Tie Fighters
(A post by See-Dubya).
I watched the footage of the captured British sailors being released over at Hot Air and let me say: that is truly, madly, deeply weird. Sur-real. The cameras and smiles, the shiny suits, the matching gift bags (?!)…it looks less like a Repatriation of Prisoners than it does a game show or an Oscar party. (Did those bags contain some carbon offsets?)
They should have been allowed to keep their military uniforms. Discharging them as civilians was humiliating.
Which reminds me, notice anything missing from their Mahmoud’s Menswear ensembles?
Lovely Parting Gifts
If you don’t, check out my Dictator Photo Quiz. There’s a reason for that omission.
Which is strange. If these sailors were the tools of western imperialists, and neckties are the attire of western imperialists, why not cast them in that light? Don’t tell me there’s some kind of tie shortage there, either. I’m always hearing about how Iran is importing Chinese Silkworms.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure we’ll never know the whole story on this, which is probably just as well. Even if there is something a little “Bridge on the River Kwai” about all this, I am thrilled that these guys are now free to take this sort of symbolic revenge upon their captors:
Revenge best served cold, unless you’re in England where they like it more tepid.
Photos adapted from AFP. Cross-posted at Junkyard Blog.
Chavez was elected, Ahmadinejad is not the most powerful man in Iran (he’s not even in charge of foreign policy), Saddam was installed with help from the CIA. and of course there is no settled boundary between Iranian and Iraqi waters in the area where the soldiers were captured. The British map was made up out of whole cloth.
AF (c319c8) — 4/5/2007 @ 4:04 pmAccording to Bernard Lewis, in What Went Wrong, as he discusses dress:
Much of the Islamic world has long wanted to modernize, but their leaders have tried to do so w/out any Westernizing at all, or at least as little as possible, perhaps not appreciating, when looking in from the outside, the specific links between the two, or perhaps to defend vested interests (i.e. better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven) or perhaps thru just plain denial.
In any event, they’ve often shown an unfortunate propensity to import the worst but ignore the best, such as by adopting Socialist economic strategies but eschewing religious freedom.
p.s. See-Dubya,
Perhaps the neckties were kept out of the ensemble with the Iranian people in mind, in that, having been told what terrible imperialists the Brits were, the people might have wondered why such oppressors were being released, then, parting gifts and all. So A-Jad might have simply wanted to “soften” their look in that regard.
ras (adf382) — 4/5/2007 @ 4:55 pmChavez was elected? That’s a relief. The fact that he was once elected, (albeit in an election that makes Florida 2000 look like a model of civic virtue) means he is good and virtuous. Just like George Bush, right AF?
See Dubya (8017ea) — 4/5/2007 @ 5:55 pmPerhaps the untied look is meant to show that they were actually Friends of the People being used as Pawns by the Imperialist Colonialist Running Dogs.
kishnevi (7a9e8b) — 4/5/2007 @ 6:07 pmIran is the one country in the region where the leaders are more worried about reformers than they are about extremists.
OF course you think Iran is extreme, but it has the largest jewish population in the middle east outside Israel: 25,000. And 60% of the students in higher education are women.
Jews aren’t allowed in Saudi Arabia.
more fun.
The USA is BACKING SUNNI FUNDAMENTALISTS AGAIN
…just like we used to.
Meanwhile this is about the struggle in Iran.
Led by women like this
I wish people had just a little more curiosity about the world.
AF (c319c8) — 4/5/2007 @ 6:14 pm