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Picture Says 1000 Words - or 3000 Centrifuges

Posted by Sapper on Monday, April 09, 2007 3:36:45 PM
The AP has a news story on the expansion of Iran's nuclear program but I think this picture pretty much dispels all pretense that Iran plans to cooperate with the international community:

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(Surprise) Media Bungles Iran Capture Story

Posted by Sapper on Friday, April 06, 2007 10:26:49 AM
Can't the media report the facts?  Can't they read?  Can't they understand that there's a difference between "gathering intelligence" as a secondary objective and "spying"? 

This has to be biggest non-story of the whole Iran-Britain fiasco that I have seen, yet it's presented by Sky News( http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1259413,00.html) as if it were a smoking cannon.  Big headline: "We Gathered Intelligence"! 

'The captain in charge of the 15 marines detained in Iran has said they were [their emphasis, not mine] gathering intelligence on the Iranians.

Sky News went on patrol with Captain Chris Air and his team in Iraqi waters close to the area where they were arrested - just five days before the crisis began.

We withheld the interview until now so it would not jeopardise their safety.

And today, former Iranian diplomat Dr Mehrdad Khonsari said if the Iranians had known about it, they would have used it to "justify taking the marines captive and put them on trial".'

Well, I guess that proves the Iranians right after all.  They were spies, right?  WRONG!  Anyone who's ever been on a patrol can tell you that you're always gathering intelligence.  What kind of fools would not be gathering intel in their own area of operation.  In a war zone, surprises are usually not good.

However, "gathering intelligence" is not the same thing as "spying" or conducting "espionage", as the international laws, specifically the Geneva Conventions (which the Iranian government it signatory to) define it.  These were uniformed military personnel conducting operations in the open, reportedly in their own area of operation, that is Iraqi waters, and intelligence gathering was just one of their tasks.

It always annoys me that international news agencies can't hire anyone the least bit familiar with military operations to either write or review material related to military operations.  For that matter, can't the media get on line and read the damned portion of the Geneva Conventions that relate to spies and espionage?  Are they that lazy?  Don't answer. I already know.
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Good News and Bad News: British Captives Freed

Posted by Sapper on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 12:28:00 PM
Good news and bad news.  First, the good news:

The british sailors and marines have been "pardoned" and released by Iran according Sky News.

Now for the bad news:

This whole incident is not a good indicator for the free world that is currently under seige by the barbarians at the gate.  Iran is a backwards, medieval theocracy who's greatest claims to fame are oil and brutality in the name of "Allah".  And Britain crumpled before her like a half-starved beaten dog.

First off, the british sailors and royal marines appeared to be far too pliable and accommodating to their propagandist hosts.  Ahmadinejad practically had two British officers doing stupid pet tricks on international TV. 


(Ahmadinejad and one of his new "friends")

Are all British military personnel so soft?  At the least, I'd say they were extremely ill-prepared to comport themselves honorably in the face of a hostile enemy.  Ultimately the fault has to lie with their commanders who apparently neither trained them how to conduct themselves in captivity nor trained them to be able to defend themselves against fat middle-aged Iranian Coast Guardsmen.


(Iranian Coast Guardsman)

Second, nearly all of England seemed paralyzed with fear to act or stand up to a terrorist thug playing president.  Certainly a commando style raid was not called for but for Cripe's sake show a little backbone.  We are at war, people. This is a war for the very survival of liberal Western civilization and they just routed us like battalion of French pastry chefs storming the beaches of Normandy.


(Photo of 1979 terrorist hostage taking in Iran.  Ahmadinejad is thought to be shown in this picture.)

We're in trouble, folks.  Our friends need to muscle up -- and that includes the Democrats in Congress.  If not, then a Kiwi injection may be called for.  (For those of you not in the military, all you need to know is Kiwi is a boot polish.)

(Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey on this.)
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Whatever Happened to "Name, Rank and Serial Number"? (Updated)

Posted by Sapper on Monday, April 02, 2007 9:00:34 AM
(I'm bumping this up again, because I noticed a lot of articles over the weekend with the same theme.  Michelle Malkin has some links too.)

I only hesitantly criticize those who are in positions I've never been.  However, it seems that, unless there is significant coercion going on behind the scenes that the British sailors and marines captured by Iran recently are obliging their captors quite nicely and a little too easily based upon my impression of the situation.  A second, now a marine, has offered up a confession and apology to be used by Iran, presumably, as propaganda against coalition forces.


(Royal Marine Nathan Thomas Summers apologizes on Iranian TV.)

Within a week sailors and marines are assisting Iranian criminals by writing letters critical of the US and British governments and apologizing for "trespassing" in Iranian territory, a claim that the British government denies and has disputed through the release of GPS data from the incident.

