Geez, all we did was kidnap a few Iranian diplomats, who’d have thought they’d be getting all pissy about it.

OH Ed, how quaint!

For one thing: we can’t vote in Iran, so I doubt they’d care.

Second, and for the love of god, why does anyone have to mention this: WE are the good guys. THEY are the bad guys. No one expects the Bad Guys to play by the rules. We DO, however, expect the Good Guys to do so.

To bad there’s not some sort of international body that could be used to start some sort of diplomatic process to negotiate this down from crazy-land.

You know, a few weeks back, some Swiss Army guys wandered into Luxomburg or some POS country. THe reason that didn’t trigger WWIII ( an ACTUAL one, not a made up war-boner one) is because Switzerland and Luxomburg (or whichever) are not run by crazy people.

The sad reality is that we can’t trust either government over this. (Again, if only there were some form of international forum with which to bring in some impartial third arty to moderate…)
However, since Britland is in the process of pulling out, I’m more inclined to believe that they’re were not actually trying to start shit with Iran, and if they were in Iran waters (or even water disputed with Iran) then they fucked the pooch hard on that one.

This is very bad. “We are interrogating them”, coming from the Iranians, makes me sick to the stomach with fear for the hostage’s welfare. This is not good at all.

BTW, you’re still loading very slowly. But at least you’re loading faster than sourcewatch.org, which is not loading at all.

PS: We almost forgot this.

Yeah, it could be they’re still pissed about those 4 Iranian diplomats picked up in Baghdad back in December.

But I was thinking maybe this was retaliation for the ones we nabbed from the Erbil consulate early this year. Or maybe the one we snatched off the street in February.

Hard to tell.

Damn, I keep getting locked out of the server…

I’ll update. This server nonsense should be fixed soon — seems to be DNS transition issues, which is fairly normal…

they went in clearly uniformed as regular military personnel and thus cannot, under the Geneva Convention, be charged with espionage

And here I was, foolishly thinking that because the Geneva Convention deals with “treatment of prisoners of war”, it might not be relevant here. On account of the absence of a war.

“And here I was, foolishly thinking that because the Geneva Convention deals with “treatment of prisoners of warâ€?, it might not be relevant here. On account of the absence of a war.”
I’m not Geneva expert, but I would assume that hinges on the differentiation between “acts of war” and “declarations of war”.
As is, SOMEONE, whether it be invading foreign territory or capture of foreign troops outside your boarders, committed an act of war. I don’t think that automatically means they’re now official at war, and thus the Geneva Convention may not apply. *shrug*

The server is still wonky, but it’s mostly timing out, not 503-ing.

I noticed loadtimes improved dramatically after 12am pst until about 5am yesterday. So far that has been true tonight.

There’s no war. So no prisoners of war. So no Geneva Conventions. Wearing a uniform doesn’t protect you from judicial proceedings or other punitive measures on a charge of espionage in peacetime. Otherwise, we’d simply send soldiers to Natanz and have them walk around with notebooks.

i’m trying to imagine the dissociative state that allows noonan to refer to the geneva conventions.
and failing.

i’m just posting because i can. refresh! refresh! this is great! i wish i understood the propagation of the DNS transition and all. hope it works itself out soon.

Ugh. Me too, I just can’t believe that anyone who supports Bush can criticize another country for not following the Geneva Conventions without their head exploding. I also love people suggesting Iran is not a democracy. Hey, we may not like who they elected, but it’s their country, after all, and their political process seems to be no weirder than ours, at the least.

S,N! is loading veeerrrrrrry slowly for me. The front page, after several minutes, loaded with the cascading style sheet stuff, but without any pictures or graphics. Clicking on “Comments” produced another snack break, but at least it was better than Sunday night, when my cable connection went down (which, admittedly, wasn’t S,N!’s fault), and stayed down until Monday afternoon. Hopefully, the migration issues will get worked out soon, so we can all get back to what’s important–mocking teh wingnutz. And, yadda, yadda, preview button.

My problem with all this is that the US, EU and UN have been treating Iran terribly unfairly for a number of years now. They do have a perfectly legal right to enrich uranium. They do have a nuclear armed hostile state within missile range. They do have not one, but two of their neighbors occupied by a hostile american military. To expect them to sit down and shut up is not only unrealistic, it’s stupid. If you create this kind of an atmosphere with a regional power, you should not be surprised that they will fight you…

mikey

hmmm. considering that any US Citizen’s influence in Iran is pretty much NIL – wouldn’t it be somewhat more to the point for us to sign a petition demanding that the United States observe the Geneva Convention?

I mean, despite what the current Administration’s policy is?

also … re elindel’s ““We are interrogating themâ€?, coming from the Iranians, makes me sick to the stomach with fear for the hostage’s welfare.”.

how do you suppose elindel feels hearing “we are interrogating them” from the Administration regarding prisoners in Iraq, or in Gunatanamo, or in any of the various un-named Eastern European prisons to which we “Extraordinarily Rendition” them to avoid adhering to our own laws regarding the treatment of prisoners.

Oh, wait – that doesn’t count. cause, you know, we’re the GOOD GUYS.

I used to go to dance theater a lot, but now I can see more amazing contortions and quick-stepping just by watching the Administration. Aint nothing quite like self-righteous hypocrite- in-denial for fantastic soft shoe and tap-dancing ocne the spotlight’s on them, right?

JTG, check out elendil’s site, s/he’s long been outspoken against torture no matter where it occurs at her own site as well as this one.