iran is holding 15 british marines

[nehemiah]

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Fifteen British Royal Marines on patrol in the Persian Gulf have been "seized" by the Iranian navy, the British Ministry of Defense said.

The personnel from the HMS Cornwall frigate were surrounded by Iranian navy vessels after completing a routine inspection of a merchant ship, the ministry said in a statement.

They were then escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian waters, it said.

The Marines were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

A U.S. military official who monitors the region told CNN the Marines stopped an Iranian ship suspected of smuggling automobiles, and boarded it for an inspection.

While the Marines were on board, six Navy ships from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard showed up and claimed the British had entered Iranian waters.

A dispute ensued over whether the Marines were in Iraqi, international, or Iranian territorial waters, and the 15 were then seized and taken to Iran, the U.S. military official said.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/23/iran.uk/index.html

unfortunately, we live in interesting times.

[Ralonzo]

Remember the Maine.

[Gibby]

It may not have posted so I will try again. If there is any truth to this and diplomacy does not force their release then England has every right to go to war with Iran.

[35Pete]

Where is the outrage?

[nehemiah]

outrage about what?

[mark3274]

this happened before so why outrage? IT is just Iran pushing their buttons best to not start a war over this.. That is what Iran wants a excuse to turn the gulf into a tanker graveyard.

[nehemiah]

Casus belli is a modern Latin language expression meaning the justification for acts of war. Casus means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while belli means "of war".

It is often misspelled and mispronounced as "causus belli" since this resembles the English "cause" (and a different Latin word, causa {cause}). "Casus belli" is also pronounced this way because the term is used with the meaning of "cause for war", instead of "case of war" (notice that "case" comes from Latin "casus").

Despite the apparent age that the use of Latin confers on it, the term did not come into wide usage until the late nineteenth century with the rise of the political doctrine of "jus ad bellum" or "just war theory".[citation needed] Informal usage varies beyond its technical definition to refer to any "just cause" a nation may claim for entering into a conflict. As such, it has been used both retroactively to describe situations in history before the term came into wide usage and in the present day when describing situations when war has not been formally declared.

Formally, a government would lay out its reasons for going to war, as well as its intentions in prosecuting it and the steps that might be taken to avert it. In so doing, the government would attempt to demonstrate that it was going to war only as a last resort ("ultima Ratio") and that it in fact possessed "just cause" for doing so.

Proschema (plural proschemata) is the Greek equivalent term. These stated reasons may or may not be the actual reason for waging the war (prophases). The term was first popularized by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, who identified fear, honor, and interest as the three primary "real" reasons that wars are waged, while prophases commonly play up nationalism or fearmongering (as opposed to rational or reasonable fears).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli

[unklechucky]

I'll show outrage if the citizens of England somehow blame the USA for this.

[JLB]

It may not have posted so I will try again. If there is any truth to this and diplomacy does not force their release then England has every right to go to war with Iran.

All out Gibby?

[г]

Snoorrrreee...Anybody got some pics of Britney Speer's snatch ?

[Maz]

Iran is REALLY pushing their diplimatic recources to the brink of non exsistence, if they are brave enough to try and wage war against the Western world then we wlll undoubetly see the current Iran adminstration fall, quickly... all the nations are only going to put up with this bullshit for song long...

[Carl J. Ironsides]

The man is on his way...

http://topher92.googlepages.com/JackBauer.JPG