Comments Posted By Misha I
Displaying 11 To 13 Of 13 Comments
IN THE END, IT'S ABOUT EMPATHY
Needless to say, I disagree.
Politely, however, since it is clear that your views are based on honest kindness, a kindness that I remain convinced that the ululating hordes have not earned. That doesn't make it any less kind, however.
I am not questioning the muslims' "right to upset", I have myself been quite upset over things much less offensive in the past, such as the burning of American flags.
However, my discomfort and anger in those cases do not take me on a murderous rampage, nor would I use it as an excuse for burning down the property of the flag-burning moron or chopping his head off.
Therein lies the difference.
Furthermore, if we allow ourselves, through threats and intimidation, to have our discourse and views censored by others, then we have already lost.
Yes, I do deliberately aim to insult the fundamentalists and their cheerleaders, but there's a bigger point in play here, that point being that if they can't learn to NOT issue death threats over words or cartoons, then I have no desire to co-exist with them. None. Period.
But this is not to say that those who choose NOT to participate are "dhimmis" or "surrender weasels". They just choose not to. Except, in the case of the media, I would be a lot more convinced about their "noble intentions" behind choosing not to publish if they'd show that kind of sensitivity towards ALL people, not just those that might carbomb their offices. Theirs is not a "noble" stance, since it is based entirely on hypocrisy and cowardice.
Yours, on the other hand, I respect.
Comment Posted By Misha I On 5.02.2006 @ 16:06
I can't believe I didn't find out about your episode-by-episode coverage until this season! Consider me hooked to something other than the show itself.
Bumping off the triggerman? Jack couldn't take him with him and, given his experience with the twerps at CTU, I can't hardly fault him for doubting that there'd be anything useful that they could get out of him. If they managed to retrieve him at all, that is. It wasn't all that clear at the time of the execution that Jack was going to let CTU know where he was anyways.
I'd have done the same thing. But I'm sick. Once the bad guys are useless and/or an impediment to the mission, there's no reason to let them stay alive. It was pretty clear that Triggerman had told him all that he knew (he spilled the beans far too quickly to make me wonder if he knew something more. He was scared shitless and desperate to stay alive. Hired gun) so why keep him alive? He might have gotten away and alerted the others.
SOP: Shoot him. I agree with Jack on this one. I'd have done the same. Triggerman's continued existence at that point was at best useless and at worst a complication. Not to say that the fact that he'd just killed Jack's buddy Palmer played no role in it, because it was pretty obvious from Jack's tone when he said "so you were the trigger man?" that he was plenty peeved.
Thankfully, sometimes SOP and personal feelings AREN'T antagonists, so Jack got the best of both worlds.
Huge letdown: Tony's critical injury. We're only covering a 24 hour period, so it's unlikely that Tony will see much action and I really love that guy. Not to mention that I'd have loved to see him extract some good ol' fashioned vengeance for Michelle's death. Not professional, I agree, but seeing her and Palmer knocked out really pissed me off, which is to be taken as a praise of the show. If they aimed to gut-punch me with the first 10 minutes, they surely succeeded. Big kudos for that. I felt like I felt when Wash got killed at the end of "Serenity."
I farkin' KNEW that Cummings was the mole. Gut instinct. Now I see why they didn't reveal one in the last season. They needed his identity kept secret for this one. I knew it from his first lines last season: This guy was dirty. I expect to find out a lot about his previous involvement as this season continues.
In short: This season is off to a rocking start.
It's amazing that they can keep it up, but those must be some damnably good writers.
Comment Posted By Misha I On 16.01.2006 @ 17:30
HAPPY NEW YEAR PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD
Thanks for the link and, may I add, excellent analysis too.
Yes, it is indeed deliberate as I said. You bring up an excellent point that I forgot to cover, the point being that it was the foreign press that it was leaked to for all of the reasons you so correctly mention. Add to that that the leaker was a NATO official and the distancing from the U.S. becomes so obvious that it's hard to even pretend that it's not deliberate.
Again, I love these mind games :-)
The core question is, of course, "would we do it?" as you point out and I agree with you that yes, we would and we will.
We have to.
If we choose to sit this one out, the Israelis will have no choice but to go it alone with predictable consequences for the political and military situation over there. Faced with a Jooo "solo", the Arabs will most definitely close ranks and descend on Israel like locusts again. This we will be unable to stay out of so we'll end up with a 100% probability of a major military confrontation in the Middle East and all of the consequences to our oil supply that you mention, not to mention the fact that the war will become very hot, very fast.
On top of that, the Israelis will have a very tough time of succeeding on their own. This isn't Osiraq where the target was a single one with a nice bullseye painted on it. So we'll end up with a certain major war on our hands and not even be sure that we got the Iranian program for our troubles.
Clearly, doing nothing is not an option for us here. We can't ask the Israelis to sit idly by while a nation that has declared its intentions to wipe them off the map gets nukes.
That leaves us with door #2, doing it before the Israelis do.
I don't worry too much about the Syrians piling on to create a diversion. Babyface Assad is too much of a pussy to risk being wiped out (and wiped out he will be if he tries anything) simply to prove a point, so if we can talk the Izzies into playing possum for a bit, we have a fair chance of avoiding a conflagration in the Levant. It's not a cert, nothing is, but it's better odds than the "let the Izzies do the bombing for us" option, much better.
Nor are the Egyptians likely to give up their massive U.S. Aid and lucrative arrangements with us unless provoked to the point where they have to respond.
Furthermore, we have a very high probability of being able to do it effectively, based on our available bases, materiel and personnel.
Staging it from Iraq would be the easiest way, I agree, but we won't have to. The SpecOps team can stage from numerous other locations close to the action, including a carrier group. Close enough for SpecOps, yet far enough away to be safe from Iranian countermeasures. Of course, given the nature of SpecOps, there's always the possibility that we COULD stage it from Iraq without anybody knowing it until after the shooting stopped.
Doing it ourselves would still carry a risk of a major conflagration, but the speed and force with which we can project a shock and awe campaign on the targets, it may well be too late for anybody to do anything once they wake up from their stupor. At any rate, worst case we'll end up in the same situation that we'd end up with for CERTAIN if we do nothing and force the Israelis to act.
So yes, 2006 promises to be interesting. We'll know for sure before April.
Comment Posted By Misha I On 3.01.2006 @ 01:22
