"Joe" wrote in message
ups.com...

As we saw the British were taken hostage because they did not have the
proper tools to do the job they were assigned to do. I bet the British
citizens dogged Blair so much over Irag he could not afford to give
his sailors bullets for the cheap side arms they carry. It's pathetic
the way they were captured.

They were adequately armed for the job they had to do namely the checking of
suspect civilian shipping. Moreover,they were doing it under UN mandate in
Iranian waters when they were faced with superior forces of Iranian boats
armed with machine guns, RPG's etc. They were not equipped to start a
hopeless battle against such odds and all end up dead and took the right
decision in the circumstances..

Blair can still not afford to give his
boat crews machine guns, and provide air support so the British have
decided not to inspect any other vessels.

Where did you get that from?-that is not true.

So with no Iran ships getting inspected... just think what
Amadajanutball can smuggle out of Iran, maybe a nuke? Who knows, no
one's inspecting them.

The sailors captured put on a pathetic show, and Blair followed suit.

Much more information emerged from a press conference today. They were each
held in solitary confinement with periodic interrogation while they were
blindfolded and handcuffed. They were made to stand blindfoldedwith their
hands against a wall while listening to weapons being cocked and thinking
they were going to be shot. They were told nothing about the efforts being
made to secure their release but were informed that if they did not confess
to intruding in Iranian waters they would be given 7 years in prison. The
only times they were allowed to join each other in a group was for the
staged TV appearances. The woman sailor was particularly targeted and was
told that all the others had been released except her.
.. The water was too shallow for their mother ship to get closer but GPS
fixes were ongoing from their own instruments as well as from the helicopter
and their mother ship, and it was made quite clear that they were still in
Iraqui waters when they were ambushed

If you wan't to lose a war, do not provide the people fighting with
the proper tools they need.

Nobody wants to lose a war but the bean counters seem to have control
whichever country you look at. One of our officers in Iraq got killed a few
months ago one week after he had been made to surrender his body armour to
someone who was 'deemed' to be more at risk. It get my back up when I read
that the UK Treasury says to the Government that we cannot afford another
warship, aircraft or whatever. What do they know in their Whitehall offices?
If I had my way they would be limited to telling the Cabinet that if they
spend more tha x billions next year taxes will have to go up.

Add pork to the war funding bill, and let the people fighting know you
respect spinach and peanuts more than them. Preserve the **** laiden
spinach growers, kill the troops.

I don't know anything about your war funding bill, but this is what you get
when all your officials have to gather votes to get elected. We used to have
a second chamber in Uk, called the House of Lords where membership, once
attained by birth or advancement, was permanent and allowed everyone to vote
according to conscience without fear of deselection next time around. Years
of socialist government are well on the way to abolishing that in favour of
an elected second house. So the Uk will soon have the 'pork' problem too, I
expect.
Joe