Who Paid The Ransom For The Hikers....

[rsmith6621]

......I mean the bail..you knew that is what I met... was it the family?..was it a private organization?...was it the our government?

[Mz Pip]

1. Oman

That's what was in the paper today.

[MicaelS]

2. According to CNN it was the Omani government

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/21/world/meast/iran-hikers/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

"The lawyer for Fattal and Bauer, Masoud Shafiee, told CNN the $1 million bail had been paid by the Omani government."

[FarCenter]

5. The Omani government undoubtedly anticipates some consideration from someone else

Not necessarily monetary, and not necessarily a quid pro quo.

But that's how things get done.

[MicaelS]

7. Of course, that is the way the world works. n/t

[slackmaster]

3. Auto-Rec for quasi-Malapropistic mis-spelling in the subject line

:kick:

[DainBramaged]

4. I still want to know why these idiots went hiking in a war zone in the first place.....

[MicaelS]

6. You and me both n/t

[truebrit71]

8. Me three...was it a coin-toss? Heads it's the Appalahian trail, tails it's Iraq?

:wtf:

[MicaelS]

12. I'm very cynical, after reading Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932011_detention_of_Americans_by_Iran

The three Americans are anti-war, social justice and Palestine Solidarity Movement activists. They had been living and active in the Middle East, and were on holiday in Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region of Iraq free from the sectarian struggle that dominates much of Iraq. They had been advised of the suitability of the region for a holiday by friends who had been there and through Internet research; and were recommended the Ahmed Awa waterfall, a popular Kurdish tourist destination, by a number of local people whilst they were in Sulaymaniyah. After visiting the waterfall, they continued walking within what they believed to be Iraqi Kurdistan, up to and including the time they were detained by Iranian border guards.

(a) They were out to make a political statement by showing Solidarity with the people of Iran, Iraq, or Iraqi Kurdistan, or some combination of these against the Western Imperialism.
(b) They were duped by someone who was an agent provocateur of Iran wanting to be able to generate just the type of political turmoil that has occurred.
(c) They were out to go "where no one has gone before", like some hikers and mountaineers do.
(d) They really thought that because they were pro-Arab Peace activists, that Iranian authorities would welcome them with open arms.


In other words they were naive, or stupid, or ignorant, or arrogant, or some combination thereof. It could have been fatal. Instead they got lucky and were only imprisoned, and not executed as spies, or simply shot outright when they crossed the border. Assuming they really crossed the border at all.

I think they were three idiots that caused a lot of trouble they had absolutely no business causing.

[Riftaxe]

17. (d) is funny as heck, considering

there is no love lost between Persians and Arabians.

[ljm2002]

9. I had the same question...

...however there were more details in the sfgate article on their return home.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/22/MN731L7HT6.DTL

"At the time, Bauer and Shourd were living and working in Damascus, Syria - he as a freelance journalist and she teaching English to Iraqi refugees. Fattal, a native of Pennsylvania, was visiting the couple after working as a teaching fellow in Asia and Africa.

Bauer, a Minnesota native whose writing and photography have appeared in The Chronicle, sent an e-mail four days before his arrest to Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media in San Francisco. He said he was going to Iraq's Kurdish region, where elections were being held, to "feel out the situation there and get some ideas for deeper stories."

After her release, Shourd, a Los Angeles native, said she and her companions had been arrested while hiking near a waterfall that is popular with tourists and locals. She said they had accidentally crossed into Iran after an armed guard beckoned them off a path and then refused to allow them to return."

Now this is what I read in the paper. It still could be a cover story, they still could be agents or just extremely dumb. But it does provide some background that would explain what they were doing there. It doesn't sound so stupid and/or suspicious to me now.

[Kolesar]

10. Hike at Yellowstone and you might get eaten by a bear

Their story sounded like cover that spies would use.

[leveymg]

11. We have all been trained to call them "hikers" - they are, generously, illegal entrants who

crossed the border without inspection into Iran from an area crawling with armed Kurdish separatists. Under similar circumstances, if three Iranians who tried the same thing at the US border with Mexico, and had no really good excuse about what they were doing there, would not be referred to as "hikers", except maybe by the official Iranian state news agencies.

Spin, spin, spin . . . propaganda.

Ransom, my ass.

[Poll_Blind]

13. LOL- you're probably right, too! n/t

PB

[malaise]

18. If you believe that shite I have a bridge to sell

:evilgrin:

[DainBramaged]

19. Hello my friend

This has been bullshit since day one. They just LOOK like spooks.

[razorman]

14. I'll bet the hikers don't care.

[FarCenter]

15. If they were just hikers, would there have been all this official fuss over them

I mean, if you get busted for spitting on the train platform in Singapore, does the State Department go to bat for you this way?

[UTUSN]

16. K&R #3, after all those yrs of we -don't- negotiate-w -whomever.

So now all anybody has to do is take hostages and we (or somebody will) pay.


Btw, somebody told me I was naive to accept that they were "hikers," that they are "electrical engineer nerds, meaning SPIES."