As the Captain's Quarter's points out, if this is true, it's a clear violation of the Geneva conventions. You cannot charge a man with espionage when he is operating in uniform.A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.
Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”
Memo to White Hall: This is no time to be playing "Softly, softly catchee monkey." Start getting in touch with your inner Thatcher.
Update: The Belmont Club predicts that the "human rights" crowd is going to be strangely quiet about this episode because,
As currently interpreted the Geneva Conventions only apply to individuals bent on destroying America. Individuals who blow up elementary schools, kidnap children, attack churches and mosques, kill invalids in wheelchairs, plan attacks on skyscrapers in New York, behead journalists, detonate car bombs with children to camouflage their crime, or board jetliners with explosive shoes -- all while wearing mufti or even women's clothing -- these are all considered "freedom fighters" of the most principled kind. They and they alone enjoy the protections of the Geneva Convention. As to Americans like Tucker and Menchaca or Israeli Gilad Shalit -- or these fifteen British sailors for that matter, it is a case of "what Geneva Convention?" We don't need no steenkin' Geneva Convention to try these guys as spies. That's the way the Human Rights racket works.
Sir Winston Churchill is being monitered by seismographers for potential tremors due to grave-spinning.
ReplyDeleteC'mon John Bull, you conquered half the known world; lets not let a fourth-rate dictator of a third world sty hole nation sully up your sons!