There are times when I'd be pleased if Mudcat would take over negotiating disputes between different countries. This is not one of those times.

"We" don't know where the hell the British sailors were when the Iranians captured them.

"No one" really knows where the international border is in the waterway between Iraq and Iran.

And just maybe, the British have been more aggresively excercising their inspections of local cargo traffic.

And just maybe the Iranians were looking for an opportunity to capture some British military personnel to swap forits citizens that the Coalition of the Willing is unwilling to release that were resident in the so-called council office in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Charley Noble