Is it just me or is this woman sailor that was captured even more weak than first thought?

Question

Practically nothing in her statement was actually THAT bad.

She said she thought she would be raped. No-one said or tried to do it, she just thought it.

She thought they were making her coffin by the banging noises. No-one said or tried to do it, she just thought it.

Exactly what torture did she put up with before singing like a canary and making well over £100,000 in the process? Not what was in her mind, what ACTUAL torture did she put up with?

Imagine for a moment if you will that she actually HAD operational secrets. Do you really think she would have been brave enough to keep them hidden? Of course not. She possibly represents all that is NOT brave about certain military personnel.

Im disgusted she is profiting out of a situation when all around her other personnel are DEAD or DYING on the streets of Baghdad. Meanwhile shes making a nice little earner on the side.

Answer 1

Have you ever served your country, BOY?

I'm a veteran and childish logic like yours makes me sick.

Answer 2

In a couple of weeks most of this will be forgotten , not all of it though, the truth is that the whole thing has made the rest of the British forces a laughing stock throughout the world, can you imagine the jokes going on at this very moment?
In questions like yours I try to look at both sides.
I have been in the army and on active service in a few spots, I am certainly no hero!
If I was ever captured I would agree with just about anything I was asked to agree with, (I was never captured BTW but I do know I would agree) I would smile as requested etc etc!
It would be nice to do a 'Rambo' and kill a couple of dozen of my captors, but it doesn't really work out like that!
Nor do I class myself as a coward, but if after my release I was given permission to 'sell' my story by the MOD or whoever, I would draw the line, unless the cash was going to the families of those that had actually died in combat.
So up to a point I agree with you, and I certainly agree that you have the right to express your point of view, whether you are an 'armchair warrior' or not.

Answer 3

Where you there personally with this woman, day and night, for the length of her capture?
Obviously the Iranians are going to make a big show of treating their hostages well, they want to be seen as sympathetic, they don't want people to believe they are the same as the Iraqis. Can you really be so sure that things were EXACTLY the same when the cameras stopped rolling?
So she's home again safely and you've read what she's mentioned in an interview with some newspaper. Do you really believe everything you read in the press today? (More fool you if you do.) It is entirely possible that she is in some kind of post traumatic stress and has blanked out things which could quite conceivably have been done to her and her mind's not ready to process it yet. Can you be so sure that her statements aren't in some way vetted by her commanding officers after her de-brief and we are actually getting the full story?
Unless you and the people agreeing with you can answer YES to all of the above without any doubt whatsoever, you have no concept of what you're talking about.
As for "singing like a canary" who the hell are you, Don Corleone?
Yes, I am a woman so of course I'm going to defend my gender, but I also have a brain and a heart and I am actually grateful for the risks the personel of our armed forces take to defend us. I couldn't do it,and as so many of us are too selfish and too afraid to put our necks on the line for our country, we have absolutely no right whatsoever to criticise those courageous people that do.
It's very easy for us, isn't it? Sitting here judging and critising, tapping away on our little keyboards in the comfort and safety of our own homes, knowing that unless we have family and/or friends in the forces that absolutely none of this is going to touch us...except that it does touch us, all of us, every single day. Our lives, our families, our homes, our careers, our pleasures...all of those, including our civil liberties, are protected by the people of our forces defending our country. The sailors may not have been fighting when they were captured, but they may be one day, who are we to judge them and criticise them unless we've been them and been where they were and know what we're talking about?

Answer 4

Well my turn, lets first talk about this so called traitor, she did what she need to do, torture is not always visible and the mind games can be worse, ask any soldier who has done escape and evasion, this is a tortuous time and it only last 36 hours and a lot of people crumble, even knowing its there own forces doing the interrogation.
Was she on the front line to me she was doing what a female driver would do, and that's her job, but my big problem is big tell me, she does not look overweight and unfit she looks an absolute disgrace, but then again what would you expect she is a female in the forces, don't get me wrong alot of females i know are very fit and look after themselves but again there a lot who don't.
Last but not least the money its WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, and i think she should be thrown out of the forces, everyone knows that you can say nothing even when you know yourselves its wrong you must still have the moral fibre not to sell your stories to the press like some kiss and tell slapper.

Answer 5

For centuries Islam has been the object of anit-Muslim propoganda. Which is why we have the present problem. If the female military person had swallowed all the propoganda she had heard, then she would have been afraid that this anti Muslim propoganda was true.

My experience is somewhat different.

From 1990 to 1995 I worked as a social assistant/administrator and legal advisor in a small refugee centre. We had 84 beds in 17 rooms, at least 7 native languages and, at one stage 29 different nationalities.
Naturally enough, there were altercations and it was part of my job to intervene and calm down the situation.

