Author: Mike

Glad to see the end of the Iran cock-up and very glad that we were able to hear from their own mouths about their treatment in captivity. I am sure this was not a pleasant experience for any of them. But I cannot understand what the MOD is playing at by letting serving personnel sell their accounts of the experience to the main stream media.

It can’t be right as yet more of our service personnel are being killed in Iraq, that these 15 have an ability to financially benefit from their two weeks detention! At the end of the day, they are alive, safe and able to resume their job, unlike the many other service personal that have been killed or wounded over the past few years.

I hope they see sense and stay well away from the media, who are no more interested in their story other than any advantage it will bring them (the media) with increased circulations and increased advertising revenue!

According to the the latest statement by US Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, it seems that we (for this, read All European Citizens) are all now terrorist suspects! I was always under then impression that ‘one’ was presumed to be innocent until proved guilty, however it now appears that in Michael Chertoff eyes, all Europeans are now presumed guilty until proved innocent!

In a ratcheting up of USA visitor entry restrictions, unless you are prepared to now give up your credit card number and your email address for scrutiny by US authorities, you’ll not be allowed entry into the ‘land of the free’!

With credit card fraud on the rise and spam messages clogging up the world mail in-boxes, I wonder what protection is being offered to US visitors to make sure that there data in ‘truly’ protected?

With the US still suffering from a near 20% drop in overseas visitor numbers compared to pre-9/11 figures, and with the summer holidays approaching this is surely not what many potential visitors to the USA wanted to hear.

Whilst the UK still has a lot to do to get it’s own house in order with regards to our own terrorist threat even allowing for stupid legislation from Brussels, I think the USA needs to understand how this comment and I think somewhat racial slur will be perceived across the whole of Europe, which already has a somewhat negative view of the USA.

It’s great that the ‘Iran’ incident has now been resolved and they have all been released, via whatever deal had been done.

However, listening to the media and the way that they keep asking all the relatives of the people released, if they (the released) will be able to cope and would then need any assistance, or in one case, would they be having any counseling, I wonder what we have become as a nation?

What sort of society have we become where everyone thinks that everyone need to have counseling, even the reporter interviewing the Royal Marines Majors’ parents asked if he would be able to cope!! For heavens sake they guy is a Royal Marine, what do you think he should do, break down and cry!

Yes it has been a tough time for the parents/wives/friends as I am sure it was for my mother, when my Navy ship went to cover the Aden pullout – yes I am that old! I know that I never suffered these guys fate, but at the end of the day, they have not had too bad a time from what we have seen via the prolific Iranian press – to be confirmed of course.

But have a thought for these people, they joined a ‘fighting force’, they knew what they might be getting into, I think that they probably will be able to cope, unless of course they meet many of the press that we have had to listen to over the last hour, then I’m sure that will need counseling… from the press!

With news emerging that there is a second letter coming from Faye Turney in Iran, I hope that someone is checking the handwriting to ensure that it’s authentic, many tricks have been used in the past to increase the impact of propaganda, which clearly this is.

If the writing is authentic, then some how the Iranian’s have managed to get a hold over Faye Turney in some way so that she is writing what they want.

I think it is time for both the UN and Euro diplomats to raise the bar a bit higher and show some serious support for the UK. As usual, we are left to fend for ourselves, listening to the quiet sniggering behind many a raised hand!

Finally, we get some movement from the UN with a weaker than required statement about the Cornwall incident and Iran. Talk about taking your time! Not that I think Iran will take any notice of it. Iran seems to be intent on milking the situation for all its worth.

Still think it’s strange that we ended up in this situation whichever side of the border line Cornwall was on. At the end of the day 5,300 tonnes of well-armed heavy metal is more than a match for half a dozen small patrol boats.

It’s the duty of any Captain to protect his crew, I hope he was on duty on the ships Bridge and not some fresh out of training ‘lad’ that panicked and put us in this mess. On the other hand, if the Captain was on the bridge, then the rules of engagement need to be looked at, either way, the Captain has some explaining to do!

Good to see that the number of candles has reached 1,915,512 lit candles, did it make a difference? I hope so.

As the story continues to unfold, I start to wonder what is going on with our Naval Forces.

As discussed in these two posts from the BBC web site, there seems to be issues in the way that this event seems to have been initially handled by the Navy.

“Knowing the waters well and having been myself ‘captured’ by the IRG, something smells here. Cornwall had the eye in the sky (helo) watching overhead, the zodiac boats can do 30 knots and the interdict was approx 2 miles from Cornwall. How did they not see the Iranian fleet steam up and ‘surround’ the zodiacs? How do you surround a rubber dinghy capable of 30 knots. Or is this the issue the USA has been needing to justify an offensive move against Iran?”

Phillip Carr, Sherborne

“There is something very fishy going on. HMS Cornwall is a state of the art ship with a radar tracking system that would have seen the Iranian boats as they left port. Why did the captain of HNS Cornwall not go to cut off the Iranians?. Why did the gemini boats not fight or at least run away when they saw the six boats coming?. No RN captain would send its people out without protection!!!. Either the captain is an incompetent fool OR he was ordered to stand by and do nothing!!!!!?????”

Beryl Hutchinson, larnaca, Cyprus

As the two posts point out, why were the movements of the Iranian boats not being monitored? If they were, why were the communications systems not used to get our personnel out of their reach quickly?

I spent many years in the Navy, granted not in any major conflict. But I always knew and understood that there was always a planned escape route for any mission that we were sent on. What about if an Iranian warship had come out as well as the patrol boats, would we have given up the Cornwall so easily?

I hope as I have read in a number of posts that this is will not be used as some kind of perverse logic to allow the ‘Allies’ to mount some kind of military action against Iran which would be totally disastrous!

Although I understand the need for caution in any conflict, I hope and expect that there is an active plan to fix this issue without the UK being drawn into another wider mess!

Another review of Police policies and procedures has been ordered by Tony Blair, perhaps this will be his final parting gift to us all and it will find out exactly why the many previous reviews have failed to get to the bottom of criminality in this country.

If as reports say, 100,000 criminals in the UK are responsible for nearly 95% of all crime, then perhaps the review will finally say how to deal with these people.

Here we go again! Another laptop containing mortgage details has been stolen from an Halifax employees car.  With so much current focus on identity theft, you would think that the companies that hold our data would pay better attention to taking care of their customers personal details.

It seems strange to me that after the Nationwide was fined nearly £1million by the FSA after one of their laptops containing personal data had been stolen, you would have thought that other companies would be paying more attention.

Clearly, the level of fines are not high enough to deter this happening again and clearly, the people charged with looking after this type of data have a cavalier approach to data protection.

This is not an IT issue, it’s about a lack management and fundamental flaws in procedures and responsibilities within the Halifax, perhaps the Chief Executive will be able to explain why his managers aren’t doing their job or perhaps which one was fired for this major mistake! No I don’t have anything to do with the Halifax, I’m just amazed that this sort of thing can still happen.

So let me get this straight, the European Union Transport ministers have approved a new aviation agreement with US authorities, great for transatlantic air fares perhaps.

But hidden in the small print – US airlines can now for the first time fly between European cities competing directly with European airlines. The European airlines can now do the same, well not exactly; it seems we have to wait till 2010 for that privilege, how Open Skies is that?

I wonder how Jacques Barrot, the European Transport Commissioner think that this is a good’ agreement? Oh! and by the way, I thought that we were worrying about the effect of airplane emission contributing to global warming! Perhaps Jacques Barrot, knows what side his bread is already buttered on!