Archimedes - excellent -

You have highlighted the inadequacies of leadership in this government and the MOD perfectly!

Keep it up!

Nah! There is now a real fear that British forces will surrender to Iranians at the slightest opportunity so as to make seventy thousand quid on release.

It's ok. I saw a clip of Faye (as in Faye-mous for fifteen minutes) on ITN tonight as a bit of a prequel to the full interview being screened tomorrow.
Apparently "a percentage" of her newly found wonga is going to HMS Cornwall. Great, new DVDs and a Playstation3 all round.:}
Just how much is "a percentage"?:hmm:

Just wondering what the thinking on this is at SCSR... Will those on the RTI phase now be instructed that if someone is doing a bit of woodwork in the vicinity or kicks your iPod or mutters something a tad disheartening at you then the new government approved procedure is to admit to anything and sign a confession?

Thankfully we have heard little of those members of the 15 who seem to have followed the basics and stayed schtum. Those are the people who would be most likely to have some form of military career left after this debacle. Those are the ones who honoured the contract (not that much in the way of honour has been shown by the other party to it).

As for the salad-dodger, I have a feeling that the Celebrity Big Brother lack-of-talent scouts will be salivating in their sleep about the possibilities there. Pray that she keeps her kit on...

Mal Drop

- very amusing!

Don't forget that your behaviour as a hostage can be totally different to that of being a POW (or PW for the weirdos amongst us) - ask your friendly SEREO (or weirdo) for more details.

Anyway, I reckon the woodworking noises were the guards widening the prison doorframes having been "well fed and looked after", hence the woman coming in to measure up! ;)

LJ

Don't forget GGG will keet near £60000 of the dosh in tax.

Leon, perhaps there were other reasons Cornwall could not go in after them. Archimedes and all that.

I'm intrigued as to why the media are escaping without mention - these are the ones who are offering to buy stories! If cheque-book journalism was made illegal then we may start to see facts, news and observations published instead of salacious gossip, sentsational 'scoops' and straight forward inaccurate specualtion.

If a story is newsworthy and reportable, the papers should certainly not have to offer large sums of money to print it - who knows, with decent, accurate articles, more people would buy a 'Newspaper' without the barons having to resort to such distasteful practices to increase daily sales.

Cynic

Point the finger at the media all you want, but the bottom line is that until people in this country stop buying such bull**** as the Sun, and stop watching sensationalistic programming like Tonight With Tevor MacDonald, then this kind of thing will keep happening.

It's a supply and demand thing, you see. :ugh:

I must have slept through the TMcD interview last night. Didn't remember half of what was said, as reported by the Torygraph.

RPG to the head, rape, coffin, the bricks in the cell must have been f:mad: big bricks if there was only 135 of them. Carpet? Patterned? Bedding with fleas - don't remember that either.

I did remember the bit about bits on her face.

Can't wait for the book. Should make for a rivetting read.

Comment in the Telegraph

"But of even more concern, believe several former defence chiefs, is that too many of the MOD's civil servants are not reflecting the best interests of the Armed Forces in their advice to ministers. Their eyes and ears are more attuned to the demands from across Whitehall, in the Treasury than to the needs of troops on operations in distant countries of which they know little."
Cheque book journalism would continue via other routes - you can't ban such a practice.

What you can do is:

a) reduce the military cock-ups by planning, developing proper SOPs, and spending time and money on acquiring the right kit for the task:

eg: "The Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Commitments), Vice-Admiral Charles Style, the MOD officer directly responsible for issuing the operational directives to the forces through the PJHQ, said on television last week that it was because they had conducted so many boardings recently without incident."

and b) join-up the thinking - this one was coming from the time the hostages were taken. Were they planning for their release - were they :mad: :mad: ck.

A case for Discrimination????????
 

Unless the men are keeping very quiet re their payments, the only money being spoken of is a six figure sum to the woman in the group. Surely, this is sex discrimination and the men have a case against the Sun. This would not be 'talking to the press' and therefore could be allowed.
Is this the way Uncle sees how to fund the forces - get taken hostage, sell story, collect cash.

Seriously, I think it would have been better had the papers give these sums of money to the services benevolent funds, and given the hostages a token amount for talking to reporters.

