posted
Iran releases sailors as a ‘gift’ to Britain Blair says he bears ‘no ill will’; Syria claims it provided ‘quiet diplomacy’
MSNBC News Services Updated: 2 minutes ago
LONDON - Iran on Wednesday freed the 15 detained British sailors and marines in what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an Easter gift to the British people. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he bore “no ill will” toward the Iranian people.
Iranian state television said the 14 men and one woman, who were seized while on patrol in the northern Persian gulf on March 23, would leave Iran on Thursday. An Iranian official in London said they would be handed over to British diplomats in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad’s surprise announcement came at a news conference shortly after he pinned a medal on the chest of the Iranian coast guard commander who intercepted the sailors and marines.
“I’m glad that our 15 service personnel have been released and I know their release will come as a relief not just to them but to their families,” Blair said outside his No. 10 Downing St. office. “Throughout, we have taken a measured approach, firm but calm, not negotiating but not confronting, either.”
Blair added, “To the Iranian people I would simply say this: We bear you no ill will.”
Iranian state television later showed the British sailors talking to Ahmadinejad at the country's presidential palace apparently minutes before they were to be freed.
The footage showed Ahmadinejad shaking hands with the sailors and smiling and chatting.
The Iranian president had said the Britons would be taken to Tehran aiport at the end of the press conference that he was addressing, but The Associated Press and Reuters news agency later reported that they would be flying out on Thursday.
The White House hailed the release. "As Prime Minister Blair just said, President Bush also welcomes the news," Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said.
Syria claims role in release Syria's information minister and foreign minister said Damascus had played a key role in resolving the standoff.
Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said that "Syrian efforts and the Iranian culminated with the release of the British sailors." Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters that "Syria exercised a sort of quiet diplomacy to solve this problem and encourage dialogue between the two parties."
The two officials did not provide details of the Syrian mediation.
Gift to Britain Ahmadinejad said he had pardoned the sailors as a gift to the British people and to mark the birthday of Islam's Prophet Muhammed and Easter.
"On the occasion of the birthday of the great prophet (Muhammad) ... and for the occasion of the passing of Christ, I say the Islamic Republic government and the Iranian people -- with all powers and legal right to put the soldiers on trial -- forgave those 15," he said, referring to the Muslim prophet's birthday last Saturday and Easter, next Sunday.
"This pardon is a gift to the British people," he said.
"On behalf of the great Iranian people, I want to thank the Iranian Coast Guard who courageously defended and captured those who violated their territorial waters, the president told a press conference.
He then interrupted his speech and pinned a medal on the commander of the Coast Guards involved in capturing the British sailors and marines in the northern Gulf on March 23. Two other Coast Guards came on to the podium and saluted during the ceremony.
Concern for female sailor? He criticized Britain for deploying Leading Seaman Faye Turney, one of the 15 Britons, in the Gulf, pointing out that she is a woman with a child.
"How can you justify seeing a mother away from her home, her children? Why don't they respect family values in the West?" he asked of the British government.
Answering questions, Ahmadinejad said there was no link between the sailors' release and the release in Baghdad on Monday of an Iranian diplomat who was seized by gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms in January.
"If we had wanted to exchange Jalal Sharafi with the rest (of the Britons) we would have exchanged him for 100,000. But we pardoned them," he said, adding the decision was "based on humanitarian considerations."
The president also weighed in on his country's diplomatic standoff with the United States.
"If Mr. Bush and his government change their behavior ... this side (Iran) has the ability to reconsider" its ties with Washington, he said, without specifying what change he wanted to see.
The White House responded that it was Tehran that needed to change its behavior and again urged the Iranian government to abandon its efforts nuclear program if it wants to improve relations with the United States.
posted
I certainly am glad they have been released. We all know that Ahmadinejad did not do this out of the goodness of his heart, but for his own personal gains. We as americans are not so foolish (nor the british) as to his reasons to appear as a kind, generous man. But with this said, I am certainly glad that they are free..
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quote:Originally posted by Gordon Bennett: We are terrorists to them, they are terrorists to us. It's all the same...
I guess we should all kiss the feet of Bush huh?
once again gordo? you fail commando social studies 101... "terrorists" are guerrilla fighters... they fight that way because they have to... they have to because they have inferior fighting capability... it's not complicated...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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Not just they fight that way because they have to:
In today's world, they fight that way because they can.
More times than not, it wins.
It has been demonstrated thoughout history. A persistant guerrilla force within their homeland likely cannot be destroyed and can survive on a tiny fraction of an invading force's needs.
There are long and detailed "text" out there that "teach" how to wage guerrilla warfare against an invader and which rattle off the details of the techniques of exausting the invader in almost precise accounting detail.
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: I'd disagree on one point, glass...
There are long and detailed "text" out there that "teach" how to wage guerrilla warfare against an invader and which rattle off the details of the techniques of exausting the invader in almost precise accounting detail.
