Thursday, April 05, 2007

05/04/2007 POW Etiquette



I'm not one to judge or anything...I mean, I don't know exactly went on in the background in terms of threats and stuff, but I always thought the thing to do was give your name, rank and number and that's all...!
Of course, I'm referring to the Iran captured sailors saga...
You're not really supposed to participate in TV chat shows and have cosy chats with the prime minister and that...
Don't you get training to prepare you for this eventuality?
(the fact that if I was in a captor situation, I would do anything they wanted me to on the merest hint of a threat of receiving a mild chinese burn, is beside the point...)
I think that the least you can expect is to be fully trained in "Advanced Sarcasm".
This could completely offset the propaganda affect of the prisoners appearing on camera...
We in the UK are world leaders in the art of dry sarcasm.
We should use this weapon more often...
AND it is certainly a lot cheaper than replacing Trident...
You see, the Iranian captors might not even have realised that they were being deeply sarcastic, as it is often difficult to detect it in a foreign language...
"I mean, we're REALLY sorry about trespassing in your seas" and stuff like that...!
"We DEFINITELY won't do it again...!"
Of course, sarcasm doesn't work very well on Blogs.
You have to imagine that the words in capitals are said REALLY sarcastically...
(apart from that last sentence. I was using the capitals there to denote emphasis rather than sarcasm)
I'm not sure why I used italics there though...
hmmm...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To be serious for a moment...the UK did actually apply reverse propaganda during this "crisis". Almost the first headline in the papers was akin to "Mother Of 3-Year Old Captured By Iranians"...outrage!, kidnapping mothers etc etc. harumph.
They initailly neglected to say (until paragraph 2) that she was in the Forces and had chosen to put herself in the front line leaving her baby at home (call the Social Work Dept I say..!).
On this note I wonder if we could perhaps employ single mums in areas where hostage-taking is rife. Great news stories, instant sympathy, a quick return home and they already look good in a shellsuit etc etc.
PS I couldn't get italics on this so the sarcasm is probably lost.

Yours,
Mouthy Git of Dundee

jimbo said...

You make a good point there...!
(which nobody can deny)
cheers
Jim