The Political Circus
The BBC reports on Nikki Haley, the Republican who took on Trump. This over emphasizes the supposed ‘attack’ by Governor Haley on Donald Trump. She said Republicans needed to chill out and start governing.
But the US is being overtaken by the ‘Great White North’ in the race for most political whackoes: ‘Kudatah’ against Notley’s NDP government sparks social media hilarity. Just read it to appreciate how the US has affected the Canadians.
Regarding the two US boats the Iranians seized, it would appear that the vessels had problems and entered Iranian waters. The treatment of the sailors is no different than any arrest. The sailors were armed and did trespass, so the Iranian reaction was no worse than what the US Coast Guard would do in similar circumstances.
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My understanding is that one of the boats had engine problems and washed ashore on one of the Iranian islands, and the other boat attempted to get it out of there at which point the Iranians arrested them as illegal immigrants and within 24 hours deported them to the United States. Our sailors were treated way better than the Border Patrol treats Mexican illegal immigrants that it catches on the wrong side of the border, who get cuffed and jailed until a busload of illegals has been gathered, then they get driven to the other side of the border and thrown out in the middle of nowhere.
It would appear that they failed to notify their bosses that they had problems and might be headed toward Iranian waters. The Secretary of Defense said the boats ‘misnavigated’ [they were lost and didn’t want to ask for directions].
I think the people complaining about the publicity surrounding this should check out an episode of ‘Cops’, or a DEA arrest in the Gulf. I wonder what the wingers would say if the Iranians slapped civil forfeiture notices on the boats and contents?
The Iranians actually repaired the boat that had the engine problems and returned both boats (with their own crews) to the Americans. As you say, the US would have seized the boats under civil forfeiture as proceeds of a criminal activity.
That was a whole lot friendlier than what the Chinese did with the aircraft they sideswiped over international waters.
Heh, yeah, if I remember right, the Chinese returned the *pieces* of that aircraft, after they totally disassembled it and recorded the dimensions of each and every component so that they could possibly at some time in the future create a clone of it. But the Iranians already know how to build (and repair!) speedboats…
The Iranians need to open a boat repair yard down here. My friend with the 30-footer seems to take the beast in every other month and never pays less that a thousand dollars for a repair that takes a minimum two weeks and rarely ever actually fixes the problem.