I cringed with embaressment watching Trev last night trying to pull every ounce of the details of her "Torture" out of the poor girl; particularly harrowing was the tear-jerking moment when she said she "had been bitten by an INSECT!!" whilst incarcerated. What the f*ck have the Armed Forces come to; sorry I meant Navy there.:ouch: Ducking already

No conduct after capture training is clearly the case here.

Slightly off thread, but I have just had a brilliant idea which might save the RN a load of hassle and grief in future.

The mission (I believe) is to prevent smuggling of weapons, terrorists, cheap cars etc into Iraq.

So - Instead of boarding incoming merchant ships at sea with all the palaver of whizzing around in rubber boats (and occasionally losing them and their crews to the Iranians,) why not wait until the ships arrive, and check them as soon as docked alongside? Nice solid quay, army can help,no doubt about which country you are in, seems like a winner. Not too many ports to cover in S. Iraq, I believe. :rolleyes:

My medals are going on E-bay the day I get out. (days to do very few now.)

These folks selling their tales need booting out. Laughing stock of the world.

'I can not answer that question' will now be 'Tell all then tell the press.'

For thousands of years soldiers and sailors (and for nearly 100 years airmen too) have been prepared to give up their lives for the sake of their colleagues and/or their Services....

......... now they won't give up a few grand.........:(

Easy to take a pop at someone who had the courage to put his name to what he wrote, isn't it, tabby, especially when you're hiding behind a nice anonymous PPRuNe user name?

And even if the speculation is correct that Messrs Peters and Nicholl came to grief after a 'switch pigs' then I wouldn't want to make cheap accusations about them unless I had been in the situation where I had to do the same thing, under the same circumstances.

And after the recent incident, what the RAF blokes in Iraqi hands in '91 looks even more worthy of our sympathy and understanding, I'd have thought.

As to arrogant, I don't claim to know the bloke, but I have spoken to him a few times, and when I did so he seemed like a decent enough cove to me.

Jacko

No speculation about switch pigs - John Nichol came on these very boards many moons ago (before I opened this account) and said so in very plain language.

Seemed not the least bit arrogant - at least, his digimical persona was not.

Jacko.
It doesn't seem to you a bit strange that Nichol's entire fame is based upon the fact that during the one operational mission of his career he had finger trouble (forgivable, who hasn't), and then compounded the error by going back to the target for another try, thus comitting the cardinal aviation sin and wasting a very expensive aircraft.

The fact that he is brought forward as an military expert by the media beggars belief.

Sky might as well employ the 15 man boarding team as Sky's new conduct after capture experts:yuk:

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me..............

Tablet - Personal attacks are a tad off, especially when the target hasn't done anyone any harm. As far as I'm aware there's only one star of this forum who warrants the arrogant label, famously applied by Paxo himself. JN's always come across as a decent chap in any exchanges with me.

That said, you prompted me to visit the Sun website. I sincerely hope they are now just playing their Faye Goody / Jade Turney acquisition for laughs: Their top discussion is "Hostage Faye: should she get Victoria Cross?"

Jacko, PM please.

Since people are offended on JN's behalf I've removed the post. Apologies to all.

And yet we can criticise our retired generals, politicians and others who make public their opinions? I'm sorry, but I don't think this argument holds water.

I wasn't saying for one moment that JN was a paragon of the Nav's art, merely expressing discomfort at the way in which he was being derided, and expressing disagreement with the accusations of arrogance.

As to his qualifications (or otherwise) for being a 'defence expert', better a former junior aircrew officer who flew two frontline tours (in two different roles) who went to war, and even experienced being a PoW than some fascist d1ckhead like Max Hastings or some self aggrandising donkey like Lewis Page, I'da thunk.

And much better than Clarkson, or Charlie and her Dimmocks.

You are a funny one Jacko, you get all upset about someone being called arrogant etc then you refer to Sir Max as a fascist d1ckhead. I am still trying to work that one out. Would he be more acceptable to you if he voted Labour?

They are both very pro-military, and that ain't a bad thing in these very difficult days.

Maybe you should reconsider your own comments. Esp as you hide behind an acronym

Well! I guess thats the end of the discussion regarding our noble 15!:zzz:

What makes me laugh is that everyone assumes that this lot had any conduct after capture training anyway?

