Brits: Tell Iranians What They Want to Hear
March 31, 2007, 6:24 pm |
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by Bill Levinson
The British hostages in Iran should feel no shame whatsoever for telling their kidnappers whatever their kidnappers want to hear, and they should have every confidence that the entire civilized world knows exactly what is going on. In retrospect, similar advice or even orders should have been given to American service personnel like John McCain, who were physically abused for refusing to make false statements against the United States: tell your captors whatever they want to hear, and don’t worry about it hurting your country.
The Hague and Geneva Conventions require prisoners of war to give their captors only their names, ranks, and serial numbers. The fact that the British hostages have given the Iranians more, in terms of “confessions” that they entered Iran’s territorial waters, plus Iran’s televising their pictures (it is a war crime to humiliate prisoners of war by broadcasting their pictures) has already told the civilized world what is going on. Iran obviously threatened its prisoners with physical abuse, and they need not be ashamed of complying with this pirate “nation’s” demands under duress.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran on Friday released a third letter purportedly written by detained British sailor Faye Turney, in which she claims to have been “sacrificed” by British and U.S. policies and urges both countries to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
“We were arrested after entering Iranian waters by the Iranian forces. For this I am deeply sorry,” the letter states.
“I am writing to you as a British service person who has been sent to Iraq, sacrificed due to the intervening policies of the Bush and Blair governments.
“I believe that for our countries to move forward, we need to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq, and leave the people of Iraq to start rebuilding their lives.”
It is already known from Turney’s first two “letters” that she did not even write them. Not only are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his accomplices pirates (as proven by their kidnapping of British personnel on the high seas) and war criminals (as proven by their display of their hostages’ pictures and obvious coercion of the hostages into making statements against their country), they are incompetent pirates and criminals. Instead of having a native English-speaker (and they could doubtlessly have found any number of Lord Haw-Haws who would have accommodated them) write what they wanted Seaman Turney to say, they apparently wrote the script in Farsi and had one of their own people translate it into English.
A C.S. Forester Horatio Hornblower novel would have told them what was wrong with this, but of course people who burn books tend to be a lot more ignorant than those who read them. In the story, the British offer to pardon a condemned forger if he will use his talents to write false orders from Napoleon Bonaparte. He warns his handlers that they must get a native Frenchman to dictate what they want said, or the French will know the orders are false. An Englishman to whom French is a second language will not, so the forger warns, be able to write the way a Frenchman would write even if the grammar is entirely correct. If a Frenchman translates English sentences, they will still not look as though they were originally written by a Frenchman. What the English should do is tell the Frenchman what they want said in general terms, and let him compose the words himself. Of course, had the Iranians followed this advice, it would still be obvious that the “confessions” were coerced, but at least they would not have looked like incompetent buffoons as well as the pirates and war criminals they are.
Let’s see if we can help Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compose even more clever things for his hostages to say. Don’t worry, Mahmoud, all of the following stories are as believable as what you have already forced your kidnapping victims to say:
(1) The United Kingdom is an aggressor nation that started the Second World War.
(2) Adolf Hitler was a Jew, as were most members of the Nazi Party.
(3) Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in retaliation for the United States’ unprovoked nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(4) Jews and Christians worship the Devil.
(5) American missiles destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11.
(6) The World Trade Center is still standing, and stories about its destruction are evil lies from the Evil Bush Administration.
In any event, our message to the hostages is simple; don’t subject yourselves to physical abuse or danger by refusing to speak against Queen and Country. Everyone knows what is going on. In fact, every time you repeat what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants you to say, it is a reminder that he and his pirate nation are in violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and we will construe it in exactly this manner.
The Iranian people should meanwhile remember that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has committed an act of war against a nuclear-armed nation, whose allies include the United States and a good part of Europe. The United Kingdom and its allies have no quarrel with the Iranian people, and perhaps Iranians should do something about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before he drags them into his personal fantasy world of a 12th Imam and conquest of the world by what passes for Islam in his deranged fantasy land.
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Categories, Tags: Iran, Dictator Watch
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