Washington hurting British bid to free crew

[deadparrot]

LONDON — The Iranian prisoner crisis revealed a widening schism between Britain and the United States Sunday as U.S. leaders called for tough action and British officials confirmed that they are trying to free their 15 imprisoned sailors by quietly reaching a compromise with Tehran.

British officials believe that Iran is not seeking a prisoner exchange or other further bounty in exchange for the sailors, who have been imprisoned for 10 days, and they are hoping the crisis can be resolved peacefully in the next few days.

As two more British sailors were shown Sunday night in another Iranian broadcast reading confessions and a small crowd of radical students in Tehran threw rocks and firecrackers at the British embassy there, British diplomats exchanged letters with the Iranian foreign ministry seeking a conciliatory end to the standoff.

Officials in London said that they believe their “confidence-building” operations, in which they offer to guarantee the Iranian government that British vessels will not stray into Iranian waters, offer the best hope of winning the freedom of the sailors and marines who have been in custody since they were seized by Iran's Republican Guards on March 23. Iran says the sailors had strayed into Iranian waters. Britain says they remained in Iraqi waters, where they are allowed to operate in support of the war in Iraq.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070402.wiran02/BNStory/International/home

[Fresh_Start]

1. Go Bushco, make UK an enemy

making enemies is your only talent

[Dhalgren]

2. Americans don't have the same regard for human life that the Brits do.

To the American government, prisoners like these would be used as a pretext to invasion, even if it meant the prisoners' death. Americans don't really care about their soldiers in the same way Brits do. To Americans, once a person has volunteered for military service, they are already dead and so are beyond consideration.

(I have heard numerous times how "third world" people don't think of human life in the same way "we" do - I couldn't pass up the opportunity to put the shoe on the other foot.)

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. I don't think you meant it, but you got that right about the UK being a third-world country,

- after a quarter of a century of corporatist rule.

[melody]

9. Excuse me???

>Americans don't have the same regard for human life that the Brits do.

We have every bit as much regard for human life as the Brits do. To say otherwise is nothing short of bigotry.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. * calling the 15 "hostages" over the week-end racketed up the tension.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. A former diplomat to Iran, said on our UK news a couple of hours ago,

that there seems to have been a significant and benign development, in that the Iranian leadership does not intend to hold a show trial, neither is it asking for an apology from the UK govt., but seeks discussions to eastablish the truth concerning the alleged trespass into Iranian waters.

It seems unlikely that that could ever be resolved, factually, but it occurs to me that it may be a cover for releasing the hostages on the basis of concessions by us that it would be better not to publicise. Whatever the case, it sounds a very propitious and welcome development.

[izzie]

6. Gee and I think it is the last govt. that likes us. Bush never lets

a thing go unless it is in a mess.

[liberal N proud]

7. If bu$h is involved it is a fuck up

Everything this ass touches turns to shit, EVERYTHING.

[cassiepriam]

8. He does have one talent. He can screw up everything beyond belief

in a very short period of time.

Blair must have cringed when Shrub opened his mouth this weekend.

[melody]

10. It's also quite possible they're playing good cop, bad cop

Or in this case, good cop, deeply evil cop

[MasonJar]

11. I am sure that we all know how the Brits in general feel about Bush.

I wonder if the queen has been able to restore her (probably)100 year old formal garden. I am sure the mayor of London is just elated that Bush is making it harder to retrieve the sailors and marines. And what do you think that the one million plus that protested before the war think now?