After a ton of protests the British government has decided to ban all service members from talking to the media for payment. While the ban is in force military personnel can still talk to the media but they can't take any kind of payment. Defense Secretary Browne said that "Until that time, no further service personnel will be allowed to talk to the media about their experiences in return for payment"
This doesn't have any kind of effect on the sailors that have already sold their stories, and at least as I understand it, does not count affect those that are not currently serving, so if they want to make a couple of million bucks first they need to get kicked out of the military.
Basically a whole ton of people complained because some (or possibly all) of the 15 service members that were prisoners in Iran are selling their stories.
What I find really interesting is the fact that Iran released video on al-Alam that shows them watching football, eating, laughing, playing ping pong and playing chess. That sounds like severe emotional stress to me, how about you? Of course just the fact that they were basically prisoners is stressful enough but somewhat refutes the story about being under intense psychological pressure.
Perhaps they weren't allowed any ping pong balls with which to play with?
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Or they were ordered to play ping-pong and chess for the cameras. This was all about Iraq trying to flex its muscles -- the message being, they can make passage throught the Persian Gulf very difficult for us. Since virtually of the supplies, weapons, ammo etc. bound for Iraq goes through the Gulf -- the message was intended for us. Not for the british sailors.
Very true. I haven't seen the videos yet myself. I would be interested in seeing their demeanor. I honestly can't think that I would be to particularly fucking happy to be captive, ping pong tables notwithstanding.