HMMMMMMMMMM..... sounds like youve been doing some research???
Besides stating the obvious....save it for the campuses.... will ya?
-------------------- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"
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quote:Originally posted by Gordon Bennett: We are terrorists to them, they are terrorists to us. It's all the same...
I covered that many posts ago.........
NEXT!!!!
No Gordo, IT IS NOT THE SAME.
Our modern military, in both tactics and weapons, try to MINIMIZE civilian casualties and express regret and remorse when such events do unfortunately happen.
Meanwhile their military, (if one could even call it that), use tactics and weapons that try to MAXIMIZE civilian casualties... They express no remorse, in fact, they revel in it.
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example.
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quote:Originally posted by bdgee: "Their", referring to exactly whom?
I ask, because it looks, in almost all cases, like you mean Muslims, i.e., like a determined and directed religious bigotry.
In what other cases I can see, it seems to be Arabs......looks like racial bigotry then.
Surely you don't intend that.
(But I must admit, when following the examples of dubya, I can se that it would look like religious or racial bigotry.)
I think he means the muslim extreamists in Iraq are brutal ruthless murderers!!! does stating this obvious fact equate to relious or racial bigotry?? because these murdering scum happen to be muslim any reference to that fact by a non-muslim automaticaly makes that person a bigot??? reguardless of thier religious or ethinc background they are what they are - brutal murderes of innocent men,women and children!!!! the vast majority of muslims are good, kind individuals, muslim extreamists who choose to subvert thier faith and commit mass murder on a daily basis are SCUM!!!!
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So you feel you have successfully painted me as an RNC parrot and figure now you can to move on to painting me as a racist bigot? Your tactics come straight from the "25 rules of Disinformation" handbook.
Why don't you enlighten everyone as to where I have made racist or religious "exclamations" before.... You can't... SO....STFU and quit making baseless accusations. I am sick of you going around slandering my name. Keep it up, pretty soon everyone will know what you are all about... Those who have been here long enough already know.
Madmoney,
Your comments are right on target.
I was simply describing what sets our military apart from a terrorist and using extremist islamist militias as an example. "They" refers to anyone who uses the tactics I described. Yes, in the case of Iraq or Dafur, extremist islamists fit that profile, but they are not the only ones who do.
What Gordon Bennett fails to realize, is that while he claims to be outraged over treatment our military at Walter Reed hospital, he has no problem putting our military in the same catageory as people who set bombs beside roads without care of collateral damage and detonate them with remotes, or strap explosives to themselves and blow up in crowded civilian places.
"We are terrorists to them, and they are terrorists to us. It's all the same".... Right?
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example.
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posted
If I explained it in detail, you wouldn't recognize it for what it is since you seem to believe it is alright to utter that shameful drivel in the first place.
I will give you one or two examples, but that will be the end of it.
I am not a communist, in spite of your blunt declaration or your insinuations and I do not appreciate your having done so.
I am not supporting the Iraqi insurgents (or any other of your supposed enemies of our Nation) by saying (since before the invasion) that there was never a hope of anything positive that could reslult for the U.S. by invading and inserting ourselves or our values into that culture and I resent the implications as well as the insulting lables you affix to anyone not parroting the RNC talking points on the subject.
You have for months been unable to make any post without a slur aimed at me, by name and you bluntly request others to do likewise. I don't appreciate that either. You are a crude slanderer and an ignorant republican hatchet man with pitifully poor manners, at best. If you insist on name calling and smearing the name and reputation of others, learn also to get responded to. Like Truman said, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."
I'm sorry, but your frequesnt rants and rails about anyone not American of white European decent plants you in the category of a bigot.
It is you that habitually makes baseless accusations, not me.
I have not read anything called "25 rules of Disinformation". Isn't that from the RNC talking points preparitory reading list so those loyal to the Party rather than the Country can undertand the means and methods of the latest interpretations of Mein Kamph issueing through their "Talking Points"? (The tactic of picking specific words and phrases to be repeated as frequently as possible in order to plant negative connotation on anything not fostered bt the Party is directly from the designs of Goebels, in case you didn't lknow)
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Nope, I don't advertise and spread a rant against others, like you do. I avoid even using your ID unless it is unavoidable, in order to make sure no one takes it as referring to another.
One needs only to look at the last of your post to locate one.
What is it I recall you saying about how the French deserved to be treated because they were French, can't be trusted, and "....everybody knows..."?
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No, you are just being the same crude name calling jerk you always are.
You rant and want to not be called for it.
Don't work that way, as your hero dubya (you know, the one you guaranteed everyone was doing the right thing in Iraq and in whose defense you called those that didn't genuflect immediately names of the sort of socialist, communist, Arab loving, un-American, traitors, etc.) is learning.
"You live by the sword, you die by the sword."
Clean up your act and you have no problems.
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