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LoungeMachine
08-20-2006, 10:37 AM
Harry Shearer: Buried Lede Department--Goodbye, Democracy Harry Shearer
Fri Aug 18, 11:33 AM ET

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

The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest monthly total of the war, offering more evidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.


Of course, as Donald Rumsfeld likes to say, those are only numbers. And you can only use the numbers you have.

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."

On its own, this information is striking: the last line of defense for the Iraq war, after WMD and connection to 9/11 crumbled, was the push for a democratic Middle East. If the centerpiece of that premise, Iraq, is to be consigned to "alternatives other than democracy"--i.e., a new Saddam to hold the fractious non-country together--that would seem to be big news. Combined with the "Bush frustrated" stories, it tells us something else: people high in the administration are beginning to leak like sieves. Can the circular firing squad be far behind?



http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060818/cm_huffpost/027516

ELVIS
08-20-2006, 11:20 AM
Does this make you happy ??

LoungeMachine
08-20-2006, 11:25 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
Does this make you happy ??


No, it makes me right.





:rolleyes:

Ellyllions
08-20-2006, 11:28 AM
I believe that it's very clear that any kind of democracy in the Middle East is a lost cause. I'm afraid that it really is a different world with a different mind-set than the rest of the world.

The difficult part is admitting that. If the Terrorists value wins and losses differently than we do then we have to be careful how we handle ending operations over there. Every little empowerment we allow them leads to more violence. And I think we've found that they see everything as empowerment...to the extreme being death.

It's a sad cituation to be sure. But have we learned anything. Obviously the French have learned nothing but how to keep in the game....

ELVIS
08-20-2006, 11:31 AM
Yeah, a very "sad cituation"...:D

LoungeMachine
08-20-2006, 11:34 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
Yeah, a very "sad cituation"...:D




Originally posted by ELVIS

Having said that, I think Bush's effectiveness has been choked off by liberal prerssure...

You're in no position to call out this shit today, moron.

prerssure ????



Fucking idiot

LoungeMachine
08-20-2006, 11:35 AM
Originally posted by Ellyllions
I believe that it's very clear that any kind of democracy in the Middle East is a lost cause. I'm afraid that it really is a different world with a different mind-set than the rest of the world.

The difficult part is admitting that.



The Neo-Con BushBOTS in here will NEVER admit defeat.



NEVER

Ellyllions
08-20-2006, 11:41 AM
Well, I'm not sure that it is "defeat"(by definition) but it will most definitely be seen that way from the Extremeist POV.


I honestly believe that if the Extremeists were successful in running the Jews out of Israel and claiming it for their own...they'd still have a battle to fight but with each other.

They keep the Palestinians as the "pity card" on their own accord. Which means that while Hezbollah is handing out $12,000 in cash to each family who suffered a loss in Lebanon, they're doing NOTHING to aid the Palestinians just so they can keep them as their "excuses" for Arab inflamation.

ELVIS
08-20-2006, 11:41 AM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
You're in no position to call out this shit today, moron.

prerssure ????



Fucking idiot


Fucking pussy, fag, dumbass, dickhead, motherfucker, piece of shit, big baby, Mr. Know-it-All, Liberal Dumbocrat, Mr Cheese, fool, ass wipe, blah blah blah...


LMAO!

LoungeMachine
08-20-2006, 11:49 AM
Originally posted by ELVIS
Fucking pussy, fag, dumbass, dickhead, motherfucker, piece of shit, big baby, Mr. Know-it-All, Liberal Dumbocrat, Mr Cheese, fool, ass wipe, blah blah blah...


LMAO!

Ladies and Gentlemen.....

Mr. Christian on The Sabbath.

:D



Going to church today and beg forgiveness for this?

ELVIS
08-20-2006, 11:58 AM
No, I'm going to the Grand Canyon...:D

ELVIS
08-20-2006, 12:00 PM
I thought you might enjoy this, Lounge...

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ihAoSwQqo44"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ihAoSwQqo44" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>


:elvis:

Ellyllions
08-20-2006, 12:09 PM
Ah, no wonder you did all that cursing earlier.

I was cursing after the first minute of that video too.

FORD
08-20-2006, 12:26 PM
It's just a fucking tragedy that nearly 3,000 Americans, and over 100,000 Iraqis had to die, and this country had to go bankrupt in order to find out that Saddam Hussein really wasn't doing a bad job after all.

ELVIS
08-20-2006, 12:30 PM
Well his little cat and Mouse game with the US failed...

Warham
08-20-2006, 01:04 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
The Neo-Con BushBOTS in here will NEVER admit defeat.



NEVER

That's not a defeat by any measure.

blueturk
08-20-2006, 01:30 PM
Originally posted by ELVIS
Well his little cat and Mouse game with the US failed...

Bush was going after Saddam any fucking way, and you know it. Your statement is just another pathetic attempt by a sheep to find something, anything that Dubya has not totally fucked up. Keep looking....

"I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --George W. Bush, asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

blueturk
08-20-2006, 01:32 PM
Originally posted by Warham
That's not a defeat by any measure.

What is it, then? How about complete and total failure?

"The truth of that matter is, if you listen carefully, Saddam would still be in power if he were the president of the United States, and the world would be a lot better off." --George W. Bush, second presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004

blueturk
08-20-2006, 01:42 PM
Originally posted by Warham
That's not a defeat by any measure.

No, it's just another one of Dubya's "reasons" for occupying Iraq being discredited. Don't worry though; Dubya will come up with something else for sheep like yourself to cling to.

"Justice was being delivered to a man who defied that gift from the Almighty to the people of Iraq." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Dec. 15, 2003