Mark Steyn: Come on over the water's lovely

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

[LisaFab]

Thanks Pokey, I was jonesing for Steyn also.

[WaterDragon]

Perfect! Steyn goes and looks for himself and tells us what he finds.

This won't stop the liberals from their "The Sky Is Falling!" repetitions, but most of us already know their needle is stuck and just sigh in exasperation.

[Paul Ross]

Thank GOD! I was worried for him on this assignment. This line alone justifies the wait:

ramshackle auto shops with their mounds of second-hand tyres, all these are open for business, and in the end they're more relevant to the future of Iraq than the legions of unemployed Saddamite bureaucrats in Baghdad or the NGO armies in their brand new, gleaming white Chevy Suburbans and Land Rovers cruising the streets touting for business like drug pushers in search of junkies.

[GOPJ]

The "camps" and the sick freaky dependence they create make welfare's perverse incentives seem kind. Keep U.N. types out...

And that underpopulated border camp is a fine motif for what's going on: vast numbers of bureaucrats are running around Iraq with unlimited budgets in search of a human catastrophe that doesn't exist.

"Had a lot of refugees?" I asked the Jordanian customs officer.

"We had about 10 through last week," he said. "Palestinians."

------- But just what exactly was "deteriorating"? As my groaning table and the stores along Main Street testified, there was plenty of food in town. Was it the water? I made a point of drinking the stuff everywhere I went in a spirited effort to pick up the dysentery and cholera supposedly running rampant. But I remain a disease-free zone. So what precisely is happening in Rutba that requires an Oxfam/ICRC summit? Well, the problem, as they see it, is that, sure, there's plenty of food available but "the prices are too high". That's why the World Food Programme and the other NGOs need to be brought in, to distribute more rations to more people.

[conservativemusician]

I was wondering where he's been.

Steyn is awesome as usual. We really need him at a major media outlet in the U.S.


Thanks for the ping.

[GOPJ]

bump

[rightwingreligiousfanatic]

Bump for a fabulous article. Thanks Pokey!

FYI, Hugh Hewitt is having Mark as a regular segment once a week on his radio show. On Wednesday's I think.... hughhewitt.com for more info....

[scholar]

Thanks for the ping. Thank Heaven that there is someone out there willing to take a risk to give us the truth. I listen to a mostly conservative radio station, but the five minute sound bites every half hour are still full of liberal, lamestream propaganda.