George W. Bush's "The Expanse"

[Guest]

Posted by Dennis Bailey:
People in the CIA are pursuing a "re-evaluation" of their own intelligence reports about WMD in Iraq, BTW, motivated largely by concern on the part of professionals there over the way that intelligence gathering was corrupted for political ends. Translation: the U.S. Government lied to us about all this; business-as-usual. It'll take years for that to become clear, of course...

Once again, are you proposing that Saddam Hussein was so monumentally stupid that he had destroyed the WMD program that he admitted to having after GWI, but was just refusing to show everyone the paperwork that would show that he had been in complience for 12 years?

 

[J Archer]

Posted by PhoneMonkey:
The whole "George Bush is stupid" spin is tired. It's no wonder liberals have fallen off the political map.

i'm not "for" any political party, their all just nutters (at least the ones here in the uk, and in my opinion those with Bush)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Posted by Buggman:
Once again, are you proposing that Saddam Hussein was so monumentally stupid that he had destroyed the WMD program that he admitted to having after GWI, but was just refusing to show everyone the paperwork that would show that he had been in complience for 12 years?

More that he was trying to pull a balancing act -- he was betting that the U.S. wouldn't actually invade (this, obviously and in retrospect, doesn't make him MENSA material). Hussein was hated by his neighbors and by his own people -- ambiguity about his possession of WMDs was a useful thing, to say the least, as regarded threats which he took more seriously than that posed by the U.S. He simply believed that he could walk the line by more-or-less satisfying the U.N. inspectors sufficiently to prevent further international action against his regime while not losing the deterrent value (and, parenthetically, too much face) of surrounding states and rebels in his own country believing that he had tremendous amounts more of this kind of thing than he appears so far to actually have possessed.

 

[Bad Bishop]

Posted by Buggman:

Posted by Bad Bishop:
People in the CIA are pursuing a "re-evaluation" of their own intelligence reports about WMD in Iraq, BTW, motivated largely by concern on the part of professionals there over the way that intelligence gathering was corrupted for political ends. Translation: the U.S. Government lied to us about all this; business-as-usual. It'll take years for that to become clear, of course...

Hey Buggman--Could you correct the attribution above so that it doesn't look like I'm stealing Dennis Bailey's words? What will my friends think?

 

[J Archer]

Posted by Dennis Bailey:

Posted by Buggman:
Once again, are you proposing that Saddam Hussein was so monumentally stupid that he had destroyed the WMD

I didn't want to get all anti-bush on this cos i tend to go on a a bit, but: Saddam was having the empty WMD destroyed just before Iraq got attacked...

 

[tribble-eater]

There is a very good reason that we didn't see the marines yet.

Ready?...

They haven't been cast yet! Why on God's green earth would Paramount want to spend time and money NOW to cast the handful of new (probably recurring) roles with only one spisode left? They may be clueless dolts at times, but money-stupid they are not.

Now they have the production break to cast the
roles. (And to fit them all with red shirts )

I liked the episode fine, but consider this. Maybe WE are the Iraqis. Think about it. The Xindi attack us before we can use our WMD's on them in the future just as Iraq was atta...liberated because we believed that some time in the nebulous future, they were gonna attack us.

And don't start with that Iraq = Al Queda crap. Nobody buys that.

 

[IJD GAF]

Okay, this is very, very dumb.

TPTB have already stated that "The Expanse" is a parallel to 9-11, and that their new mission is a parallel to the war on terrorism. It's been in TrekToday headlines.

Don't argue it as a week link because members are saying it. Argue with the producers all you want, but the parallel WAS intended.

*sigh*

 

[Tulin]

Posted by scarab:What's next? "Bush is a pooter-head?" "Bush is a fart-face?"

That's just plain stupid.

We ALL know he has cooties.

 

[Peter the Younger]

Posted by slappy:
I liked the fact that The Expanse is leading to in a new direction. I also like the fact that it was exciting, something that's been lacking on ENT....but....

The episode wreaked of Bush administration propoganda. We have the "let's get these bastards" run-and-gun thing going complete with the emotional blackmail using innocent deaths. Sound familiar?

Of course we have the whispers of a mysterious Xindi "weapon of mass destruction". Ooooooh. All the more reason to kick their ass, right? Sound familiar?

Next we have big bad Soval, who is a villain because he doesn't support the war...er....cause. Sound familiar?

If the writers are smart enough to bring us back to the actual message of Trek, and come up with some thoughtful allegories using this premise then all the better. If this turns into a "kick some Ira...I mean Xindi ass" show, then we have a problem.

Well obviously they are drawing parallels to 9/11, but that alone doesn't make it Dubya propaganda... unless of course you think that Bush secretly caused 9/11, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there, and assume that you are simply confusing the 2001 attack with the war on Iraq.

