A source of a personal nature told me that they were involved in 239 boardings to date. He told me that its a fairly regulalar occurance that the radios crap out at some time after they get dropped off. I was told that to be out of communications is for the better part of 10 hours is considered normal.
Do a Google on Al-Shatt Arab waterway, and discover its history; the British are as complicite in that issue as they are in the partitioning of Israel. Nothing but pure cosmic poetry, or random chance, can explain that British RN servicemembers are presently held for they reasons that they ostensibly are.
Since the event took place, a lot of things have occured. A Pakistani railway minister was spouting off how strongly in lock-step his country would fall in with Iran. Imediately after that came out the announcement concerning militry excercises that India would be conducting with other countries. Then pictures were splashed around the world of Russian and Chinese leaders shaking hands whilest making funny faces.
Then the U.S. Congress came out with a funding bill for continued operations for military operations in Iraq that demand a withdrawl by date X.
Now keep in mind, that in accordance to U.S. governmental procedures, the U.S. President can state that a requirements exists for continued funding for as long as 90 days after existing funding expires. So what happens if the existing U.S. Congress bill is passed by the U.S. Senate? The bill's have the proviso of troop withdrawl by 2008.
Give the ensuing scenario 30 seconds of thought. If Bush vetos the bill, then the troops essentially will have no funding for anything whatsoever. That means that Bush would have to invoke the War Power Act, and Congress would have to fund operations exclusively to pull the troops out of theater. The logical progression of this line of reasoning presently entails that all U.S. troops could possibly be out of Iraq as soon as Sep 2007. Bush's aproval of this bill would entail operations as long as 2008. That countless additional $billions would be wasted so as to buy the vote of influencial politicians is of no concern whatsoever.
I believe any of those options would be a great idea; first off: the whole region becomes SEP (as far as U.S.A. is concerned), and secondly the world will find out exactly what things are going to be like with the Persians controlling all of Iraq's oil (including their own). Finally, I believe that this will ultimately spell the death knell for the U.S. Democrat party. This reality will wholly manifest itself after we are notified about Persian testing of a nuclear weapon.
If anybody believes for 30 seconds that the Persians will not walk into the vacume that the U.S.A. would leave behind, and that anybody else will instead be a suitable substitute in that regard is at best akin to that of a crack smoking-whore.
:rock:
Oh, and what about the 15 RN service members? Well, if all goes according to the way I see things going, and if enough tribute is paid, then maybe you'll see 'em within 12 months. If not, then sky's the limit, and if the Persians get the bomb, frankly I doubt you'll ever see 'em again. Of course by then there's going to be a whole lot more important matters to be concerned with than the lives of a mere 15 RN service membes. The greatest immediate concern will be the demands placed upon the UE, NATO, and to a lesser degree a significant portion of the rest of the world by some unnamed power, for which it will have no answer but capitulation.
At least everybody will be finally getting on as one big happy family, eh?
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