Mark Steyn: Put up or shut up

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 10/05/2002 | Mark Steyn

[Aggie Mama]

Thanks for the link.

[Notforprophet]

Thanks for the ping, Pokey78. Steyn hits another home run with this one.

[grammymoon]

write to Mandela:
http://www.anc.org.za/people/mandela/
bottom of page-write to Nelson

[Smedley]

So there is still a segment of the British population who thinks the best way to fight is to send men in formation and let everyone line up and shoot at each other? I think I'll take Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion's approach over there way.

I had some EuroTrash punks whining about how unfair it all was that the U.S. lost hardly no troops in Desert Storm. I thought that I argued persuasively about the purpose of war, i.e., to kill the enemy and break his stuff, and the goal of not getting your own troops killed in the process when possible, but they were adamant about their disgust with American kill ratios.

Europe is a lost cause.

[1bigdictator]

A must read Ping

[Airborne Longhorn]

My fave from Steyn:

"England’s clergy have redefined the Christian concept of a just war to mean only one blessed by the Security Council, which is to say the governments of France, Russia and China: it will be left to two atheists and a lapsed Catholic to determine whether this is a war Christians can support."

This guy rocks!

[PLK]

We can only guess at the new toys the Great Satan will have in five years’ time, but, whatever they are, I’ll bet my in-tray is still getting sneering missives: ‘So now the bloody Yank poofters are using flying nuclear cheeseburgers launched from the Diego Garcia Burger King. Not exactly the Bengal Lancers, is it?’

I am holding my sides laughing! Flying nuclear cheeseburgers? OMG!!!!! Steyn is awesome - again. Thanks.

[Huck]

Awesome as usual. Thanks, poke.

[1bigdictator]

He's is the most honest journalist covering this war on Arab-backed terrorism.

[Cyber Liberty]

Thanks, Pokey!

[Airborne Longhorn]

Steyn also publishes out of Canada, right?

Somebody want to start a STEYN ping list? Count me IN!

[texasbluebell]

Well, Mr Mandela’s country has been busy selling aluminium tubes for uranium enrichment centrifuges to Saddam.

Ah, yes, those aluminum tubes that Scott Ritter said were for something else.

[Airborne Longhorn]

Sorry, Poke...should have acknowledged YOUR Steyn list. Can you add me? Tks...

[dead]

England’s clergy have redefined the Christian concept of a just war to mean only one blessed by the Security Council, which is to say the governments of France, Russia and China: it will be left to two atheists and a lapsed Catholic to determine whether this is a war Christians can support.

Always DOZENS of highlights in a Steyn column (even more than usual with this one) but this quote actually gave me belly laughs.

Sums up the utter depravity of the “UN must approve” idiocy. The UN is composed of thugs, dictators, and theives. They can kiss our ass.

[Billthedrill]

You’ll recall Louis Michel, the Belgian foreign minister, insisting late last year that the European Rapid Reaction Force ‘must declare itself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability’. As the Washington Post remarked, ‘Apparently in Europe this works.’

I'm gonna have to stop reading Steyn at work. My medical benefits don't cover laughter sprains.

[free me]

Could you put me on the Steyn ping list please?

[Yankee]

It could tell the UN to go fu## itself, but it’s not that impolite.

I am.

I say that and worse, daily, whenever I see or hear something from those limp-wristed appeasers.

[jwh_Denver]

*So there is still a segment of the British population who thinks the best way to fight is to send men in formation and let everyone line up and shoot at each other?

This are just bozo Brits barfing up with what they've been feeding on. In the end the government stands with us. That's what counts.

[Dan Day]

Structurally, the UN is a creature of the Cold War. It formalised the stalemate of East and West: it was designed to prevent rather than enable action; it tended towards inertia, which was no bad thing given the potentially catastrophic consequences of the alternative. But we no longer have a bipolar world, and so the vetoes only work one way — to restrain the sole surviving superpower.

Absolutely brilliant analysis.

[Dan Day]

When Saddam switches on CNN and sees Adam Nicolson standing in Downing Street pre-emptively chanting ‘Shame! Shame!’ over the mere possibility of a ludicrously antiquated vision of a prolonged siege of Baghdad, he might reasonably question how serious Nicolson would be about nuking the joint. The wily old monster might wonder, if he were to lob a small nuke at, say, Tel Aviv, whether the shame set would really have the stomach for full-blown retaliation with massive civilian casualties, or whether they’d be back in the streets chanting that ‘violence only breeds more violence’. He might conclude that a system of deterrence between a gangster and a ladies’ luncheon club will deter the latter and leave him free to do pretty much what he wants.

"A ladies' luncheon club". That'd be hilariously funny if it weren't so depressingly true.