I must say I feel uneasy about the Brit sailors captured and subsequently released by the Iranians. The RN doesn’t look good and the MOD has ricocheted back and forth about letting the hostages sell their story to the press. First they can and now they can’t which means two have sold their story for a motza and the other 11 can’t. People are furious that the hostages were initially allowed to sell their stories forcing the Admirals hit the rewind button. Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral Adrian Johns said earlier today that the review of procedures was under way. All of a sudden we need a review of procedures that have stood the Brits in good stead for hundreds of years. HMS Cornwall is a type 22 ‘stetched’ frigate and is reasonably well armed with 114mm (4.5 inch) MK 8 gun Goalkeeper close-in weapons system (CIWS) Sea Wolf anti-missile system 2 x Quad Harpoon missile launchers 2 x 20mm Close range guns NATO Seagnat Decoy Launchers She has a cruise speed of 18 knots and a sprint capability of 30 knots and has tons of radar sensors which raises the question: why the hell didn’t the Captain move in and cover his troops. Am I to believe that it is RN Standard Operating Procedures to allow crew to approach unknown shipping without ‘Mother cover” or sufficient heavy weapons to guarantee their own safety? Some RAN or RN readers may correct me here but I cannot begin to imagine how the Captain could allow crew members to wander around the ocean miles from their ship in rigids armed only with personal weapons. Surely risk assessment would consider the possibility that some ships may not like being bordered and might fight back. I would if all I could see from horizon to horizon was a couple of rigids. Over at LP armchair warriors have picked up on a new military buzzword ‘ROE’ (Rules of Engagement) and point out that ROEs in force precludes the Captain firing on Iranian shipping. Of course it does, the Brits aren’t at war with Iran but that doesn’t stop the captain keeping an eye on his sailors. Full steam ahead…move the frigate over…..staring down the barrel of a 4.5 in quick firer backed up by heavy machine guns would tend to take the revolutionary zeal out of the Iranian Navy. Why didn’t he? If he was too far away to do it, why was he? Reports state he was ordered not to fire and that’s reasonable but why couldn’t he adopt an aggressive posture and frighten the Iranians off. Maybe because he was out of range which gets back to the original question. Why? Remedial Step One: Never let anyone come between you and your off-ship troops (look at the radar screen to see if there are any unknown boats nearby) and never let them get out of range. Interesting article from MOD Oracle

Iranian intelligence officers told the 15 British captives they first became suspicious about their activities after watching an interview with one of them on British television. On 13 March – 10 days before the 15 were seized – Channel 5 broadcast an interview with Captain Chris Air, one of the captured Royal Marines, in which he stated that his crew’s role was to liaise with Iraqi vessels to ‘let them know we are here to protect them, protect their fishing and to stop any terrorism or any piracy in the area’.

Remedial Step Two: Keep the media off the ship. They tend to feed intelligence to the bad guys – some even do it deliberately. The days of number, rank and name only are obviously over but I would’ve thought that Jack Tar could have waited a bit before rolling over. Coming home with ‘Show Bags’ like they’d been to the local fete didn’t help their image nor does the happy snaps provided by the Iranians. Did they ever, for a moment, consider the reputation of the Navy. A local Bishop personifies what is wrong with the Brits at the moment;

A leading Church of England bishop has claimed the Iranian president showed a better understanding of “moral and spiritual” values at the end of the naval hostage crisis than Britain’s political leaders.

What’s gone wrong? And this;

The youngest captive, Arthur Batchelor, 20, sold his account to the Daily Mirror, and described how guards had mocked him, calling him “Mr Bean”, and said that he had he cried himself to sleep at night.

Poor Arthur. The reputation of the once great Royal Navy has just flat-lined.

Muhammad Dawood (nee Hicks) pleads gulty..uh uh. Doesn’t matter, guilt can be denied….his Australian Cheer Squad will just say he pleaded guilty to get out of Guantanamo Bay. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but guilty is guilty and to suggest he pleaded guilty to get home doesn’t detract from the guilt.

He is a self confessed terrorist.

It is suggested that he may well be able to do his time in an Australian prison for the term the judge gives him. That’s fine, it takes the pressure off Howard and deprives the cheer squad of some oxygen but I can promise you there are whole mobs of human rights lawyers burning the midnight oil right now in preparation for appeals against whatever he is awarded. As soon as he is in Australia there will be a swarm of activity. They won’t let go.

Of course they are going to have to act very quickly because Muhommad’s time in prison won’t be all that nice. Standard crims are also Aussies and won’t take kindly to a self confessed terrorist in their midst. The answer to that, of course is solitary, protective custody…..more ammo for the cheer squad…..inhuman will be their cry but me, I’m barracking for the crims.

sic him boys.

I’ve yet to hear of a criminal claiming his trip to from the the courthuose was inhumane. Never a word about the airconditioning being too high or too low and I’ve never heard of bad guys suffering from dehydration or getting ill to the point of hospitalization on the way to court. Until now.

Victorian Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno gave the caution after being told several of the men became ill after they were transported from court in a vehicle without airconditioning or water in temperatures above 30C. Lawyer Greg Barns, for one of the accused men, Ezzit Raad, told the court the incident occurred last Thursday.

If that’s a grave intended denial of human rights then I trust no-one invloved ever has to endure a long army convoy It’s a well known that terrorist leaders instruct their people to claim “torture” as soon as they can after capture. It creates a queue of human rights lawyers to come to their assistance even if the torture is totally invented. Every time a terrorist suspect is required to answer to the law for his alleged crimes against humanity or his intent to committ such crimes his lawyers modus operandi, the first step for defence, is to appeal to the weak amongst us by claiming “torture” or “lack of human rights” A sound tactic but ethically questionable because it is designed to take the emphasis away from the alleged intent to conduct a terrorist activity and shift it to the conditions of incarceration. Articles waxes philosophically about the accused. Nice guy,…astounded that he would be considered a suicide bomber….. shock and indignation…..their right to a fair trial had been irreparably damaged……His father said his son was an “angel”…. The HRLRC is gravely concerned that the type, length, conditions and effects of the Detainees’ detention amount to serious ongoing human rights violations, including in relation to: and they list a standard litany of rights from the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. All of the above is fine and I don’t deny the alleged terrorists their human rights but at the moment the entire debate is about their rights and little mention of their alleged terrorist acts. I’m of the opinion that every article printed in the media should remind readers of the alleged intent as in “poor little Mohamed was denied a glass of water under the covenant of blah…blah…blah but it is alleged he was a part of a plot to blow up Australian infrastructure and/or innocent Australian women and children. Some perspective, don’t you think?

JOHN Howard is expected to announce this week a major increase to Australia’s military deployment in Afghanistan, including a 200-strong special forces taskforce.

The special forces task group, drawn from the Special Air Service Regiment and 4RAR commandos, will be deployed to Oruzgan province, where NATO forces are expecting a fresh offensive from Taliban insurgents in the coming months. They will bolster the Australian reconstruction taskforce currently based at Tarin Kowt. In addition, Mr Howard is expected to announce the deployment of a 150-strong air defence radar unit.

As Afghanistan is accepted by the ALP as a ‘good’ war rather then Iraq which is a ‘bad’ war, I wouldn’t imagine the increase will get much coverage….no political mileage for the ALP here. In fact Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philipines, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, London, Spain, Australia’s law courts, Iran, Southern Thailand and any where else they raise their ugly heads are all theatres of the one war. I wonder if the ALP Defence policy paper has a stand for each and every theatre based on it’s probablity of making Howard and Bush look incompetant….who knows.