tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15986597.post115880880532877392..comments2023-11-07T08:12:05.520-05:00Comments on The 5th Estate 2009: Iran, Panic and the “Nuclear Option”5th Estatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14918749316906295703noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15986597.post-1158984508518768212006-09-23T00:08:00.000-04:002006-09-23T00:08:00.000-04:00hey - i resemble that remark!hey - i resemble that remark!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15986597.post-1158902577535868982006-09-22T01:22:00.000-04:002006-09-22T01:22:00.000-04:00Yeah...Americans make any occasion for an excuse t...Yeah...Americans make any occasion for an excuse to have candy...hence the blobs bumping around our countryside!sumohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03668836906276970398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15986597.post-1158870148705688742006-09-21T16:22:00.000-04:002006-09-21T16:22:00.000-04:00I hope I'm right too. Though "military types" rai...I hope I'm right too. <BR/>Though "military types" raison d'etre is indeed to engage in war, the majority prefer to do so with a viable plan, clear objectives and a reasonable chance of quantifiable victory. The key in this scenario would be the inherent conflict in the military code of conduct--to follow orders or reject illegal orders handed down by civilian leadership and transmitted through the ranks.<BR/>I'd argue that the majority of officers are necessarily pragmatists, historians and intellectuals and the armed forces devotes a good deal of time and effort examining its own performanace and testing its suppositions through debriefeings and war-gaming. Whether they get to assert their findings and effect caution or change in the hierarchy and the decision making is another matter of course. <BR/><BR/>I am heartened that high-level ex-military voices are already protesting now, rather than functioing as apparatchik's discussing the finer points of inevitable military operations, appearing as dispassionate experts discussing the mundane aspects of a predertmined war as so many did regarding Iraq.<BR/><BR/>As to Halloween, being British I have an entirely different perspective to that of the US--it is a sensible celebration of the spirits of our ancestors and has nothing to do with candy which is an illogical US invention!5th Estatehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14918749316906295703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15986597.post-1158820947313284462006-09-21T02:42:00.000-04:002006-09-21T02:42:00.000-04:00I hope you are right when it comes to the military...I hope you are right when it comes to the military stepping down on this one...but I persoanlly don't see it. The military types LIVE for getting to rumble...it's what they practice and do maneuvers for...they want that day of the trigger to dawn.<BR/><BR/>And it would be nice if this guy is blowing the proverbial whistle on them. I can't see that Iran would not know that troops or ops are there. I would think they would be loudly screaming about it. Well...I guess we have something to look forward to in October besides snotty little kids banging on our doors for candy. If I had a choice...sumohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03668836906276970398noreply@blogger.com