If true that kidnapping Bliss is some sort of quid pro quo, then the Russian thugs are stupider than it seems. I'm feeling pretty angry right now, so have to rant.
The Russians are on trial. Maybe Bliss is too. But the whole world is watching. Well, I am and they won't like getting in my bad books the way I feel right now. So they better come up with more than he was running around with a GPS, looking at buildings, even if the buildings do house some dumb Russian spy agency. Did it occur to them that a building is a good place to put aerials?
While I have no doubt that the CIA is stupid enough to want to know where Russian buildings are in Rostov, I doubt that Qualcomm is stupid enough to be part of a spy ring. Maybe Bliss was stupid enough to get employed by Qualcomm, and in the pay of the CIA secretly to locate buildings by waving a GPS around. I doubt it. There are satellites which can locate buildings fairly well these days. Anyone that stupid is unlikely to be competent enough to be hired by Qualcomm.
And in case some really really dumb Russian spy reads this, then they should know that my vitriol is unbiased. They can go looking for my references to the French, the USA etc through SI.
So, they better start coming up with some evidence really fast. I don't like people who are working on my behalf to help Russians get a decent phone system being kidnapped because some loser military- intelligence time server hasn't got much useful to do.
If they don't come up with the goods pretty quickly. I say Qualcomm should sue them for breach of contract, pull out of Russia and leave it to Motorola to supply them cdmaWon if they have a long enough barge pole.
Bliss is prison in Rostov with winter and Xmas arriving. Gee, they are nice, they gave him some non-toxic food. Am I supposed to be impressed?
Bad luck Duane, but here is a flame. Military intelligence and military activity is in one way a noble activity. My family has done its share of defending freedom = individual rights to run their person and property. Unfortunately, military intelligence is the exception.
Most military activity is simply thugs indulging one of the few activities of which they are capable. Unfortunately, they use their force to extract taxes with which they hire the brains of people like Qualcomm's to build amazing equipment with which they can shoot down passenger aircraft a la Vincennes.
Maybe there is some way to keep the good military force and avoid the bad, but it isn't that easy judging by the track record. Somehow we need to restrain gorillas like Saddam who shoots people who differ from him. Including his daughters' husbands! Not wishing to give gorillas a bad name.
Ah well, I guess we are still mostly monkey.
Qualcomm - tell Russia to get a new contractor or come up with better evidence than they have reported so far. GPS, buildings, illegal importing of a gadget with an aerial. Bloody hell! |
