Jonah Goldberg thinks that Battlestar Galactica's writers have fallen into the "why do they hate us" trap, in a completely absurd way (and one that continues to mislead the public about the nature of our real-life enemy):

Adama concludes it's all his fault because he led the mission that proved the human race really were "war mongers" in the eyes of the Cylons.

I don't want to use a lot of philosophical or literary lingo here, but this is really stooooooopid. Let's say I've been feuding with my neighbor a lot. We've called a draw and built a tall fence to avoid each other. But I don't trust him and I think he may be up to something. So, I peek over the fence. Maybe I even climb over it and look around his back yard for a minute. When my neighbor sees this his immediate response is to get a hatchet and slaughters my entire family, including my relatives in other homes far away. Clearly: It's all my fault!

What is so depressing about this is that Ronald Moore and the other creators of BSG seem to think that "instigating" a conflict in any way assigns the moral responsibility to the instigator. If I step on a psychopath's toe, it's my fault when he buries a ballpoint pen in my forehead. Or, to be fair, they think this is a reasonable, morally serious view. And since they believe it's their job to illuminate the issues in the war on terror, it cannot be denied that they think this is a serious position in the debate over that conflict.

Again: This is really stooooooopid. The idea that the human race had it coming from the Cylons is moral flapdoodle (and flatly unbelievable; the creators seem to think decent humans would be deeply conflicted about declaring total war on a bunch of artificial lifeforms who slaughtered 99% of humanity).

I didn't see the episode that way. Sure, Adama had his doubts, likely caused by coming face to face with the human side (Bulldog) of his action, but President R. Set him straight with a quote something like "we did thousands of things good and bad to lead to the war"

Also, the argument he makes with the neighbor's fence is flawed. The armistice line wasn't set so that Cylons and Humans could "avoid" each other, it was set as a line which, if anyone crossed it, would cause a war. Think of a much longer DMZ between N + S Korea. Based on the dialog of the episode, both sides understood that, though we don't have information about whether or not there were Cylon incursions other than the infiltration of Six and her ilk.

Personally, I think that the Cylons had plans underway to attack and the incursion didn't matter. I also think that was the drive of the story.

Last 2 episodes have been sub-par. I too saw my man Adama as overly wimpy on this one. They should stick to the gratuitous flesh shots of the spylon skin jobs.

I do like the series but it's in a mid-season writing slump.

If you believe that the Euros have earned Eurabia, it's not unreasonable to believe that the BG folks deserve to become Cylon snacks.

I think people make a mistake when they assume the words and thoughts of a single character speak for the show.

Another way to look at this episode was the Adama's misplaced guilt over this caused him to miss all the clues on how the old pilot escaped, a lapse that almost got him killed.

To add onto Andy Freeman's comment, Adama is having a natural reaction. All of his friends are dead, he's surviving on the skin of his teeth, and this guy shows up to remind him of a serious screwup.

I haven't seen the episode in question, but let's not forget that the humans deliberately created the Cylons as a slave race and then fought tooth and nail to stop them gaining their freedom.

imagine if Adama had gone into Ceylon space to
kidnap two Ceylon's. Imagine the ceylon's reacted
by blowing up the 12 colonies.

Now all we have to do is replace Hezbullah with the Humans
and the Ceylon's with Israel.

Hey guys, let's imagine that Adama kept shooting rockets into Ceylon space, kidnapped the soldiers, and still kept shooting rockets. All the time yelling death to all Ceylon's. The Ceylon's seriously upset. Ask for the return of their soldiers while asking their civilian population to just jump out of the way of the incoming rockets. With Adama's answer of death to Israel.. I mean Ceylon's, he shoots more rockets. Well now the Ceylon's are really mad and decide to drop leaflets to tell the humans that they are coming to stop people from firing rockets at them and to get out of the way so we do not hurt you if you are not the ones firing rockets at us. The Ceylon's come and Adama starts shooting at them from behind civilians that can't seem to understand that "we're going to bomb any place that shoots rockets" means "we're going to bomb any place that shoots rockets". Then after the attacks Adama yells "why did the Ceylon's go to war with us? It's as if shooting rockets into Ceylon's sovern land and going in and kidnapping soldiers were some kind of act of war or soming." Yeah, those Ceylon's are pure evil.

Why is Adama attacking Ceylon space? Does he have something against Buddhists?

Thanks, Rich. After all, SOMEbody had to do it...

Maybe you just can't get a good cuppa on New Caprica?

So...

Zareks cronies are Tamil Tigers?