R.H.M.: Yes sir, very similar again. So you can understand the depth of the mistrust between the three main political parties, and why Sure Shot and I are having such a hard time solving this situation. It's generations of mistrust that can't be overcome overnight, and might even take years, if not a generation or two passing, before they begin to trust each other again. The best we can hope for is to find some compromise candidate for Prime Minister that will be acceptable to all parties. This means we will have to ensure that the current Prime Minister "agrees" to step down.
T.H.: Damn right he'll agree, or he might just get to visit Cuba for a few months, and not with Fidel. (Sound of liquid being poured into a glass.) What I don't understand is why, with all our damned intelligence, are we so surprised by these turns of events. How come no one saw this coming? That's why I gave you this job, Sure Shot; you said you knew all about how we could best handle it.
I didn't think that meant so your boys could line their pockets. By the way, you better warn them to start covering their tracks a little better; the auditor general is cracking down. They're not just stealing from the Iraqis now, they're skimming off the top of U.S. money too. Nah, don't worry about it too much, we got worse problems than a few hundred million vanishing.
I think we need to be rethinking the way we're going about this. Trying to make one country outta three people just ain't looking like it's working. Why can't we partition up the country into three parts, and give each of them a chunk for their own, which they can rule autonomously?
That way they won't be arguing over who gets to be in charge, ‘cause they all get to be in charge of their own little piece of the pie. Each of them can get a chunk of the oil fields so they don't squabble about that, and then they can govern their own people. Give everybody a couple of months to move into their new neighbourhoods and — bingo bango — three new countries and everyone's happy.
We can set a deadline of the fourth of July so they know who they have to thank for it every year. Our troops pull out, my approval rating goes through the roof — just in time to invade Iran, and quash those mullah jerks once and for all. I don't know why you guys didn't think of that. It sure seems like the easy answer to me. I bet you no one's ever even thought of it before.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Your 'satire' paints a strangely positive portrait of President Bush. I'm at a loss.
Dave
2 - Nancy
Could it be sarcasm?
3 - Richard Marcus
You know as I was writing it, I realized that the portrait I was painting of George wasn't unsympathetic. I don't have a problem with that, he isn't evil incarnate, he's just stupid. I think he should have sayed running the Texas Rangers and kicking back with a bottle of Bourban and the whole world would have been a lot happier.
The truely dangerous people in Washington are Dick Chenny and a bunch of others who Chenny brought with him.
Of course having George suggest partition as a solution to anything, is also indicitive of someone who completly ignores the lessons of history when making decisions. Look at the success rate of courtries who have had partition imposed on them for dealing with inter faith problems, and you can see how bad an idea that really is.
The aim of the piece was to a)comment on how unprepared the Administration was to deal with "post war" Iraq, and b)their williness to repeat the mistakes of history, without realizing the consequences.
George is an easy target, so I figure the subtle approach was better, just play up his country buffon aspects and leave him in there with the sharks.
So you're both right.
cheers
Richard Marcus
4 - Dave Nalle
But that's just it, Richard. Your portrayal of Bush doesn't make him sound stupid. It makes him sound lazy, but sort of clever and using the country buffoon personna to manipulate the professional politicians. I suspect your satire is actually a lot closer to the truth than you realize. And of course the partition idea might just be a good, viable solution to the Iraq problem.
Dave
5 - Richard Marcus
Well now that is a conumdrum isn't it? Well that's the good thing about fiction, it can be interpreted in so many ways. I guess in my eyes the portrayel was negative, becuase of his preocupations, but you are right I did make it look like he was manipulating the manipulators...which in some ways I guess is alright because they frighten me far more than he does. If he did nothing but sit back and watch baseball as preisident we'd all feel more comfortable, as long as he got rid of the psycohos around him.
I still think Geral Ford was the best modern president. He did abosolutly nothing except come across like a friednly guy who was very human and a lousy golfer. His advisors were harmless so America was able to heal after the divisons of Nixon.
Utah Phillips once said that the country is safer when the President does nothing, its when he starts having ideas we're all in danger.
Sorry I'm wandering away from my point, if I had one, I might be stalling. I think what it comes down to is what your opinion of partition is, it's never worked very well in the past, it usually ends up in massive ethnic strife and border wars. The only time that I know of it working was when a country was able to decide on it's own to split. The Slovaks and the Cszechs dividing into their separate states worked so far.
Any partitions that have been imposed by an outside power have been doomed to incessent violence.
Do you really think that Turkey is going to allow an independant Kurdish State on their border? Is the first flaw in partition that springs to mind. Will Iran and the other Shites allow the minority Sunni to survive? How do you deal with the displacement of thousands of peoples from one area to the other? Do you really want to uproot familes who have lived in the same part of the country for hundreds of year just because their religion no longer makes it allowable for them to live there.
That's why I don't think partition will work and is the solution of someone who (no offence meant to you) who is looking for an easy answer to a question that doesn't have one. It's been like this administration's policies on everything, in my opinion, simplistic without thinking of the long term effects...
Anyway that's my defence and I'm sticking to it, he may be likeable but he's an idiot...
cheers
Richard