Sad but wise.
on that note...
Meanwhile back in the real world
Mark Steyn
National Post
Monday, April 14, 2003
On to the next quagmire! Don't get mired in the bog of yesterday's conventional wisdom, when the movers and shakers have already moved on to new disasters. America may have won the war but it's already losing the peace! Here's your at-a-glance guide to the Top Ten Impending Quagmires -- all you need to know about what the experts who got everything wrong last week will be getting wrong this week:
1) "Iraq's slide into violent anarchy" (The Guardian, April 11th)
MBITRW (Meanwhile Back In The Real World): Chill. For as The Guardian's own columnist Naomi Klein has assured us, "Breaking windows is vandalism, not violence." It seems these guys are genially indulgent of the anti-capitalist trashing of Seattle, Quebec City, Rome and Gothenberg, but steal the photocopier from Baghdad's Ministry of Genital Clamping and they're pining for the smack of firm government. Despite the media characterization of generalized "anarchy," one can't help noting the somewhat precise targeting: UN HQ, the German Embassy, the French Cultural Centre, whose portraits of Jacques Chirac were torn from the walls and trampled into pieces. Soon all the Chirac portraits will be gone. In a year's time, Baghdad and Basra will have a lower crime rate than most British cities.
2) "The head of the World Food Program has warned that Iraq could spiral into a massive humanitarian disaster" (The Australian, April 11th)
MBITRW: No such disaster will occur, anymore than it did during the mythical "brutal Afghan winter" and its attendant humanitarian scaremongering. ("The UN Children's Fund has estimated that as many as 100,000 Afghan children could die of cold, disease and hunger." They didn't.) Indeed, the cutting-edge scaremongers are now warning that the real problem in Iraq will be a surfeit of food, but food of the wrong kind.
"Some people would think that seeing a KFC on a street corner is a sign of progress, I certainly don't," says Stephanie Schaudel of Voices In The Wilderness, "an anti-war group in Chicago," "Iraqis have really good food, they don't need a KFC."
When the massive humanitarian disaster fails to materialize, the Kentucky Fried Chicken Littles will have the field to themselves.
3) "Iraqis Now Waiting for Americans to Leave" (Associated Press, April 10th)
MBITRW: There will be terrible acts of suicide-bomber depravity in the months ahead, but no widespread resentment at or resistance of the Western military presence.
4) "If Saddam is not found dead, or caught alive, it will be the worst of all possible closures for the war against Iraq ... bin Laden himself continues to elude capture" (Roland Flamini, UPI)
MBITRW: Bin Laden continues to slip through the Americans' fingers because that's what specks of dust tend to do. If Saddam is reduced to "bin Laden's" current schedule -- mailing in bimonthly audio cassettes of Islamist boilerplate -- what's the difference? Even if he'd escaped to Syria, he'd be spending the rest of his days as a Bedouin goatherd. Right now, Boy Assad is doing his best not to attract Rummy's attention, and renting out the spare room to Iraq's A-list moustaches is not on the agenda.
5) "Turkey is concerned that a Kurdish capture of Kirkuk could help bankroll moves to establish an independent Kurdistan" (Agence France-Presse, April 9th)
MBITRW: Nothing to worry about. The Kurds are the only part of the indigenous population that were part of the liberation force from the start. They're not going anywhere now. They'll settle for being Scotland or Quebec rather than Pakistan.
6) "Rather than reforming the Muslim world, the conquest of Iraq will inflame it" (Jeffrey Simpson, the Toronto Globe And Mail, April 10th). "The war has bred more terrorists than Osama bin Laden could ever hope for" (Dr. Jedrzej George Frynas, the National Post, April 12th)
MBITRW: I note that in October 2001 Faizal Aqtub Siddiqi, President-General of the International Muslims Organization, said that the bombing of Afghanistan would create a thousand bin Ladens, whereas the other day Egypt's President Mubarak said that the bombing of Iraq would create a hundred bin Ladens. So right there you've got a 90% reduction in the bin Laden creation program -- just by bombing a second country! I'd advocate bombing Damascus if it weren't for the fact that it's ceased to be necessary. Effective immediately, Palestinian suicide bombers are no longer subsidized by Baghdad; in Jordan, the Saddamite boot is off the Hashemite windpipe; Syria is under notice to behave and in the unusual position, for an Arab dictatorship, of being ringed by relatively civilized states -- Turkey, Free Iraq, Jordan and Israel. Despite the best efforts of Western doom-mongers to rouse the Arab street, its attitude will remain: Start the jihad without me.
7) "Looting is always unsavoury. Let's hope the Americans don't pilfer the oil" (Brenda Linane, The Age of Melbourne, April 11th)
MBITRW: The pilfering of Iraq's oil has just ended. Under the old regime, Saddam parceled his country's wealth out to those companies willing to cozy up to him. The development rights worth up to US$60-billion that TotalFinaElf secured on behalf of Jean Chrétien's family, among others, will now be opened up to competitive tender from companies less eager than the French to sup with devils. The liberation of Iraq is a victory for real markets over Chiraquiste cronyism.
8) "Weapons of Mass Destruction. Remember them? Not a single one has yet been found" (Bill Neely, ITV, April 10th)
MBITRW: Actually, I almost wish this one were true. Anything that turns up now will be assumed to have been planted. If I were Washington, I'd consider burying anything I found. After all, an America that feels no need to bother faking justifications for invasion would be far more alarming to most Europeans. Instead, horrible things will turn up, but will never be "conclusive" enough for the French, who've got all the receipts anyway.
9) "Iraq was a new country cobbled together from several former Ottoman provinces, its lines drawn by the Europeans" (Mark Mazower, The Independent, April 7th). It's a phony state, you can never make a go of it.
MBITRW: There's nothing in the least bit "cobbled" about it. The three Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra have been bound together geographically, politically and economically for millennia. As a coherent jurisdiction, it makes more sense than, say, Belgium, or, come to that, Canada. As long as you respect its inherently confederal nature, it'll work fine: Think St. Kitts and Nevis writ large. A year from now, Iraq will be, at a bare minimum, the least worst governed state in the Arab world and, at best, pleasant, civilized and thriving.
10) "Reporters were pressing the issue of deteriorating Canada-U.S. relations" (The Sudbury Star, April 10th)
MBITRW: Nonsense. "America and Canada will always be best friends," insists Canadian Information Minister John Muhammad al-Manley, "and anyone who says otherwise will have his tongue ripped out and roasted in Hell! The infidel Bush has not cancelled his state visit! He is in Canada now! He spends every weekend in Shawinigan! The whole world knows that!"
* EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to unfortunate technical difficulties, one of the above Top Ten phony quagmires is, in fact, a real quagmire. There are some quagmires you can't do anything about ...
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