British hostages
I came across an article in the New Zealand Herald that has an interesting piece about the 15 British military personnel taken hostage by Iran. Clearly, Iran is not the calculating chess player I thought they were; instead, they are a bumbling and desparate nation who is at the end of its rope. But I digress. The author of the piece, Gwynne Dyer, chose a spectacular and attention grabbing title- How to start a war- American style . Dyer contends that had Iran came across an American boarding party there would have been a shootout and the United States would now be at war. He bases this claim on a few out of context quotes by the XO of the USS Underwood, a frigate assigned to help out the British ship Cornwall, the ship the boarded RIB's came from. I'm sure the XO was frustrated and pissed that the Brits were taken and perhaps insinuated, "Why didn't they shoot those bastards instead of getting captured?" I had the same reaction also. I doubt the XO had all the in...