Mark Steyn: Come on over the water's lovely

The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 06/01/03 | Mark Steyn

[okie01]

ROFL

[Victoria Delsoul]

Great article. This is something the Democrats and the liberal media don't want to hear. Their doom and gloom war-scenario didn't occur, so they're relying on doom and gloom post war-events, however, that's not happening either… so now it's, where are the WMD and without them GW is doomed, LOL! at this point the WMD are becoming irrelevant. It was a just war and people are better off without Saddam.

[Travis McGee]

Ping!

[Grampa Dave]

[lainde]

Wow...I thought he was maybe ill or really fired from the Post! Life is back on track with a good Steyn! Thanks Pokey!!!!

[FairOpinion]

"Outstanding story, told only the way Steyn can.
I feel a lot better about Iraq tonight. "

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I agree completely.

[FairOpinion]

"You left out their most important problem solving tool of all.

c.) Condoms. "

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This reminded me of something funny I read. I forgot which country it was, but in some third world country these "do-gooders" showed women, who I guess were more willing to listen, how to apply condoms, by putting them on broom handles, I think.

So later when they visited to see how things are going, they saw condoms on all broom handles. I guess there was a bit of "failure to communicate".

[Stultis]

These days, I always laugh my head off at BBC World reports.

More power to him. I usually find myself with my face inches from the screen, yelling at the (images of) the correspondents. Last thing I saw on the BBC was a report featuring an NGO type who pontificated piously about how Africans must be saved from the depravations of "big agribusiness". This was hardly humorous. I mean, God forbid that Africans drive tractors instead of oxen, or have access to drought and disease resistant seed stock. If the little brown people aren't regularly subject to starvation, this odious NGO b*tch could find herself out of a job!

[metesky]

:O)

[metesky]

This was great. We need more articles like this one. I wonder why enterprising journalists don't go out into Iraq and get the real information. Why don't we hear more about life in Iraq now?

For the very same reasons that we don't hear of the realities in South Africa.

It doesn't fit "The Agenda".

[American in Israel]

I've been having severe Steyn withdrawls!

Me too! Thanks for the ping.

[American in Israel]

Wish he would come to Israel. I'd chip in for the ticket.

[KeyWest]

Speaking of condoms, in Egypt, when they were distributed by the do-goobers, they were used as balloons.

BTW, my spell checker said that was the right spelling so argue with it. Plus I like it better.

[xp38]

Exactly...something like this would make President Bush look good.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[mewzilla]

bttt

[Tamzee]

Incredible column, thank you Mark!

And thank you to Pokey78 for posting it :-)

[Tamzee]

I adore your "Woohoo" LOL

I think the "H" is my favorite, has a little extra boogie in his bop ;-)

[MeekOneGOP]

Finally is right! Thanks.

I'm pleased to report, then, that the obscene Oil For Food programme has been radically privatised. In much of Iraq, the government petrol stations have been pillaged and the gas pumps stripped of their metal panels so that they stand on two thin metal pins, their hoses hanging loose, like R2D2 before he goes in for a service. Instead, entrepreneurial Iraqis stand along the roadside with small tanks of mysteriously acquired petrol. Heading back to Jordan, I pulled up in the desert. "How much for a fill-up?" I asked.

"Ten dollars," the man said.

"I've only got a 20," I said.

"That's good," he said. "Bush," he added, pointing to the picture of Andrew Jackson on the bill.

"Close enough," I said. Afterwards, he wanted another 20 for his seven-year-old boy. I'm a softie but not that soft, so I fished out a Canadian 20.

"What this?" he said suspiciously. "American one dollar?" He pointed to the Queen's portrait. "Who this?"

"George Washington," I said.

He'll have a hard job getting rid of the Canadian but that Yankee 20 he'll change in one of the stores back in town and he'll do himself and the local economy more good than the UN's bloated boondoggle ever will.

Of course, this is only one guy's experience of Iraq. But I'd like to think that it's catching on.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Thanks Pokey for an excellent Steyn... We've missed him!

His observations remind me (somewhat) of the description of post-war Germany when the US occupation was getting started (as told on the very good PBS series "Commanding Heights"). The big problem was trying to get the economy started again and fears of rampant inflation which had racked Germany after World War I and those reparations. So the American occupiers had helped put in some support functions and the beginnings of the post-war systems, but with the price controls that were being used, nothing was coming to market. Ludwig Erhard (I believe) was named (or elected?) president and one of the first things he did was to swap all the currency to the new Deutsche Mark and then to eliminate all price controls. He did this without the approval of the US occupying forces (the American general said to Erhard "our experts say that this will cause a disaster!" and Erhard replied: "that's what my experts expect too!"). Within a matter of days, goods started to appear on store shelves... transactions began... shortages evaporated... prices stabilized.

Iraq faces a much longer transition because 20+ years of Saddam have left no viable systems and virtually no culture of enterprise. But the free market will rise from these humble ashes and Iraq has the potential to be a beacon for the rest of the region: a "shining city on a hill" to borrow a phrase from John Adams and, more recently, the Best President of the 20th Century.

Thanks for the Steyn-fix! Leave it to Mark to go to the source to get and start disseminating the truth!