*ISG=Idiotic Silliness Gone (over the top) (pdf file)
Read it yourself. A group of “Run away! Run away!” Dems and “Neville Chamberlain” Reps have redefined “success” in Iraq as “The U.S. needs to be just like us: runaways and appeaseniks able to play well together.”
Huh?!?
Well, that’s what their report really boils down to.
But what can ya expect of a bunch like that? Not one of them has any more expertise on the dynamics–the hisotry, the culture, the social-geographical landscape of the region than I do. And from the text of their report (warning: PDF file), it appears they have less understanding of the region than I.
And I’ve never even set foot there.
Of course, their actual experience on the ground there is less useful than my non-physical visits, since they actually just touched base there in the very briefest of manners, just to add it to their puffed up creds (and to pad the expenses) for their report. Kind of a “touch and go” landing… And they didn’t even do a “touch and go” in the areas controlled by the Kurds, where they might have gotten a hint (if their ossified brains could grasp it) of what is going wrong in the two provinces of Iraq that are troublesome.
Nope. They apparently, from the evidence of the report, went into this with the idea of avoiding such “buzz words” as “victory” because… Well, I can’t figure any positive reason why they’d avoid looking for a road to victory, can you? And their idea of success is really just a way of defining success down to a level that is meaningless.
The only things I can find that they got even close to right are the delineations of mistakes made in the prosecution of the peace. And even there, I strongly disagree with their priority and even some of the list itself–nortably absences from the list and the failure to out the disasterous Bremmer. But their silliest remarks were reserved for analysis of the various “options” that they presented. For example, partitioning garnered this fatuous comment:
The costs associated with devolving Iraq into three semiautonomous regions with loose central control would be too high. Because Iraq’s population is not neatly separated, regional
boundaries cannot be easily drawn. All eighteen Iraqi provinces
have mixed populations, as do Baghdad and most other major
cities in Iraq.
“[C]osts… too high”? Really? In what way? Already, ad hoc “house swapping” between Sunnis and Shiites is going on in Baghdad, recognizing th Tigris as the natural boudary between Sunni and Shiite populations in that area. Sure there’s be disruptions in other locales, but there are only two provinces where things are apparently devolving to open conflict. Other provinces are relatively peaceful. And the Kurdish controlled area is safer than Washington D.C. By far.
What would be the exhorbitant costs of partitioning? Relocation of minority people groups from where they are relatively small in number to where all their extended families, tribes and religious kin are? Since it’s already happening. Heck, simply speeding up, encouraging and aiding the natural “partitioning” already going on on either side of the Tigris would do a lot to quell problems in Baghdad–which is where the ISG and Mass Media Podpeople get most of the fuel for the defeatist fire.
Ann Coulter pinpointed the other MAJOR problem with the ISG report in her lede:
The “bipartisan” Iraq panel has recommended that Iran and Syria can help stabilize Iraq. You know, the way Germany and Russia helped stabilize Poland in ’39.
Exactly. Putting the foxes IN the chicken coop is not a good idea… to anyone with one more working synapse than a head of cabbage has.
A pox on the ISG. Surrender monkeys. Let ’em all emmigrate to France.
“Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for thw west as it commits suicide.”—James L. Burnham
Read the report and weep for the republic that once was… It’s now becoming the habitat of elitist surrender monkeys and their subjects.
Anyone for a tea party?
*sigh*
STACLU is gathering bloggers’ reactions. You already know a tad about mine (the printable portion *heh*). Go see what others are saying.