British Hostages – Some Questions
As an Englishman and ex infantry officer, I view the machinations of the last few days in the Shatt al-Arab waterway as worrying, to say the least.
The Shatt al-Arab is essentially a river that flows into the
Persian Gulf. At it’s widest, its about half a mile wide where it flows into the Gulf. It is a highly sensitive area for Iran. In fact it was the primary cause of the 1980 Iran/Iraq war when Sadam Hussein abrogated the Algiers Accord which divided the river between the two countries, and claimed the whole thing for Iraq. In places it is only 300 meters wide so who owns what is open to conjecture.
Into this volatile mix must be added the intelligence gathering activities of Royal Navy personnel whizzing up and down in high-speed rubber boats. This is all good school-boy adventure until something goes wrong. Then, hard questions have to be answered.
We understand that the marines were ‘lightly’ armed. Why were they armed? A reasonable answer might be that they were vulnerable to attack from a hostile force. Who could that hostile force be? Of course it would be the Iranians. But they were attacked by the Iranians: why didn’t they use their weapons? If the argument runs that
Great Britain is not at war with Iran; then why carry the weapons?
We know that they had helicopter ‘air cover’. Why did the helicopter disappear as soon as the Iranians showed up?Presumably, the Iranians captured the marines and sailors under duress. They surely were not invited for a quick trip around the bay to see the sights. Therefore the military personal were victims of aggression. In that situation, those marines and sailors were at war in every way that they could understand.
In those circumstances, why were they so ccommodating to ‘their’ enemy? Does anyone believe that they were in fear of their life? Human life is sacrosanct, but their actions brought shame and disgrace on their Corps and country. Not all of them. Only four out of the fifteen were seen to give aid and comfort to the enemy. But the most prominent were the two officers; Capt. Air RM, and Lt. Carman RN. These two young men are a disgrace to their uniform and should be hounded out of the service. Indeed, I would be very surprised if they are still serving by the end of this year. I have my doubts about the others, but when their officers demonstrate such poor leadership, how can they be sanctioned? In no previous era — not during World War I, II, Korea, Suez or the Falklands — would British servicemen have rolled over like this. There was more fight in Far Eastern POWs after six years of Japanese abuse, than was seen in those young men this last week.
The last question to be answered is why HMS Cornwall did not apprehend the Iranians. If Prime Minister Blair is correct and the hostages were not in Iranian waters, then ipso facto the Iranians must have entered Iraqi waters to capture them.
A modern war ship is bristling with technology to identify threats in the area. Somewhere in the bowels of HMS Cornwall a young rating would have been plotting every thing afloat on the water that day. Why were the marines and ratings allowed to sail into a trap? Perhaps another RN officer: the Captain of HMS Cornwall could answer that one for us?
