Englishmen in Tehran, part 3

Video footage of the captive UK Marines was released today. Showing Faye Turney, the only female Marine. She stated that she was being treated well, and that the UK crew had 'obviously trespassed' into Iranian waters. Iranian officials also turned over what appeared to be a handwritten letter to Turney's parents in which she apologizes for entering Iranian waters. Her statement that the Marines had trespassed comes after the UK government's insistence that the boat was 1.7 mi within Iraqi territory when it was captured, and that they have the radar to prove it. Blair is also throwing a shitfit because of the footage--under the Geneva Convention it is illegal to film  prisoners in this fashion. What to make of Turney's  statement? It immediately reminded me of the Jill Carroll incident, in which a female American journalist was held hostage by Iraqi insurgents and forced to make a propaganda video as a condition of her release. We won't know until Turney is back home. The Iranian government says they are releasing her later this week but the UK says they haven't had any official notification of this. This entire incident seems to have been uncannily foreshadowed by Ahmadinejad's statement in last week, in response to the kidnapping of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Generals, that "We've got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue eyed, blond haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks" If you replace 'feed them to our fighting cocks' with 'parade them around on TV,' that's basically exactly what they've done.

Oh, and the US insists its not escalating tension with Iran by conducting naval exercises in the Gulf. But I'm sorry, coming from this administration that statement is completely worthless.