Why The Brits Were Told To Shut Up

After an initial green light to sell their experiences to the media, which has a long tradition in Great Britain, the Defence Ministry slapped a gag order on the ex captives and banned them from telling their stories. To me this is just more indication the British government is as duplicitous and corrupt as our own. Whether their provocations in the Gulf were meant as a casus belli or not, any positive propaganda they hoped to milk out it all evaporated early on. Now it's just a cover up. The Defence Ministry feared that the real treatment of the sailors in Iranian custody wouldn't jive too well with the phony boo hoo tales of woe they they forced the ex captives to lie about.

Sure the Iranians will cherry pick the moments they want to record for the world to see - for instance we'll never get the tenseness of them being questioned in the briefing rooms. However as a thinking human being I can look at these videos and see a completely different atmosphere than the lie the Defence Ministry is insisting is the truth. Unless the Iranians are standing off with machine guns camera barking "Look HAPPY or DIE!" and the sailors are world class actors, these guys were relaxed.