Col. David Roeder, who was held hostage for 444 days during the Carter screw-up, was on H&C earlier this week to talk about the current U.K. hostage crisis involving the 15 seamen and Marines. Ollie North joined the discussion, and it was nothing short of heart-wrenching to hear Roeder describe his captivity at the hands of Ahmadinejad.
You can read the whole transcript here, but here’s a partial:
COLMES: Ollie, we hear that things are getting worse. Then, we hear they’re getting a little better, then we hear they’re getting worse. And then we hear — one report says the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, saying that, if Britain can show that this is a mistake, this can be resolved. So what truly is going on here?
OLLIE NORTH: Well, as Colonel Roeder can tell you, the Iranians lie a lot, and so I wouldn’t believe a thing that the Iranians are saying, unless these hostages are on an airplane headed back home.
One of the things that we’ve learned, Alan, is that, 10 days ago, in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps publication, Reza Faqir, who is probably a pseudonym for an author who writes in it regular — Zubi Sadek is the name of the publication — threatened that they could take British and American hostages anytime they wanted and, quote, “feed them to our fighting cocks.” This all is in response to the Iranians being emboldened by actions of the U.S. Congress and Tony Blair’s suggestion that they’re going to pull out in the not too distant future from Iraq. The Shatt al-Arab follows — this whole incident follows a meeting with the United States and Iranians in Iraq, so you obviously can’t believe that the Iranians simply want to sit down and talk to people.
I think what you’re seeing is internal politics in Tehran being played out on the stage, just as they’re being played out here. This is done for internal political consumption. The IRGC is dealing with a government that is now feeling the heat from sanctions that have been imposed and three very high-level defection that have come to the West exposing a lot of their secrets — Alan?
COLMES: Hey, David, when we hear that a letter was written, and she makes conciliatory — we’re talking about the female hostage who makes conciliatory comments about Iran, you’ve been through this. What kind of pressure is brought to bear on a hostage to write a letter like that and say those kinds of words?
DAVID ROEDER, FORMER HOSTAGE IN IRAN: Well, as David Jacobson said last night on your show, who knows who was behind the scenes with a gun to one of the other sailors or royal marines? Obviously, the young lady is scared, and that’s understandable. As a matter of fact, this morning on E.D. Hill’s show, one of our colleagues was asked about that, and he said that she was scared. And I certainly agree with that. What I don’t agree with and would like to correct it, particularly for Ollie’s sake, is that he went on and said we had the same thing happen with our young Marine enlisted men. That is absolutely not true. So I just wanted to get that clear. But she’s under a lot of pressure. This is deja vu all over again, as Yogi said. I think leaving the folks with blindfolds, the nice little communal meal. What they don’t tell you is, after the cameras go off, all the food disappears.
COLMES: So, Ollie, what is the way out of this? We keep hearing, as we’ve said, some conflicting reports of how close they are to possibly settling it. Is there a peaceful way out anytime soon?
NORTH: Well, certainly. And there are a lot of things that the British can do to bring pressure to bear on the Iranians, so it does not have to end up in, you know, military action. Let me just make sure that David understands what I was talking about last night, when I made the observation that letters were drafted for people to write. And as you know, they were drafted; they just weren’t sent by those U.S. Marines out there.
Here’s what the British can do. They can start expelling diplomats right away. They can shut down the trade missions. They can bar visits and stop granting visas, which means no new Persian carpets for the foreign ministry, but who cares? Most Iranians going to Europe on legitimate or black market business go through Frankfurt. If London gets Berlin’s cooperation, it could put a real damper on Pasdaran, meaning IRGC, finances. And finally, Iran imports about 40 percent of their gasoline. If you get cooperation from Bahrain and the gulf emirates to stop refining Iranian gasoline, you can shut the country down.
SEAN HANNITY: Hey, Colonel North, Sean Hannity here. Look, these are acts of war. For example, they’ve been supplying the insurgency in Iraq with their weaponry killing 175 U.S. soldiers that we know of. They capture these hostages. They’re threatening to try these hostages. They’re parading these hostages around, and they’re forcing these hostages to write these letters admitting that they were on Iranian soil and Iranian waters, territorial waters, et cetera, here. All acts of war. Now…
NORTH: Well, and we’re not going to get any help out of the international community; the U.N. grave concern press statement this afternoon was totally meaningless.
HANNITY: Well, yes. And on top of that, too, we know that Russia probably is not going to be inclined to even help anyway, and they have a veto possibility. Now, Colonel Roeder, I want to ask you specifically here. This is not the first time you have dealt with Ahmadinejad. You were one of the hostages. You were held against your will for a long period of time, but you believe Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, was one of your interrogators back then.
ROEDER: Not the interrogator, but present at several of my interrogations. I was one of the six that identified him when he was announced as the president of Iran. He appeared about the fourth interrogation that I had. And I know, 99.9 percent sure, that this is the same guy. And the reason for that, Sean, is that this man is what I call a blinker. He blinks his eyes more often than an average human being does. And everybody changes in 25, 26 years, but that’s something you can’t change. He’s the same guy.
HANNITY: Colonel North, what can we learn from the example with President Reagan? President Reagan didn’t bother negotiating when they were dropping these land minds in the Persian Gulf in ’87 and in ’88. He didn’t bow at the altar of the U.N. He went in there, and he started sinking navy ships of Iranians, and it worked.
NORTH: And even more important, Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric leading up to the election in 1980 is what brought David home. I mean, the reality was the Iranians realized that inaugural day that Ronald Reagan was now president. Jimmy Carter no longer was. The problem is, this president has been severely weakened by what the Congress has been doing since they got elected in November. And the Iranians are doing this, again, for internal political purposes. David is absolutely right. Ahmadinejad was one of the people who planned the whole operation at the American embassy back in 1979. And so these guys look at this president as weak. And, unfortunately, our media and our Congress have made him appear so.
Why do we keep appeasing these two-bit, thug dictators and letting them hold the entire West in a virtual hostage state as we kow-tow to their demands and play their games? I’ll never understand it, but I know Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, nor Winston Churchill would have put up with this B.S. Time to get tough and do what needs to be done.
Calling Fred Thompson… Fred Dalton Thompson, please come in???? We need you and need you NOW!
Welcome 
