Posted on 11/30/2006 8:01:11 AM PST by SmithL
THERE'S a great anecdote about Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, a delegation touting itself as "the weighty men of Delaware" visited Lincoln at the White House. Lincoln's response, as noted at anecdotage.com: "Did it ever occur to you gentlemen, that there was a danger of your little state tipping up in your absence?"
Which brings to my mind the Iraq Study Group. Co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former House International Relations Committee Chair Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, the ISG calls itself "a bipartisan group of senior individuals who have had distinguished careers in public service." To go by the hype, you would think that this august body will come up with a daring roadmap for U.S. policy in Iraq. Yet experience suggests that the study group, which consists of the same swells who always fill bipartisan panels, will present a set of mealy-mouthed recommendations, more weighty in the authors' minds than in reality.
Consider the bipartisan 9/11 commission, on which Hamilton also served. While the panel did a fine job of investigating institutional flaws that hindered intelligence before the Sept. 11,2001, terrorist attacks, one certainly could argue that the bipartisan makeup encouraged the group to paper over what now can be seen as mistakes made by both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Worse, because the 9/11 commission chose to pass its 41 recommendations unanimously -- a goal shared by the ISG -- the recommendations were bureaucratic, somewhat impractical and often gratuitous. For example, the panel refused to take a stand on the Patriot Act, but instead suggested that the White House make a case for retaining surveillance powers, followed by a "full and informed debate."
File that one under: Meaningless. And in sub-category: Easy to ignore.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The ISG reminds me of the UN: The UN is much more interested in "process" than in results.
I would guess that whatever the ISG ultimately proposes, it won't work, and will only hurt the image and power of the United States...and that's not good for us, or the world.
In other words, the very people who stood around with their heads up their butts while rad-islam metastasized into a problem.
"The ISG reminds me of the UN: The UN is much more interested in "process" than in results"
It reminds me of why I left the corporate world and went out on my own ... filled to the brim with people who actually think paper shuffling is more important than actually producing anything.
Come on
What this really means is that the commission doesn't know what the hell to do so they have to put something out
Leave Iraq but no time table
Talks ( Talk is OK as long as you keep the bullets flying )
It is a bunch of CYA so it looks like they didn't completely waste their time
Instead, how about a commission to determine how to defeat and destroy Islamonazism, made up of people who have ideas of doing just that.
Ain't that that what the Prez and his security team are for
You have a good point. However, I don't have anything against bringing in experts for a fresh look at a problem. But, I don't understand why these experts always believe that there is nothing that we can do, aside from hiding under our beds and waiting for the boogie man to come and kill us.
Celebrity Death Match would be a better idea for these two.
The ISG wanted Saddam and Son's to remain in power.
All they studied was how to reach that goal.
Not all of them, but some of them.
Ed Meese is a good guy, but I don't know that he has a lot of foreign policy credentials.
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