Thursday, April 05, 2007

Hostages to rhetoric

The sailors by the captured Iranians were hostages, its official. Not only do the media use the term but a senior chief of staff on BBC lunchtime news. The definition of hostage however is a prisoner who is held by one party to insure that another party will meet specified terms. But there was no deal! Ergo, they were not hostages! Or is there something we are not being told? It may suit the anti-Iran themes to describe them in this way but it obscures the issues completely. Maybe there was a deal, maybe their release was a PR stunt that will be used as a lever later, or maybe the terminology is just media driven hype. What are the facts here?

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