Iran Releases Prisoners: Could Bush Be the Crazy One?
by James Buchanan
In a surprise move, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the release of the fifteen British sailors accused of crossing into Iranian territorial waters. The release took place just a few days after a news story which reported “All 15 British navy personnel held by Iran have admitted entering Iranian waters illegally, a Tehran news agency said on Monday.” The Iranian media had aired video of the British sailors The sailors appeared relaxed and showed no bruises or other signs of abuse. Immediately after the video, the British demanded that no other videos of their sailors should be released.
Both George Bush and Tony Blair seemed all set to go to war over this incident. The fact that the British were closer to Iran than Iraq when captured was conspicuously kept out of the Western media reports. The British even produced a fake map which drew the maritime border where it suited them.
The closest thing to a neutral witness in this episode would be some Iraqi fishermen who witnessed the incident. An article from antiwar.com reports: “The Iraqi military commander of the country’s territorial waters cast doubt on claims the Britons were in Iraqi waters. ‘We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control. We don’t know why they were there.’” Iraqi fishermen seem perhaps the most likely people to know where the international boundary was, but their testimony has gotten no mention in the mainstream media.
The most compelling argument about who was on which side of the border is the fact that the US and Britain have ships all over the Persian Gulf. The Gulf is so crowded right now a US submarine recently collided with a Japanese vessel. The US has ship borne radar, surveillance aircraft and spy satellites, which can pinpoint every ship within a few millimeters. If Iranian gunboats had crossed the border, it seems completely certain that they would have been blown out of the water. The neocons don’t have a response to this bit of logic –yet most of them were willing to condemn Iran and beat the war drums over this non-event.
Every nation has a right to defend its borders and territorial waters. Many of the British and American ships had never been in the Persian Gulf before. It would be no great surprise if one or more Allied ships strayed over the border. The fact that Iran and Iraq fought a war in the 1980s and the exact maritime border may still be disputed is another factor. Add to this the fact that several Iranian diplomats in Iraq had been arrested or kidnapped recently, and it’s no great surprise that the Iranians took a crew of British sailors prisoner for straying over the border –possibly in part as a retaliation.
Now that this incident is over, we have more proof that the Bush and Blair regimes are insufferable, insane warmongers, who should be removed from power with the greatest of haste. Meanwhile, the Iranian government clearly stated what they were doing throughout this incident and graciously consented to releasing the British captives in time for Easter. Compare that to the fate of various innocent goat herders, who were rounded up in Afghanistan by mistake, tortured and wrongly held at Guantanamo for years before being released.