August 28, 2003

MISERY'S CHORUS

Miranda Devine welcomes back the quagmirists:

Four months after the first US tanks rolled into Baghdad airport, the quagmirists are coming out to play again, having learned no lesson when their dire predictions about the second Gulf War proved to be as foolish as the triumphant pronouncements of Comical Ali, the hapless Iraqi information minister.

The "humanitarian catastrophe" with "hundreds of thousands of refugees" predicted by sainted Office of National Assessments whistleblower Andrew Wilkie never eventuated. The coalition troops were not "bogged down" by sandstorms. They didn't run out of food or ammunition. Their supply lines were not cut. They had enough troops to swat the fearsome Republican Guard. Australian soldiers did not come home in body bags. And those were flesh-and-blood Iraqis welcoming the Americans as liberators, toppling Saddam statues and slapping Saddam pictures with their sandals.

In the face of overwhelming proof of their fallibility the quagmirists retreated into sullen silence. But they seem now to have found their voice.

It's as if they never left.

Posted by Tim Blair at August 28, 2003 04:31 AM
Comments

Has anyone noticed that more people died of simple neglect in France than have died in GWII?

Posted by: rabidfox at August 28, 2003 at 04:39 AM

Rabidfox, Yes, Mark Steyn. Check out Sunday Chi. Sun-Times

Posted by: michael at August 28, 2003 at 04:58 AM

It should be mentioned too, the communard line run by BBC-ABC - the whole damn shooting match over Israel would be at an end if only the question of who owns the dome on the rock cxould be solved.

There you have it folks, hand over the dome to the Islamo-fascist mudering s.o.b.s and end of terror and, the `quagmire in Iraq'.Face it folks, compared to saw-dust for brains communisto journos, the chaps in IDF and, in the F.O.s of Oz, Brit, and Amerikka, are poodling amateurs.


Turn the dome and rock into an archaelogical dig and then, demolishing the dome to get at what is buried underneath,then, once the scholarly work is over, sell it off as prime commercial real estate.

Oh, I appreciate this won't convert murderers from blowing up Isrealis, but, quite frankly,it would be a good put down of the fascist Islamic mumbo jumbo to which it is pinned.

Last night , a few thousand froze to take a look at Mars. Big deal (see more detail of Mars in photos and in the comfort of the home),just another holy sight. Tedious, banal.

Posted by: d at August 28, 2003 at 09:43 AM

I ran into a quagmirist the other day, at a talk given by Richard Butler. The dread word was uttered during a question/answer session.

Other highlights of that occasion:

- protesters on the steps of Newcastle Town Hall, angry about the appointment of Richard B. as the Governor of Tasmania. I personally don't give a tinkers cuss about who will be the next Governor of Tasmania, but obviously its something they feel passionate about...

- Diehard socialists on the steps selling Green Left Weekly. Recognised one of them - Peter Robson, education officer at Newcastle Uni. a year back - because I'd seen his picture in the paper. Would have loved to get in an argument with him, but I was with Mum and, well, I'm out of practice.

- The article by Peter Robson in the same paper. It was a hoot. Robson said that money spent on Australian forces in Iraq would be better redirected into Australian universities. He also complimented Cubas' education system - seriously!

- An article in the Green Left about the breaking up of the "Walk Against the War" coalition into different factions. Included the following, rather sinister, quote: "The Greens should know who their real friends are". (Criticising the Greens for not siding with the Socialist Alliance. This is one of the few occasions in which I actually feel sympathy with the Greens.)

- Plenty of other articles - oh, yes, I had hours of fun with that paper.

Posted by: TimT at August 28, 2003 at 05:59 PM

Miranda writes:

"As I wrote during the war, it is better to draw hard-core terrorists into a showdown out in the open in Iraq..."

So it seems the chickenhawk has succumbed to the quagmirists at the Australian Bolshevik Collective and ditched the cockroaches.

Posted by: Leverington at August 28, 2003 at 08:11 PM

So you'd have married her than dumped her when it no longer became cool to have Marilyn Monroe for your wife, Ferg?

Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 28, 2003 at 09:06 PM

Gah. "then dumped her." I need more coffee.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 28, 2003 at 09:07 PM

I've just finished reading "Band of Brothers", a history of a WW2 airborne infantry company.

Towards the end, it describes how pissed off the Americans felt about the French they'd just fought to liberate:

"They did not like the French, who seemed to them ungrateful, sullen, lazy and dirty."

"GIs noted, with approval, that the Germans began picking up the rubble the morning after the battle had passed by, and contrasted that with the French, where no one had bothered to clean up the mess".

Sounds to me like the Americans got themselves into a real quagmire in France in 1945.

Posted by: steve at August 29, 2003 at 12:46 AM

Pavlov wasted a *lot* of time on those dogs.

Posted by: Tongue Boy at August 29, 2003 at 02:25 AM

And my comments were supposed to go to the Arthur Miller post. I guess I really did need more coffee.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 29, 2003 at 11:29 AM