If you are implying that the Xindi are the Iraqis, you're missing the boat - if the attack is 9/11, then the Xindi would be al-Qaida. If anyone wants to stand up and say we didn't have a right to be pissed at Osama and company, go right ahead, but let's be clear who we're talking about.

Personally I don't like Bush, but I find it disturbing that any expression of anger at a murderous attack - or any suggestion of retaliation against said attack - is now "George W. Bush propaganda."

One last time: 9/11, War in Iraq. Two separate events.

 

[Guest]

Posted by Dorian Thompson:
It's "white trash" angry to be despondent and angry that your sister was killed? Wow. I guess I was white trash angry too when my friend got killed a couple of years ago. That was the farthest thing from white trash angry I've ever seen. What was Tucker supposed to say? "Oh, let me go find the murderers of my sister so that we may exchange in thoughtful dialogue about how they are misunderstood." Give me a break. A person goes through "I don't wanna f******g discuss it" anger before anything else when a loved one is murdered.

Look, the episode wasn't perfect but now that they've changed direction it's wrong because the parallels are supposedly too close? I don't get it. It was a heck of a lot better than the episodes we were getting mid season, that's for darn sure.

Two scenes. Trip and Reed in the hall. And Trip and Archer drinking. Trip is all about killing 'someone' in revenge. Xindies! Did he have proof? Does Archer? Does Trip even know who the Xindies are? No... but that doesn't matter. Just find them and kill them. His anger was typically racist and unthinking.

Trip is setup as the ignorant revenge killer who hates the enemy race. Sub-text.

Is it better? Is it drama? Is it contrived and makes Trip out to be a typical racist southern stereotype?

I know. It's not important. ENT fans don't care. It's just a Sci-Fi show right?

 

[Theophilus]

ahhh, liberals.

 

[AboveAll]

Posted by scarab:And by the way, thin skin has nothing to do with it. Snide ignorance and disingenuousness does.

Which also aptly describes Bush.

 

[AboveAll]

Posted by Theophilus:
ahhh, liberals.

ahhh, beavers.

 

[Guest]

< Lesley Neilson Voice > ... heeeey, niiiice beaver.

 

[jhouston6]

I'm tired of it from both sides AND I'M A DEMOCRAT. Yes Bush did the right thing by going into Afghanistan and trying to get Osama Bin Laden. No Bush did not do a smart thing by going in and "liberating Iraq." Not because it didn't need liberating but because it wasn't our biggest danger. If you think I'm wrong then you clearly haven't been watching the news. While we were occupied in Iraq Al-Queda began to rebuild itself and now there attacking again. Those are the facts of the matter. anyone care to comment.

 

[Guest]

Ooops! Sorry about that. It's fixed--you can show all your friends that you're not a lib now.

 

[Guest]

Posted by Dennis Bailey:
More that he was trying to pull a balancing act -- he was betting that the U.S. wouldn't actually invade (this, obviously and in retrospect, doesn't make him MENSA material). Hussein was hated by his neighbors and by his own people -- ambiguity about his possession of WMDs was a useful thing, to say the least, as regarded threats which he took more seriously than that posed by the U.S. He simply believed that he could walk the line by more-or-less satisfying the U.N. inspectors sufficiently to prevent further international action against his regime while not losing the deterrent value (and, parenthetically, too much face) of surrounding states and rebels in his own country believing that he had tremendous amounts more of this kind of thing than he appears so far to actually have possessed.

Ah, but he had agreed to prove that he had dismantled his WMD program after he lost invading Kuwait in GWI. The penalty for the invasion was that he didn't get to look cool in front of all of his peers, you see. By violating the terms of the cease-fire, Saddam--not Bush--reinitiated the Gulf War . . . and got his butt handed to him on a silver platter. The U.N. should've handled it, but they're frankly worthless, so it fell to Bush to enforce the terms of the U.N.'s own agreement for the organization that in all of its brilliance puts Libya in charge of the human rights committee and Iraq in charge of the disarmament committee.

By the way, where did you read about this CIA report? I haven't been able to find an article on it; mind posting the link? Thanks.

 

[StarHarper]

Posted by Kanenas:
gee a pearl harbor analogy NEEEVEr happens in the mooooovies.

Its a simple enough plot theme, sucker punch starts fight, good guys finish fight. Just because it happens in real life does not reduce it because somebody has their political underware in a wad.

This ep reminded me, too, of 9/11. But you have a very good point. This isn't necessarily a 9/11 plot. It's just that we're still so close to 9/11 that it's the first thing that pops into our minds. After all, how many Trekkies were alive during WWII? But we were all there for 9/11.

 

[its_a_clock]

B&B attempting social commentary? Totally ridiculous.

 

[Bad Bishop]

Posted by Buggman:
Ooops! Sorry about that. It's fixed--you can show all your friends that you're not a lib now.

Thank you, sir!