End The Iranian Hostage Crisis - Trade Diplomats for Sailors and Marines

Somewhere in Iran 15 British sailors and Marines, including one woman, are living in constant fear for their lives.

Somewhere in Iran, every single second of every single day is an eternity of uncertainty for those 15 captives who were taken at gunpoint in international waters, as they were checking shipping for arms smugglers.

Pundits are saying that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known in this column as Green Bean Almondine, is thumbing his nose at the Untied Nations in general and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in particular. His dislike for Blair is said to be payback for Blair's unwavering support for President George Bush and the war in Iraq, and a going away present as Blair winds down his time in public office.

Meanwhile, the diplomats talk. Meanwhile the diplomats sit around their teak paneled board rooms, tended to by platoons of aides and attendants, sipping brandy from snifters that would cost an average person a month's pay and 'seek solutions.' Meanwhile, FOX News is reporting that a small gathering of Iranian 'students' some of whom must be in their third childhoods from the looks of it, are chanting 'Death To Britain' and 'Death to America.' But they aren't students and the crowd can become just as big or as small as Green Bean wants it to be, because he is pulling the strings in Iran, and he is pulling the strings across the globe.

And the diplomats talk.

And while they talk, and then adjourn for coffee, and talk some more, and adjourn for lunch, and talk some more and adjourn for dinner and the theater, 15 British sailors and Marines are living on a razor blade, not knowing from one minute til the next whether they will be brutalized, sodomized, starved and tortured. They don't know what will happen to them, but they sure as hell know what can happen to them, because they are held hostage by some of the sickest, most depraved, inhuman monsters on earth.

Proof of this is evident in the videos that some of the hostages have already made saying they were guilty of trespassing and spying on Iran. These people aren't cream puffs, they have received excellent training and have the highest level skills. They wouldn't be making those videos unless they already had been subjected to extreme abuse, or threatened with abuse, and believe those threats.

Only Rosie O'Donnell is lower on the scale of human existence than the Persian butchers who are holding these sailors and Marines hostage.

I have a question. How long do you think it would take to resolve this latest crisis if the military hostages were traded for a bunch of paunchy, soft, pampered diplomats and international businessmen? How long do you think this would last if people who measure their 'manhood' by their ability to negotiate 'win-win' solutions were being held, and had to face the reality that if you resort to negotiations with a cretin like Green Bean and his cronies there is no 'win-win.' There is only lose.

If this feels like deja vu, it is because it is happening all over again. Green Bean was there in 1979 when American president jimmy carter was publicly humiliated, and shown to be a spineless caricature of a leader. We were in a diplomatic box back then because until Green Bean's fundamentalist Islamic revolution took over, Iran had been an ally, and had allowed us to maintain electronic listening posts on the border with the former Soviet Union. So we had ties there, and we had a history. But that went down in flames the day carter ordered the American Marines to lay down their arms and surrender.

We were in a box because of our dependence on oil, and particularly our dependence on foreign oil. And it seems familiar now because we are back in the same box.

Back then there was a potential military solution and not that joint-service snafu of a so-called rescue mission that went up in flames in the Iranian desert. The military solution then was the same one that exists now, lay waste to that punk and his followers and stop this interminable talk that produces nothing.

But the military solution also requires a civilian leader with a backbone, if not gonads, who has the courage not just to stand up to a pipsqueak street punk - Green Bean Almondine - but the oil barons whose thirst for profits and refusal to allow development of alternative energy sources assured that we would never move one inch forward from where we stood in 1973, the year of the first Arab Oil Embargo. We had the technology in the 60s to substantially increase the mileage that motor vehicles get from gasoline, and we did nothing with it.

We had the research facilities and scientific skills to produce a plethora of alternative energy sources, not to replace oil, but to supplement it. But we did nothing. If some information I've seen on the Internet is true, the oil barons actively discouraged development of alternative energy sources whenever they appeared promising.

Oh, I know what they are going to say about the newest hostage crisis. The military people knew what they were getting into, they signed up for this, they have no grounds for complaints because being a POW goes with the territory. Don't like it? Deal with it, the oil barons will say.

Keep the oil flowing, keep the profits flowing, keep my stocks up and my gas prices down.

To which I respond, screw you.

People don't join the military to be pawns in international games of chance. They don't join the military to keep diplomats and business tycoons in positions of wealth, power and privilege. They don't join, and learn how to use a vast array of weaponry, to be restrained by unworkable, unthinkable rules of engagement that allow enemy forces to walk right up to them, disarm them, and kidnap them with no recourse.

They join the military to stand up for the rest of us, those who understand and value the freedoms that western democracies all too often take for granted. And they expect to be able to use their training, skills and weaponry, not to be told to put them all on the shelf while they are tortured and humiliated.

Strike that last word. The hostages aren't the ones being humiliated. Tony Blair and George Bush are being humiliated because neither of them did anything to wean our countries from oil dependence, thus setting the stage for an international madman who is little more than a glorified street punk to once again mock us and make us dance like puppets on a string. And now, all they are doing is talking, and they aren't even talking tough.

Want to know how Hitler rose to power? Watch Green Bean. He is no different, nor is the international response to him.

It is way past time to do something about this jerk. It is way past time to send a few rockets up his nose, and those of the top 10 percent of his closest allies.

But we also have other issues here. Green Bean has been sold the latest in air defense weaponry by the Russians, who you can bet, have had access to the secrets of our stealth technology that were stolen by the Chinese. The Russians want to see us get into it with Green Bean to see if we have developed a way around that, and to give us the inconvenience of another front in the War on Terror while we are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Russian leaders are not our friends. They are working behind the scenes on this to pay us back for setting up their defeat in Afghanistan. And the Chinese are sitting back watching the show and laughing their asses off.

Meanwhile the diplomats talk.

Meanwhile 15 British sailors and Marines are living every second of every minute on the sharp edge of a razor not knowing what the next second will bring, while their families and friends are powerless to help them.

Meanwhile the oil barons and business tycoons continue to amass profits. Meanwhile the diplomats talk.