A SANE LOOK BACK

Mark Steyn recalls the "top ten quagmires of the week" from a year ago.

If it seems cruel to dredge them up, I do so because, the current ballyhoo from Democrats would make you think the administration policy in this area has been a disaster. It hasn't. Indeed, for 2½ years now, the naysayers to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice approach to the war on terror have been close to 100 percent wrong on everything.

John Kerry, in his macho way, told Rolling Stone, apropos the Iraq war, that he never expected President Bush to f*** it up so much. In fact, Mr. Bush didn't asterisk it up at all. It's one of the least asterisked-up operations in history.

The freak-show left prancing around on the anniversary demonstrations is one thing, but sensible people of all persuasions ought to be able to give the administration real credit for it did in Iraq these last 12 months...

(2) "The head of the World Food Program has warned that Iraq could spiral into a massive humanitarian disaster." (The Australian, April 11, 2003)

One year on: No humanitarian disaster. Indeed, no "humanitarians."

The NGOs fled Iraq in August and nobody noticed, confirming what some of us have suspected since Afghanistan: The permanent floating crap game of the humanitarian lobby has a vastly inflated sense of its own importance and is prone to massive distortion in the cause of self-promotion.

This is a really good piece...go read it all.