When I was a kid we used to play make-believe games. For instance, playing soldiers, one would rush up to playmayes, make a machine-gun rata-tata-tata-tatat noise and they would compliantly drop down play-dead. Or putting some cushions together, a round tea tray and we had a car, usw. To paraphrase a famous man, when I became a man I put aside childish things.

It seems that in the world of international diplomacy these people still live in this make-believe world.

We know that the Iranians snatched these guys in order to cock a snoot at the West; they say they did it cos they'd strayed into their waters.

We all witnessed the british personnel making abject apologies to camera for straying into their waters; we all know that they'll have been coerced into doing so, probably with the encouragement of release if they did so. We know that, unless restrained from doing so for politico-diplomatic reasons, once home they'll retract these bogus statements. And the Iranians must know that will be the case.

President Amani-Dinner-Jacket made his magnanimous revelation yesterday to point out how humane, civilised and friendly the Iranians are, in the face of western aggression/incursion in their territory; we know they're inhumane (esp. in their treatment of innocent females on morality charges), too rooted in vicious medieval religious mumbo-jumbo to be considered civilised in any modern sense, and beligerent and antagonistic toward the West, promoters of terror (look how most ME terrorists in the 80s-90s were depicted as Iranians in film - "Back to the Future" for instance).

So the military personnel were released, with all smiles, wearing new clothes (what was all THAT about?) and coming forth to thank the guy for releasing them; I've no doubt that this was again stage-managed and conditional to their release. Why thank a guy for releasiing you when he had no moral right to take you in the first place?

The release was billed as a present to the British people, to mark Easter, and the birth of Mohammed (Peace be upon Him); we all know this was just a convenient time to do it, for him to save face and score points on the West, knowing there was no way out. This concept of "face" can be such a barrier to getting anything constructive done. There's always got to be an "out", which everyone knows is just baloney.

We were shown how well they were kept, with good food and accommodation, but not shown the conditions of the ordinary inmates of their jails.

It's like a suspension of disbelief - we all go along with these games and sort of believe it all. It's nothing less than a grown-up version of some complicated kids' game, for which only the kids know the rules (which are made up as they go along). Every news program analyses each act, what's going through each leader's head, why certain actions are taken, what they mean in reality, etc., so we all know it's a scam, and they know we know, but they keep up this big pretence.

It's not just this incident - we in Britain have been listening to a running game between the Catholics and Protestants in N. Ireland for decades, with grown men refusing to sit down and, as they've been saying for decades, ad nauseum, "have DIALOGUE" (rather than "talk"). It's been a game of "not playing ball in my yard" or "it's my ball and I'm taking it home with me", and it makes me very sad to see it.

I'm going on now. Just my two penn'orth.


>>Ahmadinejad blinked.
>
>
>Did he? Or did he get what he wanted?
>Recognition, publicity, noise, and the release of Iranis in custody in Iraq?
>There is a lot we don't know about the "deal".