what they were REALLY doing there, eh?

I mean, there's nothing WRONG with doing that, is there? ;)

And sure, they MAY have "strayed inadvertently" into Iranian waters... And then again, the 9/11 hijackers MIGHT have "strayed inadvertently" into the twin towers.

By the way, a route from Bahrain to Dubai shouldn't have taken them within 100km of Iranian waters.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 8:20 AM

GINOBIFFARONI

sailors...

diplomats...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_raid_on_the_Iranian_Liaison_Office_in_
Arbil

bad behavior all around

Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists

Lets party like its 1939

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 1:39 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Maybe they should be treated as "enemy combatants" and sent to a secret prison where they can be "harshly interrogated" to see what they were REALLY doing there, eh?

I mean, there's nothing WRONG with doing that, is there? ;)

And sure, they MAY have "strayed inadvertently" into Iranian waters... And then again, the 9/11 hijackers MIGHT have "strayed inadvertently" into the twin towers.

Okay. Mike's Standard Response #2 then.

Quote:

By the way, a route from Bahrain to Dubai shouldn't have taken them within 100km of Iranian waters.

Sailboats can't always sail a straight course, depending on the wind. Besides, look at the map in the BBC article; a straight shot from Bahrain to Dubai, aside from going through Qatar, passes straight through areas over which Iran claims some sort of control(pretty much half the Persian Gulf).

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 1:50 PM

KWICKO

Quote:

Sailboats can't always sail a straight course, depending on the wind.

Gosh, really? I confess I've never had to tack 100km off course myself, but I guess that's why I'm not a master yachtsman... [/sarcasm]

Of course, there's just the hint of a possibility that maybe, just MAYBE, these "sailors" aren't really all they're cracked up to be, either. I mean, nobody ever really goes undercover disguised as an MI-5 agent, do they?

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 8:37 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8389946.stm

British yachtsmen 'freed by Iran'
(From left): Sam Usher, Oliver Smith, Luke Porter, Oliver Young
The crew were on their way to take part in the Dubai-Muscat yacht race

Five British yachtsmen held by the Iranian navy for a week have been freed, Iranian state radio has said.

The crew were said to have mistakenly strayed into Iran waters as they sailed from Bahrain to Dubai for a race.

It comes hours after UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband spoke by phone to his Iranian counterpart.

The five were thought to be held on the island of Sirri in the Gulf and the Foreign Office said it was "actively investigating" the latest reports.

Luke Porter, 21, from Weston-super-Mare; Oliver Smith, 31, from Southampton; Oliver Young, 21, from Cornwall; Sam Usher, 26, from Scarborough, and Bahrain-based David Bloomer were held on 25 November.

'Actively investigating'

According to reports in Iran, the naval guard command of Siri island announced the five were freed about 0400 GMT.

The naval guard command said it accepted the yacht entered Iranian "by mistake".

BBC correspondent Christian Fraser in Bahrain said he had spoken to Vanessa Bloomer, Mr Bloomer's wife, who said she had received no independent verification of the men's release.

Our correspondent added there was still a lot of uncertainty about what was going on.

The five were detained after the Iranian navy stopped their Volvo 60 yacht in the Gulf on 25 November.

The Team Pindar-backed yacht was sailing from Bahrain to Dubai to take part in the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Race.

The 360-nautical mile Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race began on 26 November and ended two days later in the Omani capital's Bandar Al-Rawdah marina.

The Kingdom of Bahrain yacht is owned by the Sail Bahrain project, which aims to promote the island as a yachting destination and was recently launched by Team Pindar.

Team Pindar is owned by G A Pindar & Son Ltd, a family-owned print and publishing business based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

It is not the first time British sailors have been detained after being accused of straying into Iranian waters.

In March 2007 there was a prolonged stand-off between the UK and Iran after a 15-strong Royal Navy crew was detained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

And in 2004, eight British servicemen were held in Iran after being seized in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where they were training the Iraqi river patrol service.

I guess Iran is more reasonable than the US

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_raid_on_the_Iranian_Liaison_Office_in_
Arbil

Especially as these Iranian were detained in Iraq, and the Iraqi government protested that they were accredited diplomats... and the US held them in a prison camp on a pretty thin technicality... and then were only released as a Iraqi demand as part of the negotiation of a status of forces agreement two and a half years later...

Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists

Lets party like its 1939

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Wednesday, December 2, 2009 4:41 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Gosh, really? I confess I've never had to tack 100km off course myself, but I guess that's why I'm not a master yachtsman...

That and not being able to read a map, maybe.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, December 2, 2009 7:32 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Gosh, really? I confess I've never had to tack 100km off course myself, but I guess that's why I'm not a master yachtsman...

That and not being able to read a map, maybe.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Geezer, I know you're old and your eyes are feeble, but when you speak of reading a map, you really SHOULD look at the little scale down at the bottom. You're pointing out an area over a hundred kilometers wide, and treating it as if these yahoos were threading the needle.

Apparently I read a map quite a bit better than either you OR this crew of "sailors" do, because I can see an amazingly wide swath of sea in which to sail, which quite clearly WOULD NOT be in Iranian waters.