It seems to me, as a sideline commander, that the British commanders have done a very poor job of preparing their troops for such a circumstance, which had to be considered as a possible risk, given this is not the first capture by Iran of British troops and they were working close to Iranian waters.  If they were not prepared to defend themselves with either the proper firepower or rules of engagement, I wonder why they were there at all.  And certainly there must be some set of rules in the British military equivalent to the ones I learned in the Army regarding issuing statements from captivity that can be used as propaganda or making derogatory statements about their commanders and government.  I ask, "what ever happened to 'name, rank, and serial number'?"

I also have to wonder what size force the Iranians used to capture 15 armed royal marines and sailors operating in fast-moving patrol vessels.  I seem to recall a petite female american transportation soldier from West Virginia and her Native American best friend from Arizona who were severely wounded or killed, respectively before they were taken.  I wonder what their take on this would be.

Update:  Fresh new footage from Sky News including two officers.
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Are the British Captives Nuclear Bargaining Chips

Posted by Sapper on Sunday, April 01, 2007 6:15:59 PM
I swear I should thought of it sooner but honestly I didn't put two and two together until now.  It is now being widely rumored that the U.S. is planning a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.  From the Jerusalem Post: 

'The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6," according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a security official as saying, "Russian intelligence has information that the US Armed Forces stationed in the Persian Gulf have nearly completed preparations for a missile strike against Iranian territory." ...'


(US F/A 18 taking off from the USS Stennis)

Could Tehran be holding British hostages hoping the Brits will pressure the US not to strike?  Certainly it would be a clever tactic and I can't think what else Tehran hopes to gain from the hostage standoff.  Perhaps they're trying to buy time at a critical stage of their nuclear weapons development.  Also, I find it interesting that the Russians (again) seem to be the ones doing the work behind the scenes.
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Their Whinest Hour

Posted by Sapper on Sunday, April 01, 2007 5:16:12 PM
According to the UK Telegraph, the Brits are ready to negotiate with the terrorist state of Iran for the release of its 15 sailors and Marines.  Sadly, the nation of Churchill and Thatcher has done what even Jimmy Carter wouldn't.

Meanwhile the AP is reporting that "protestors" had to be restrained from entering the British Embassy in Tehran.

(Iranian "protestors" outside the British embassy)

I have to wonder what is is, specifically, they're protesting against.  Only in the Neverland of the Middle East do the assailants also become the victims.

(Others blogging on the latest in Iran include Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs, Mark Steyn, Right Wing Nuthouse, and Captain's Quarters Blog)
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Traffic Cameras - Constitutional?

Posted by Sapper on Sunday, April 01, 2007 8:45:54 AM



 First off, I am by no means a Constitutional scholar.  Second, after having wasted my Saturday in traffic school as a result of receiving my first ticket in my adult life for a traffic violation  at the age of 34, I am a little ticked off.  It doesn't help that I have absolutely no recollection of the event so I can't even say with any degree of certainty that I was innocent or guilty of the specific crime of which I have been accused -- and now admitted guilt to because the system leaves me no other practical alternative.  I have to ask: How in the world can this be Constitutional?

1.  For violations "caught" by speeding cameras (which apparently got me) and red light cameras, this is the only "crime" I am aware of whereby exercising your Constitutional right to go to trial and face your accuser, you're punished for doing so through additional fines, penalties and so forth thereby discouraging, and I would argue, practically preventing you from exercising your Constitutional rights.

2.  For that matter, who is your accuser?  A machine?  Sure it's not unprecedented that a camera alone can be a witness sufficient to convict such as in cases of surveillance cameras.  However, in the case of the surveillance camera catching someone committing a crime, such as robbing a convenience store, there are two very important distinctions:  usually a crime has to be reported by someone before the camera is used as evidence and if the camera is used as evidence, it is generally obvious through either direct observation or circumstances that the accused is or has or has not committed the crime in question.

3.  Once accused, you essentially have to prove your innocence rather than the government having to prove your guilt.  (If you don't believe me, try it.)

4.  As I said before, not knowing that I was being accused of a crime, which I was at the moment the camera went off, or even remembering being on that particular road on that particular date, I can't even say whether I was or was not, in fact, speeding.  I don't know if I really was going 52 m.p.h.  I don't know if the equipment was set up and calibrated correctly.  I don't know, even if it were that the additional 3 m.p.h. difference between my speed and the cutoff for the violation for which I was accused (49 m.p.h.) is within the tolerance of the equipment being used.  I don't know anything at all about the circumstances that led to my citation, in fact.  So how in the world could I possibly mount an effective defense, if I wanted to?

I really don't understand how this revenue generating scheme has been allowed to stand this long.
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