Friday, April 6, 2007

What Were They Thinking?

They have got to be kidding! I saw this article in today’s NEW YORK POST. The headline is, “SEW MAD AT IRAN’S WAR CRIME VS. FASHION”. It seems that some New York tailors have given the Iranian President an “F” for fashion faux pas – over the ill-fitting suits he forced captured British sailors to wear as he paraded them around before setting them free.

According to a mid-town custom suit maker being made to wear those suits is worse than incarceration. The British soldiers were marched out in the cheap baggy suits before being set free after being held hostage for nearly two weeks. Being marched around in the ridiculous looking attire was just the latest indignity the British sailors were forced to suffer, coming after days of being marched in front of television cameras and compelled to issue “confession” letters.

Let’s just hope these tailors were speaking tongue in cheek and were not serious. But I doubt it. In a culture where people are more concerned about the latest American Idol, the latest antics of Paris Hilton, or what Tom & Katie and Brad & Angelina are doing, I can believe they were more interested in the clothes rather than the well-being of the sailors.

Meanwhile across the Pond, the British press was criticizing the behavior of the captive sailors. Did anyone ever stop to think they were just trying to survive? True, they didn’t behave like Jeremiah Denton, an American aviator during the Vietnam War who was held hostage for almost eight years. He blinked the word “torture” in Morse code during a staged North Vietnamese TV interview.

Times have changed and I guess the means necessary to survive as a hostage have changed too.

It is good that they have been released and now are back in England. I wonder about the price for their release? Only time will tell.

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