A row the MoD cannot row out of

To sell or not to sell

It has now transpired; the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reversed the decision to allow the naval personnel to sell their stories, which many thought was part of a covert rehabilitation process. However, this was not before the lady and the youngest captive had spilled their hearts and fears to the papers and television for filthy lucre

There is no doubt that these people were in some way in fear for their lives and security, but the whole fear of rape and sexual abuse talk is beginning to sound like the sensationalism anyone would expect the moment the media decides to fabricate public interest in a non-story.

The about-face of the MoD is really a cack-handed mishandling of a rather sensitive situation in the quest to wreak a reciprocal propaganda war against Iran without due consideration of the effect it would have on families of those have not been fortunate enough to return to their local pubs to tell their stories. It is sickening to the extreme.

No heroes just naval serfs

One must reiterate, that these naval personnel were no heroes, they acquiesced to every entreaty, they succumbed to every threat, they submitted to literally every suggestion and basically were in a situation of being conveniently blackmailed into saving their skins at any cost, in the end, they subserviently genuflected to the President of Iran and were overly effusive in gratitude for their release.

They allowed themselves to be in such a vulnerable setting that they were taken advantage of without much coercion, the hoo-hah about their family attachments became part of the enemy’s strategy for interrogation and mental torture, these people were just too chicken to be where they were and when they were caught, they just blabbed like hens and bawled like babies.

This apologia to service in the British forces is now a story worthy of hearing? Indeed the glory of Britain departed its shores and its people.

The only thing that might redeem this situation is to find the really gallant and courageous amongst our forces and celebrate them with honour and reckoning that has been subsumed to the despicable cult of the stupid personality.

Foolish MoD

In the end, the MoD attracted deserved opprobrium, condemnation and vilification, the incompetence of all concerned from the politicians through the civil service to the forces themselves was laid bare for the world to see, there must be a redeeming factor somewhere, if only someone can see it and get it going.

References

Heseltine joins furore over sailors' stories | UK News | News | Telegraph

BBC NEWS | UK | Browne under fire in sailors row

Selling their discretion, dignity and honour

The death of discretion

It is now institutionalised; our armed forces do not have to live by the old English tenets of honour, courage, discretion, dignity and valour.

In fact, this might as well be the whole sum of 10 years of Tony Blair in government, the fact that everything that was traditionally British in terms of conduct and decorum has been jettisoned for the cult of personality.

After the naval personnel were released and had flown back to motherland, they lamented the fact that they were blindfolded, kept in isolation and interrogated.

The fact of captivity

One is left quite gob-smacked about what else was to be expected; surely, if anyone captures a group of military personnel in seemingly criminal activity like in this case allegedly plying the waters of Iran.

Any self-respecting intelligence outfit would isolate the members, disorientate the individuals and introduce elements of mental anguish and disinformation to discover in reality what that team was up to.

This is serious business, and what was to say that the British personnel under the guise of UN inspections were not trying to gather other intelligence about Iran?

The Iranians having captured the seeming enemy had to ensure beyond reasonable doubt that not one of all those captured had a specific assignment to do something different from what the team as a whole believed was their purpose and assignment when they presumably strayed into Iranian waters if that really was the case.

Preventing group-think

Beyond that, isolation was necessary to prevent a case of group-think where the captives would parrot out an agreed view rather than allow the intelligence people to piece together each story to see if they indeed match up.

It is something used everyday in crime-fighting, evidence gathering and basic interviews or interrogation, there is no reason for the Iranians to have been foolish about this.

That aspect of group-think came out in one of the interviews when some of the personnel said they all agreed that they would confess that they had crossed into Iranian waters - this is the kind of thing isolation and disorientation through blindfolding is supposed to prevent.

Smart and dumb

The supposed outrage at this treatment is a bit over-stated, we are at war in that region, and some really hard things are happening there just as we learnt of the death of four of our soldiers in Iraq on the day the naval personnel flew in to be reunited with their loved ones.

The only really smart thing the naval personnel did was not to adopt the folly of bravado in resisting the overwhelming power of the force that took them captive in the Iranian/Iraqi waters a few weeks ago.

Sell, sell, sell

Now, this is where I have abandoned hope about the discretion of the English, however, one must say, this more the exclusive preserve of the well-bred and properly schooled; that sort of breeding seems to have been exhausted at the Ministry of Defence when they gave permission to the naval personnel to sell their stories to yellow journalism newspapers, village rags and tabloids.

I really feared this development in an earlier blog but against hope really thought that reason and discretion would prevail on those in authority that was not to be the case. Publicists are now working overtime in an auction to determine who would pay the most for stories that were neither heroic nor commendable.

This is going to end up worse than some Big Brother tripe, the first to get their story in might get the most views and who better than the propaganda bait Leading Sea(wo)man Faye Turney to break all records and precedents of serving military personnel set lose to tell tales?

Nothing good will come of this

Each consequent story from other personnel would have to trump the previous till the whole thing becomes too incredible to believe because it is unlikely that each story would be interesting without suggestive prompting and reckless analysis as they egged on by editors without conscience or restraint.

The worse case scenario as I have already predicted is if and when anyone else gets captured anywhere in the world by our enemies, beautiful smiling faces would we not see, that is if they end up living to tell the tale - it could really become that serious, because no enemy would want to be portrayed a fool after their captives are released.

The clear and present danger to those left on the battle field cannot be exaggerated, not to talk of the possible recklessness of others who might see being guest of the Islamic republic as a ticket to earning a cool big packet of cash - at last reckoning Mrs. Turney was being offered GBP 100,000.

Even if the fees were to go to charity, the damage would have been done and it would have done irreparable damage.

No Great in Britain anymore

I am sick to the stomach not of the opportunity and the benefit, but of the fact that the whole infrastructure behind our military personnel could not provide emotional, mental and financial succour to the victims of a seeming injustice and captivity that they think being able to sell their stories would provide the best treatment for their trauma.

The ones who then have nothing interesting to sell would probably be left more damaged for not looking good enough to be fed to the British public as the next "Jade Goody" of ignoramuses who are in cahoots with Tony Blair in taking the Great out of Great Britain.

References

Dismay as crew told they can sell stories | Breaking News | News | Telegraph

Woman sailor sells her story in lucrative deal | Uk News | News | Telegraph

BBC NEWS | UK | Captives' media fees spark fury

Taking the "Great" out of Britain