>>>>>>>And yes, he did pardoned them, because if they were catched in Iran territorial waters as it is claimed by Iran, then proceedings leading to release could hv been lot lot longer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>"Claimed by Iran" being the key word. Do you really believe that they were in Iran territorial waters?
>>>>>
>>>>>Mike, doesn't this question come down to who you want to believe? I certainly don't know because I simply do not have access to that information. Does anyone outside of the top military brass really have this information? For the man in the street this becomes a choice of what/who to believe. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. One thing for sure though - the British navy weren't too smart putting their (unprotected) people that close to wherever the exact line is. Unless they wanted the reaction they got...
>>>>
>>>>Well I know who I want to believe, and it's got nothing to do with Gitmo, or the US at all.
>>>
>>>If we realize that its a choice what we believe then we can avoid presenting that choice as proof of something (not you, generally speaking).
>>
>>Not sure I understand that but I mean, on one hand we have a generally peaceful nation (forget riding on GW's coattails into Iraq for a moment), respectable and just getting on with its own business. OTOH we have a den of avaricious mullahs, bent on keeping their people in fear and servitude to a medieval, evil regime, bent on gaining the bomb so it can push its weight around, even so it can destroy Israel if Dinner-Jacket is to be believed, and on fostering terror. It's like saying "Who do you believe - the cop or the street mugger, rapist, killer, known to lie through his teeth?". And, yes, we were acting in the role of cop at the time.
>
>This rationalizes why you believe what you do. It does not prove whether they were or were not in Iranian territorial waters however.

You know, I don't really care. They were doing no harm to the Iranian regime, going about their business (what? was the RIB suddenly going to swerve off and do an attack run on Iran?). What if they were, or may have drifted there, or the ship they were checking was a ploy, or IT drifted. It doesn't really matter; Iran was being bloody-minded and a pain in the @ss.