Must Study Harder (Mark Steyn Rips The Iraq Surrender Group A New Clymer Alert)

National Review ^ | 12/06/2006 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

Mark Steyn rips the Iraq Surrender Group a new clymer. There are things that are just so stupid and self-defeating they deserve to be consigned to the trash bin. This is one of them.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[Mo1]

This report is a worse joke then the 9/11 commission

What the hell were they thinking

[goldstategop]

Mark Steyn joke of the month:

"And, while we may well “engage” with Syria and Iran to no effect, and US troops may well put their left foot in and take their right foot out, the one thing you can guarantee won’t be shaken all about is the torpid bureaucracy..."

He does have an understated gift for making pompous blowhards look like the fools they are.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[ArmstedFragg]

The study's valuable in one important way. It makes a threat that needs to be made, while allowing Bush to continue to play his current roll. The threat is, 'if you don't all start rowing, we're going to pull the plug and let you clowns drown'.

The uniformity of the responses from various Iraqi officials mades it clear that they think we owe them an unlimited amount of time to enrich themselves and accumulate personal power at the expense of the Iraqi people, and they're really startled to hear that we don't agree.

It's really a 'shot across the bow' fired from the schooner USS Plausable Deniability.

[Van Jenerette]

Iraq Study Group

We need to thank our creator that this group of 'realist' were not around making recommendations during the American Revolution...

Imagine their reactions and study conclusions after Valley Forge, etc. Every major American city fell to the British during that war!

[wodinoneeye]

Having Iran and Syria be part of the 'Iraq Solution' is like having Charles Manson sit on the Supreme Court.

[arthurus]

Mr Steyn must be feeling really exasperated. This piece isn't funny, just bitter. The situation is truly dire.

[Williams]

Which dire are you referring to? IMHO the "direness" in Iraq at this point is a case of political mass hysteria. The political situation in America truly is dire, I'll hand you that.

I think Americans suffer from an unrealistic instant gratification syndrome. It's not just evident in Iraq, but it sure matters more in a war. People want to turn on their TV in about 90 minutes and catch how it all ended while they're channel surfing. Maybe reality is the "long hard slog" nobody wants to hear about.

Yes I digress fully now, but I've been around long enough to see that Americans no longer want to think about reality, they just want things. 85% wanted the war in Iraq, but now they just don't want to hear about it anymore.

[arthurus]

The situation in America is dire and that is leading to a severe degradation of the situation in Araby.

[Steel Wolf]

It’s certainly not because the US taxpayer isn’t showering them with dollars. It’s to do with a bureaucratic torpor that has proved almost totally resistant to any attempts to reform it since 9/11.

Mark's a little off point here, but 100% correct. While the U.S. military mobilized for war, 9/11 did nothing to the civilian defense agencies in Washington. It's been business as usual for them. Many of them, especially the CIA, should have been gutted and refurbished, but instead we let everything plod along at the speed of bureaucracy.

The OSS went from 0-60 within a few months in WWII. What's our malfunction now?

[petercooper]

[BillM]

For the younger set, these words are from a great song - "Ballin' the Jack" once again demonstrating the breadth of this man's thinking processes.

[TADSLOS]

The only thing the ISG studied was the Cliff Notes version. Going to Iraq for a few weeks and writing 36 pages of pre-determined State Dept, pro-Arab drivel is akin to a bunch of college kids going to an upper level class for the last few days of the semester, getting together and writing their term paper based on what they did in their 100 level course. Pathetic.

[philsoc]

While Ballin the Jack is similar - I think Steyn went a little younger. It's the hokey pokey...

[FrankB]

If I were the president, this is what I would do, congressional approval, UN approval, world approval or not. After getting the necessary assets in place, I would give Iran and Syria 48 hours to do the following: 1) turn over all of their governing officials to US troops at a designated location and 2) immediate cessation of all assistance to the insurgents. At the same time, I would demand that the Iraqi government hand over al-Sadr to US troops and if any other government officials protested, they be handed over as well. Failure to abide by these conditions would result in a nuclear bomb being dropped on Damascus and Tehran. To prove that the US means what it says a conventional (non nuclear) cruise missile strike would be launched to land somewhere outside these 2 cities. Additionally a cruise missile strike would be launched on Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province, aka "Sunni land", to make sure the Sunnis and Baathists get the message that it is time for the killing to stop.

While this would cause consider outrage from all corners of the world, this would result in far fewer deaths than what we are likely to face if we let Iran develop the capability to have nuclear weapons. Radical Islamism must be defeated just as communism and fascism were. To not do so at this juncture would be irresponsible. The world may condemn us, but through the long lens of history will see that it had to be done.

[twonie]

Funny takes time and lots of it. This was posted at 4:30 AM the morning after the report came out. Cut us some slack here.

[Osage Orange]

................– which concedes the same ludicrous rationale that the Saudi King Abdullah and all the rest of them make: that one tiny ten-mile sliver of Jews is the reason why millions of Muslims from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Emirates are mired in dictatorships, failed economies and jihadist fever

Excellent point.

[NeoCaveman]

Re: Surrender Monkeys,

Today we are all French....

[Lurker]

which concedes the same ludicrous rationale that the Saudi King Abdullah

This is because Baker works for the Saudis.

L

[Gideon Reader]

"What were they thinking?'

They weren't thinking.