Whenever there was a problem bewtween myself and a resident, I was more afraid of the Muslims than the rest. Because, if anyone started to shout at me, the Turks would appear and stand guard. My worry was that, during a heated discussion, one of the men would touch me, because I knew that the Turks would rush to my aid and I could have a massive fight on my hands. One day, I had a heavy discussion with a resident. I was somewhat relieved because I knew that there were no Turks in the centre. What did I see? The Kosovo Albanians had taken the place of the Turks.
Muslims respect women, and not just older women like myself. I have Muslim friends who have been allowed to stay in the country whom I met during this time. I know that if I were to asked for help they would come to help me.
I stand by what I said in answer to a previous question. Being imprisoned is not pleasant, but these people did not appear to be under stress when they appeared on the videos.
We're going to hear/read much more about their experiences and I'll take all their accounts with a pinch of salt.
Who's going to be paid for saying that he was treated with respect and dignity?

My experience gained whilst working with survivors of torture and miss-treatment leads me to believe that the 15 were not mistreated. They were far too relaxed during the videos to have suffered psychological mistreatment.

Perhaps those released from Guantanamo should also be paid to publish their stories in The Sun.

Answer 6

Just to point out there's a major difference between these sailors and the captives held by the coalition, whether in Baghdad or Iraq.

These sailors didn't actually know anything useful. It would have been pointless for Iran to torture them, and they knew it. Their value lay in the capture, the videos, and the release. Torture for sport might have been a possibility, but there was never any reason to think they could reveal any useful secrets, because people with useful secrets aren't generally on boarding parties.

These were hostages, plain and simple, not prisoners.

Answer 7

Since I have never been captured Iranian, denied my freedom or been subject to psychological torture I am not qualified to make a decision that she is weak. Now who am I to say a woman can be in real fear of being raped and her fear is any less real if she isn't raped in the end? Same goes with her fear coffin that the noises she heard did cause her to fear for her life.

Are you qualified to decide she is weak? I'm not and I have walked through and driven through the streets of Baghdad, Najar, Ramadi and ever Fallujah so I do know fear. It is how you handle the fear that counts. And you Dave? Have you you faced the of even walking down an alley at night in your town.

By the way, I don't recall any of the male sailors or the marines discussing actual torture that they put up with before making money on their stories? I just sounds as if you are are giving the men a pass while attacking the woman.

Answer 8

I thought these people underwent training for the possibility of events like this? If a woman wants to join up and is prepared to leave her young baby behind for a career she chose then she should not expect to be treated any different to the men. Yes she must have been terrified and I wouldn't want to be in her position but men get raped and tortured too. From what we read and hear I believe her "torture" was more like bullying and although very scary, not harmful or life threatening. She should NOT have been allowed to sell her story so taking on this celebrity status. It's an insult to those who have died for their country or really been tortured. Remember the 2 Johns in the previous war who we saw battered and bruised?

Answer 9

I do agree with you on some things - I do think it is disgusting that the sailors are able to sell their stories and make thousands of pounds from this, as you say, when other colleagues are dying or dead. It doesn't come across as very dignified at all that these sailors are being turned into a complete tabloid/media circus, and in my opinion it trivialises what has happened.

I do think though that they had to put up with mental torture. The Iranians implied that she would die - they asked her how would she feel dying for her country while blindfolded and stripped. What would you think, while you heard nails being banged into wood? They told her that she might never see her daughter again. They also told her that her colleagues had been sent home already and she was the only one left. They made her writ a letter saying that she had been "sacrificed" by the British Government. So hats off to them and I'm glad they came back safe and sound.

The worst thing the forces did is to allow these stories to be sensationalised. And you know why? Because it's easy, free, believeable and sensational propaganda.

Answer 10

So you're saying taking a job that you daily put your life on the line for your country is weak. That leaving your family and traveling to foreign countries to serve your country is weak? And don't you dare say that if YOU had the ******* balls to join the military and YOU were captured and tortured and YOUR country gave YOU the right to sell YOUR story YOU wouldn't ******* do it. You are an arrogant selfish prick and not until you are over dying on the streets of Baghdad do you have the ******* right to badmouth someone who was willing to do that for her country. People like you don't even deserve the ******* air you breathe!!! Grow the **** up or shut the **** up!!!!!!!

Answer 11

Imagine what would have happened to her if she'd been captured by the Americans!! Having seen the various photographs the Yanks have taken, degrading and humiliating Muslim men, the Iranian treatment of the 15 prisoners looks quite mild. I think the 15 had preconceived ideas about what would happen and were obviously very frightened. I agree with your sentiments about Turney's decision to 'sing like a canary' - she's only been free for about 4 days, I'm amazed she could even think about giving an interview, a remarkable recovery I'd say!!