U.S. Vice President Joe Biden attends a meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington December 9, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
WNU Editor: Vice President Biden claims that no apology was issued .... Biden: Iran didn't want or get apology for boats incident (CBS). The Iranians are saying otherwise .... Iran frees trespassing US sailors after Americans apologized (Press TV). Who to believe?
14 comments:
I had expected these sailors to be executed and the media to howl with rage against the US. Had the Iranians kept these sailors longer the PR benefits to them would have been tremendous and there would have been no downside. As such, I'm shocked they released them this quickly.
If the Iranians release the men without a formal US apology, this is not going to show well anywhere. Given the enormous benefit to Iran this situation with the sailors afforded and keeping them, it would seem the US would have needed to offer something pretty darn high to get them to release the hostages.
As such, the Americans probably came groveling to the Iranians. With that said, if they say the Americans apologized and the Americans did not, this does allow Iran a face saving measure. After all they aren't going to release these people and get nothing in return. Humiliating the US shows well everywhere and media rage against America notwithstanding I don't think anyone will seriously believe the Americans did not apologize.
They were released quickly because Iranian sanctions are to be lifted this week. Hold 10 sailors and reap the propaganda benefits, or release them and gain billions in released funds. Ten sailors are not worth billions of dollars. I am just wondering if they are going to return the boats.
Iran by grabbing them and their boats when they did, then releasing them as they did, got the propaganda reward and will get the money. The boats will (or have been) released after "ahem" safety inspections deem them seaworthy.
There was nothing really to be gained in holding them longer than they did.
John Kerry and the Iranian Foreign Minister negotiating delicate diplomatic points:
https://youtu.be/KniUNdVZvH4
James .... John Cleese is priceless. :)
Sorry, so sorry!
The U.S. apologized .... and probably more than once.
The sanctions were going to be lifted any way. Even if the US wanted to keep the sanctions in place and tried with all of its economic might to do so, keeping them would have been futile regardless. That is assuming the Iranians actually want the sanctions lifted which I'm assuming they do. As such, lifting of sanctions would not seem to explain why the sailors were released so quickly since the sanctions relief and the billions of dollars were coming to Iran anyway.
The sanctions seem to have largely been irrelevant for quite some time as countries and people simply ignore them or otherwise go around them.
I would expect the Iranians to keep the boats or at least go over them closely, strip them down, and take anything of value off of them. There's probably nothing on the boats the Iranians don't already know about anyway but to not do this risks playing badly around the world and at home.
The boats were released at the same time as the crew.
Yup. I posted the picture of the boats leaving on my 15:00 EST post.
"To justify U.S. “regime changes,” the U.S. government has routinely spread rumors and made other dubious claims which – even when later doubted or debunked – are left in place indefinitely as corrosive propaganda, eating away at the image of various “enemies” and deforming public opinion.
Even though this discredited propaganda can have a long half-life – continuing to contaminate the public’s ability to perceive reality for years – President Barack Obama and his administration have shown no inclination to undertake a kind of HAZMAT clean-up of the polluted information environment that American citizens have been forced to live in."
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/01/12/what-hillary-knew-about-libya/
While the article focus's on Lybia, the actuality goes back to at least the Gulf War, and when you add in "natural" conditions like cognative dissonance, confirmational bias, the current prevalence of CT,
It explains why reality based discussion of events are extremely difficult,
As many people don't exist in a world of reality, but instead a mythical world of half remembered propaganda,
Thus, photo's of the sailors leaving on their boat's, doesn't sink in,
Or:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/01/syria-obamas-delusion-over-russian-retreat-continues.html#comments
The sad thing is the "elites" are contaminated by the same delusions.
When Donald Trump become president we won't have to kiss nobody's ass
Just Donald's, on a daily basis, and deeply.
http://bigthink.com/artful-choice/less-than-artful-choices-narcissistic-personality-disorder-according-to-donald-trump
Otherwise you will be jailed or deported.
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