Do SACs on the ground in Qatar get any? I bet they don't, and I bet the average jack doesn't either.

What did we have here? junior officers, slack handful of Royal, and odds and sods off the ship - that's not a boarding party, that is a jolly ladies and gentlemen, a jolly which turned out sour and the Andrew doesn't want to uncover the unpalatable truth that they sent out a bunch of kids - untooled up - to do a RM Platoon's job.

And as for Miss Cooked Breakfast 2007, if I was an Iranian thinking of rape, I might have taken some convincing that she was the likely candidate out of the entire party.

Does that mean you fancied one of the others?

I think fancying ANY of the other 14 is preferable.:sad:

you have seen her picture, haven't you Matt?

OMG (Sorry Tourist I meant "Oh my god") they are all coming out tonight. ZH have you been harbouring these feelings for long?

Me too, as it happens!

Shouldn't this now be moved to Rum Ration as it's all gone "Navy" round here...

At the risk of sending Klingon into an apoplectic fit of late middle-aged angst; I was rather surprised to click on a link in a Telegraph piece referenced by ORAC in an earlier post. I clicked on the link in the phrase "I've been poring over the faces."

Are standards in the Telegraph slipping? The page at the link is entitled "Not a single one of these is f*ckable." It would appear that even the house journal of the Passed-over Majors set is going to the dogs.

Page 5:

Page 6:

Just seeking clarification...

Christopher Robin wrote:- And as for Miss Cooked Breakfast 2007, if I was an Iranian thinking of rape, I might have taken some convincing that she was the likely candidate out of the entire party.
Faye Turney told The Sun how she was: STRIPPED to her knickers.
I guess her captors thought "Please stop, No more and slammed the cell door shut"
Sorry too much red vino.

Is there a school down in Englandshire turning out these Faye Goodie / Jade Turney meeja creatures? The parallels are surely too close to be coincidence?

Financial Times: Iran debacle shows failure to understand the British services

Flogging stories of victimhood has no place in the armed forces. By initially allowing the 15 sailors and marines held captive by Iran to accept payments from the media for recounting their ordeal, the Navy and the Ministry of Defence have set a dangerous precedent. This failure to grasp the real values of service in the military goes right to the top of the MoD. The reversal of the decision does not undo the damage. In Tony Blair’s Britain, it seems every newsworthy experience must be shared – and does command a price.......

On every level, the initial government decision was disastrous. It succeeded only in keeping the spotlight on a humiliating episode in which members of the armed forces, no doubt acting under orders, were captured without firing a shot in anger and later paraded on Iranian television as meek and obedient prisoners. While the servicemen and one woman were understandably traumatised by their treatment, they nevertheless will not go down in history as heroes. To celebrate their brief spell in captivity is to devalue the many real acts of bravery that the British armed forces routinely commit in action. Imagine, for a moment, Lord Nelson being asked to describe how he felt about the loss of his right arm.

Mr Browne and the MoD have fallen into the trap – too commonplace today – of confusing victims with heroes. This strikes at the heart of the culture and morale of the armed forces. The services are founded on pride, teamwork and camaraderie. Tales of single-handed heroism can intensify these bonds: individual accounts of humiliation merely serve to weaken them.

There is now a barrier between those who have profited from speaking about their experience and their colleagues. To military personnel serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere – and to their families – it sends the message that society puts a higher value on describing two weeks’ detention than it does on defending the realm.

Britain has one of the few military services able to project force around the world. The government has over-stretched the armed services, but they remain a force to be reckoned with. Now the MoD has made them a laughing stock.

It is a grave error that will not readily be forgiven or quickly put right.

Goody Bags
 

I have not seen any mention of what was actually in the goody bags the Iranians gave out.

If they were of value then they should have been declared for customs duty and also handed over the the men from the Ministry. If they wanted to keep the contents they should then pay the fair market value.

Then if a particular memento was a desk ornament or similar it should be checked for explosive substances, drugs, or even bugs.

Any ideas chaps?

Little model of the Sharyad perhaps? Shake it and watch the snow fall.

http://report-en.aruna.ir/pic/azadi01.jpg

Let's hope they got one of those 'wailing' Mosque alarm clocks. Quality.

Pontius Navigator: I believe they cited the Cherie Blair precedent and thus are immune from mere formalities like customs clearance.