Harry Shearer: Buried Lede Department--Goodbye, Democracy

[Up2Late]

(I heard Harry Shearer report this on his Public Radio show "Le Show" today, thankfully, he published this version too.!)
Opinion

Harry Shearer: Buried Lede Department--Goodbye, Democracy

Harry Shearer Fri Aug 18, 11:33 AM ET

EDINBURGH--Thursday's NYTimes ran a story the lede of which was newsworthy enough, perhaps:...

(clip)

...But buried right at the end of the three-byline piece are three paragraphs that seem to me to be distinctly newsworthy, especially coming in the wake of the "Bush frustrated" stories early this week.

Yet some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials were beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq's democratically elected government might not survive.

"Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy," said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

"Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect," the expert said, "but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy...."

(more at links) <http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060818/cm_huffpost/027516>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17military.html?ei=5070&en=3b66bf9fc6c36197&ex=1156478400&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all>

[walkon]

1. I do not believe

it was ever about democracy. Return to malleable Hashemite monarchy, perhaps.

[TomInTib]

3. see my reply below

You are right on the money

[TomInTib]

2. They will let the Maliki government flop around like a fish and die.

And then establish a pliable 'dictator'.

Then they will partition Iraq in thirds, with the lines running East/West.

Kurds in the north
Shia in the middle
Sunni in the south

I saw the map at Purvin&Gertz, Houston oil consultants, sometime in late 2002.


google 'Blake Eskew' if you have any doubt.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. I think you have the last 2 the wrong way round

unless they're planning on forcing most of the Iraqi population to move.

Having said that, are you sure you weren't looking at a map of the no-fly zones? Those lines ran west-east, while the Kurd/Sunni Arab/Shia Arab divides aren't any near as neat. Dividing up by provincial boundaries is far more likely.

[TomInTib]

5. I probably switched them

Heck, I still don't know who's who and barely even care about the difference.
Thank heavens I am not President.

But I know what I saw and how freaked the reaction was when Eskew realized the map was open (it was on a wall and had these little doors that were open).

I imagine it was part of a brainstorming session.