What should be done about the three students in an Iranian jail?

Just hearing, reading about that situation makes my chest hurt, makes it hard for me to breath.
I would find out who helped get those reporters out last year and enlist them to help. I would camp out in my congressman’s office, begging him to get the president involved on my child’s behalf. I would sell everything I had to get the money needed to do what it took to get the attention back on my child. I would stand on the street corner and beg for money if need be. There is nothing I would not do to get my child out of that hell hole.

@chyna understood…thinking about my son or my grandchildren over there…unreal. I’m like you, would do whatever it took to get them out. Would go to Anderson Cooper, Sixty Minutes, Dateline, or whoever would listen. Would try to personally meet Hillary Clinton, my congressman…anyone that would listen. Would not rest until they were released.

This is absolutely horrendous. I’d do everything possible in my power and I wouldn’t give up until they were freed. It’s gut-wrenching for all involved.

Oh, how awful….

My parents would do everything to get me out, but not before my mother told me I was an idiot for going close to the border.

@JLeslie Yeah but….damn.

I know this is a little far fetched (maybe) but I propose we send in a Black Ops (S.E.A.L. or Delta Force team) to infiltrate the jail and bust them out of there.

@Val123 They are idiots and so was Lisa Ling’s sister and that other reporter who were jailed in North Korea. Why are they not terrified of the possibility of winding up in a jail in Asia/Middle East enough that they stayed on the beaten path. There are plenty of mountains to climb in friendly territory.

Even though it has not been in the media, the State Department and other branches of government have been working behind the scenes to obtain their release.

It sort of shows how careless young people are that they got that close to the border with Iran.

@JLeslie They aren’t terrified simply because they are young and American, and can not begin to imagine such a thing happening. What opened my eyes when I was young was the movie Midnight Express….

I have very little sympathy for these folks, at least in the abstract. We’ve already set the standard for indefinite and premptive detainment, including the detainment of individuals who pose no threat to the US. Moreover, we went to their fucking country to collect them. Secondly, US soldiers are trained to kill civilians if they believe there’s a legitimate target in the vicinity (Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle. So is it really reasonable to have sympathy for adventurous kids (assuming they’re not actually some kind of spies or whatever) who chose to place themselves in an area that we turned into a war zone?

Are people living in the Middle East 3/5 human?

Oh yeah, hiking in Kurdistan. Something every family should encourage their kids to go do.

From the article:“The families of the three graduates of the University of California at Berkeley say they were hiking in the scenic Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and that if they did cross the border with Iran they did so unintentionally. ”

Clearly there is more to the story.
1) Do you expect us to believe there wasn’t one GPS between the three of them?
2) These are supposedly intelligent people. Do they not know that area is rife with political tension?
3) Most unbelievable of all- UC @ Berk students taking a vacation hiking anywhere in the Wackistan region. I though Spain was the recent vacation hot spot.
I feel for their families.

@Val123 Hard for me to understand since my mom would have made sure I was sufficiently terrified, but I will accept your explanation for the young people in the Iranian Jail. Lisa Ling’s sister has no excuse. Lisa had done a report on North Korea, actually went into the country and reported on how it is. Lisa also has done reports from American prisons, and even if the Asian jails were the same as our jails, that would be enough.

I have a question, are these kids Iraqi-Americans?

bad deal….and, they were too close to the border, but espionage act…from looking at their photos, seem like good kids…just mistake in judgement. none of us ever did that when were young! loll

hopefully, the press will not forget them!

Certainly know their family will not..

I don’t really see the Iranians letting the kids go without massive concessions.
This would be funnier if they’d gone as human shields.

Publicity. Main stream media.

Most effective would be a short documentary aired by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya.

Ooooh… is this that joke about the Irishman, Englishman & Scotsman?

trivial really, compared to the scale of people held in Guantanamo without trial and guilty of being born in the wrong country in the wrong time.