From the outset, you've intimated that Iran acted out of nefarious purposes and should be embarrassed, never once admitting the point that these alleged "sailors" bumbled their way far off course and into Iranian waters. Not that you're biased or anything - it's always just a remarkable coincidence that you give the benefit of a hundred-kilometer-wide doubt to whichever side happens to be friendly towards us at the moment.

Quote:

I'm betting that the gung-ho skipper of a Revolutionary Guard gunboat (who's now in deep doodoo) picked these guys up without checking with higher command, and the Iranians are now stuck with them. They can't admit a mistake, so thay have to play hardline. The guys from the sailboat will probebly spend some time in jail and when things die down will be quietly repatriated. Bet Iran keeps the boat, though.

Looks like you lost BOTH your bets. No word or allegations that the Irnians picked them up without checking with higher-ups (also known as "doing their job" and "taking the initiative", something you'd no doubt applaud if it were the U.S. Navy doing something similar to protect our shores from Iranian boats entering our waters without permission), no word of any Iranian skipper being in deep doodoo, no word of Iran being "stuck with them" - and they took the sailors AND their boat to international waters.

Do you ever get tired of being so wrong?

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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Wednesday, December 2, 2009 6:22 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

Geezer, I know you're old and your eyes are feeble, but when you speak of reading a map, you really SHOULD look at the little scale down at the bottom. You're pointing out an area over a hundred kilometers wide, and treating it as if these yahoos were threading the needle.

Draw a line from Dubai to the tip of Quatar. Such a line runs maybe 25 klicks from waters Iran claims. Remember that a sailboat doesn't go in a straight line, depending on where the wind blows, and you go where the current goes when there's no wind. Imagine you're practicing for a race from Dubai to Bahrain, running the course in reverse. Do you go several hundred kilometers out of your way to give Iranian waters a 100 klick cushion, or do you sail the best line you can? You could also figure that the Revolutionary Guards might not always stick exactly to the rules, or might not be the greatest navigators themselves.

Quote:
From the outset, you've intimated that Iran acted out of nefarious purposes...

No. I said they fucked up. ...

Quote:
never once admitting the point that these alleged "sailors" bumbled their way far off course and into Iranian waters.

Not that far, and there are reports they lost the wind, had propellor problems and were drifting. (But I'm sure you'll say that was just part of the MI5 conspiracy).

Quote:
Looks like you lost BOTH your bets. No word or allegations that the Irnians picked them up without checking with higher-ups, no word of any Iranian skipper being in deep doodoo, no word of Iran being "stuck with them" - and they took the sailors AND their boat to international waters.

Yep. Really unusual, considering that you had them pegged as MI5 spies.

And I'm sure the Iranians would just come out and admit it if they had screwed up. Actually, the quick release and the return of the boat kinda confirms that they acted hastily, after threatening dire consequences, and want to get a potential embarrassment away from them as soon as possible. Going from "Judiciary will decide about the five... naturally our measures will be hard and serious if we find out they had evil intentions." to "Go. Be free" in one day looks pretty much like the Iranians trying to wash their hands of the whole incident.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, December 2, 2009 7:36 PM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Yep. Really unusual, considering that you had them pegged as MI5 spies.

Right. Just like you called the Iranians kidnappers and said they were holding the sailors hostage. Just like that. What's that, you say? You never said that? Yeah, me too.

Quote:

Of course, there's just the hint of a possibility that maybe, just MAYBE, these "sailors" aren't really all they're cracked up to be, either. I mean, nobody ever really goes undercover disguised as an MI-5 agent, do they?

I'm sure you'll call that "sophistry", your standard response when it's pointed out that you are, as usual, full of shit.

You're very quick to assume that Iran "fucked up" in defending its borders and its waters, yet you seem loathe to admit any possibility that the Brits "fucked up" by fumbling their way into Iranian waters. Not that you're biased or anything. ;)

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Thursday, December 3, 2009 4:15 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Right. Just like you called the Iranians kidnappers and said they were holding the sailors hostage. Just like that. What's that, you say? You never said that? Yeah, me too.

Quote:
Of course, there's just the hint of a possibility that maybe, just MAYBE, these "sailors" aren't really all they're cracked up to be, either. I mean, nobody ever really goes undercover disguised as an MI-5 agent, do they?

Okay. You say you didn't have them pegged as MI5, and then you quote yourself inferring they're MI5.

For your next act, will you debate what "is" is?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, December 3, 2009 4:30 AM

KWICKO

So because I said "maybe", "just MAYBE", "possibility", "a hint", and words like that, you thought that I had someone "PEGGED" as a spy? Really?

I'd wager that if Scooter Libby (or his boss) had said that "there's a hint of a possibility, a sliver of a chance, that maybe, just MAYBE, Valerie Plame might not be just another ambassador's wife" when they were discussing her covert career with Robert Novak, that none of them would have faced charges and investigations.

Maybe you'd like to debate what "maybe" is; you seem to have amazing difficulty understanding plain English.

Or would you rather debate the difference between "inferred" and "pegged as"? You seem to have trouble telling the difference between those two as well.

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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