[Pokey78]

[Toirdhealbheach Beucail]

I love this man! There are few that are his equal with the English tongue!

[chuckcam]

nice

[sarasota]

Steyn is spot on, as usual.

[Blood of Tyrants]

19 per cent said they were much or somewhat worse

Isn't that about the population of Sunni (Saddam's tribe) in Iraq?

[Tax-chick]

If it’s a choice between aggressive neocon optimism or the UN’s slum-landlord approach to nation-building, I know which I’ll take.

Damn straight! Now get the Iraqis (and the Iranians) an NRA, so they can take down the next Saddam wannabe and his goons before they get started.

[Godfollow]

"Which would you bet on? Iraq and Afghanistan? Or Haiti and Kosovo?

A campaign slogan if I've ever heard one... guys this has to be one the best unwitting wittiest statements of the campaign season. Something has to made of it... somebody with Internet design savvy should have fun with this one.

[Starve The Beast]

But, for whatever reason, all these movements are in the direction laid out by Bush in his Whitehall speech in November.

Funny, isn't it, how that's working out for that dumb cluck from Texas? Is it conceivable that Dubya might not be quite the dope that the Berkeley left thought?

Steyn is a genius, can I get an amen?

[VadeRetro]

Many Iraqis are voting with their feet. The UN High Commission for Refugees, which was expecting about two million new refugees to flee from the war last year, instead found no takers. All the traffic’s the other way, and the UN is now closing down its camps around Iraq’s borders owing to lack of business.

Didn't know this. Statistics can be very dry, but this one tells a story.

[maica]

As for Iraq needing UN ‘legitimacy’, why not ask the people? The UN to them means decadent bureaucrats like Hans von Sponeck, the former UN co-ordinator for Iraq who the other day expressed his preference for the ‘order’ Saddam brought to the country, or the stinking sewer of the oil-for-food programme, a humanitarian intervention that turned into a money-laundering scheme for Saddam’s Western cronies. If it’s a choice between aggressive neocon optimism or the UN’s slum-landlord approach to nation-building, I know which I’ll take. Look at it this way. Which would you bet on? Iraq and Afghanistan? Or Haiti and Kosovo?

Steyn give us fabulous "talking points" every day.

PS: All the pundits and govt overseers who are "shocked" to learn that the Food for Oil Program was corrupt must have thought that Saddam built his military compound palaces by careful budgeting.

[WhiteGuy]

Interesting..................

This story makes me wonder........

What will happen in iraq when our government stops the "rebuilding"?

When will it be determined that iraq can make it without a couple hundred billion of our money being poured in?

I guess it's out of the question to expect them to pay US back.

Will they send a gift at least? Even the prissy-pants french sent us a really big statue for saving their bacon.

Just wondering....................

[TheDon]

Many Iraqis are voting with their feet. The UN High Commission for Refugees, which was expecting about two million new refugees to flee from the war last year, instead found no takers. All the traffic’s the other way, and the UN is now closing down its camps around Iraq’s borders owing to lack of business. The other day, the UN’s Ashrafi Camp in Iran, after 30 years as the largest Iraqi refugee facility, threw in the towel when the last refugee went home. Despite being advised by UNHCR that it was unsafe to do so, a million Iraqis are said to have gone back. Not bad for a country which in Saddam’s day was the fifth-largest exporter of refugees.

This is the biggest indicator about whether or not things are improving in Iraq over a year ago.

I am one American who wishes the Iraqis the very best as they embark on their 'experiment'!

[arasina]

Stellar Steyn. I especially love the metaphor in this sentence:

The theory some of us have advanced for two and a half years now is that the region’s stability — the stability of a petrified septic tank — is the problem, and that any upturning of that stability would be hard put to make things worse.

[Constantine XIII]

"a veritable quagjam of imminent catastrophe"

LOL

[kevkrom]

Steyn for White House Press Secretary!

[McGavin999]

Which would you bet on? Iraq and Afghanistan? Or Haiti and Kosovo?

That just about says it all.

[gatorgriz]

Steyn, well Steyn, he's a master wordsmith...

[Yardstick]

Steyn knocks another one out of the park

Steyn proves again that he's the Michael Jordan of pundits

Steyn rocks!

Steyn bump

A year's worth of incision... just like last week's Steyn piece

Steyn does it again

Is Steyn's well bottomless?

It's getting tough to find new ways of praising Steyn's columns.

[Cultural Jihad]

BTTT

[headsonpikes]

Bravo! Wonderful column.

[Rummyfan]

Great Steyn! Thanks Pokey. One day without Free Republic and I was going crazy!

[knighthawk]

Ping

[irv]

9) Despite Saddam emptying his prisons of cutpurses and other ne’er-do-wells just before the war, coalition authorities report that crime in Basra has fallen by 70 per cent.

This one is telling, not just because it means people can feel safer and be happier. It also implies at least the possibility of an economic boom. There's nothing to suppress an economy like fear, and nothing to boost it like optimism.

[Stultis]

Bump!

[ontos-on]

"Environmental Choreographers Against Genocide "

Yeah! Why we love him.

[1john2 3and4]

sorry so late to the ping, but man pokey, am i ever glad im on it! thanks SO MUCH for keeping steyn's brilliance on the front page for me!