Comments Posted By Johnny Tremaine
Displaying 11 To 20 Of 42 Comments
Rick, I brought this up an earlier post below about Iran: the players we truly need to worry about while working against the Iranians developing a nuclear weapons capacity aren't the French. It's China and Russia.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 1.02.2007 @ 20:03
Rick, aren't the truly unpredictable actors in a confrontation with Iran scenario, not just the mullahs, but even more so, China and Putin's Russia? Both countries have recently shown that they'll do what's strictly in their own national interests even if it involves rattling sabers, i.e. China shooting down that satellite. We moved against Iran or their oil producing capacity, I'm guessing that the Chinese and Russians would work to undermine any efforts more than the Europeans ever would.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 1.02.2007 @ 19:58
Caught 24 this week and taped Heroes. It was a great episode, as Rick pointed out. Week to week I'll alternate. Next week, 24 gets recorded and I'm watching Hiro Nakamura and the hot Wolverine-powered-chearleader; I need to get my geek/comics/sci-fi fix after all.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 30.01.2007 @ 21:33
SUPPORT THE TROOPS: OPPOSE THE BIDEN RESOLUTION
Rick,
I'm with you in supporting this troop surge, although I don't think it'll stave off the inevitable Shia-on-Sunni-on-Kurd-on-Turkomen civil war. What it CAN do is give cover to Iraqi civilians who are fleeing to safe zones away from the violence.
David Brooks in today's NY Times pretty much says the same thing and goes on to advocate a partition of Iraq, which he thinks is also inevitable and already beginning to occur on its own.If you want to get a good look at why post conflict Iraq has pretty much slid off a cliff, read: Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. It isn't a liberal screed against Bush; it's an inside look by a Washington Post correspondent who had full access to Garner and then Paul Bremer and their plans and execution of those plans for Iraq. It looked like amateur hour.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 25.01.2007 @ 21:45
Aaargh! I missed most of last night's episode. I was flipping back and forth between 24 and Heroes. Damn you NBC for pitting one of my favorite new shows against another favorite. Daaaaaamn youuuuu...!
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 23.01.2007 @ 17:36
Ah well, guess I'll just have to upgrade my cable box from Cablevision and get the DVR.
Going off on a tangent from Rick's post: I think those were one of the high points of Chevy Chase's career. After the 'Vacation' movies and the underrated 'Funny Farm', the guy just stopped being funny and turned into a humorless tool. Maybe he just always was one. A tool, that is.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 27.12.2006 @ 20:48
IF BUSH GOES "ALL IN," I'M WITH HIM
Although I don't read Andrew Sullivan much, I clicked on a link to his site where he describes what is going on now in Iraq, Lebanon, and soon the rest of the Middle East as the beginning of a new Thirty Years War based on religious and ethnic conflict akin to the one that decimated Europe. He says basically that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was the trigger. I think he's probably right, that we're at the beginning of something pretty fricking terrible in world history, but did the U.S. trigger it? Probably not. Did it give the existing simmering conflict a shot of adrenaline? Probably so.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 14.12.2006 @ 22:10
Although I find myself in agreement with Cato, I hope he's wrong and Rick turns out to be right. I really want the U.S. to successful in pacifying Iraq which seems to be edging towards an abyss of complete anarchy by the day.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 14.12.2006 @ 21:28
My brain tells me 30,000 more troops won't be enough for what Bush wants to accomplish; my gut hopes my brain is wrong.
And B.Poster may be right: to fight a long term Globar War on Terror we probably will need to initiate a military draft.
TAKING THE EMPTY SUIT TO THE CLEANERS
Maliki may be getting replaced in a bloodless coup? Well at least somebody's doing SOMETHING. Then again, we should remember that Maliki was himself a replacement for Allawi. So now we're looking for a replacement of the replacement? It's beginning to sound like one of those jokes: how many prospective Iraqi leaders does it take to establish peace and democracy? Ah, well. Let's hope that something works out.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 11.12.2006 @ 19:49
It seems I'm pretty much on the same page as Rick and B. Poster. I also want the U.S. to achieve some modicum of 'victory', however we now define it, in Iraq. I agree that pulling out troops right away would be disastrous for all involved. And Ed is right: today's press conference with Bush and Blair was like peeking into a time warp crystal ball. This same speech or something similar was given a couple of years ago. And yet here we are.
Comment Posted By Johnny Tremaine On 7.12.2006 @ 20:42
Although it's not all his fault, President Bush holds a lot of the blame (at the very least for not sacking Rumsfeld earlier) for not setting things right with the Iraqi war strategy. Although I've never been his biggest fan, I'm also not a rabid hater but Bush does give the impression lately that he's basically playing out the clock on his Presidency.
As for ideas on what to do? I have to tell you, I'm at a loss.
