The West held hostage: Day 9

The video above (courtesy of the MEMRI blog) raises two important questions about the capture of the 15 British sailors and marines:

1) Why did the crew of the nearby HMS Cornwall do nothing to prevent the capture of their comrades?

2) What was a video camera doing on the Iranian boat?

The answer to the first question has been convincingly answered here.

The answer to the second seems to me pretty much self evident: The television camera was on board the boat because the incident was stage-managed for propaganda purposes from the get-go.

Yes, it's possible some random member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard just happened to have packed a camcorder along for the trip. But it seems to me highly unlikely.

I think the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is absolutely correct when it says that the attack was premeditated.

Mark Steyn offers some trenchent observations here. Best line: "Patrolling the Shatt al-Arab at a time of war, the Royal Navy operates under rules of engagement designed by distant fainthearts with an eye to the polite fictions of 'international law': If you're in a 'warship,' you can't wage war. If you're in a 'destroyer,' don't destroy anything. If you're in a 'frigate,' you're frigging done for."

More propaganda videos from Iranian television here. (All, unfortunately, are in Farsi.)

UPDATE: Iranian "students" throw rocks and firecrackers at the British Embassy. As Gateway Pundit shows, this event was just as "spontaneous" as the original hostage taking. "Hey everybody, look! A rock truck!"