Arianna hits it out of the park on ISG

I know everyone doesn't love Arianna Huffington all the time, and myself I find there's far too much National-Enquiresque celebrity stuff on Huffington Post.  But she's at her snarky, snide best in yesterday's blog post, Cutting the Fat from the ISG Proposals.

It took us a day, but we finally plowed through all 79 proposals submitted by the Iraq Study Group. Now, we're all for thoroughness, but 79 seems like overkill -- it's hard enough to read through 79 proposals, let alone try to implement them. Here then is HuffPost's look at seven of the Group's suggestions that should be the first to go:

Chase Arianna and see the fruits of her painstaking labours over the jump...

Recommendation 4: As an instrument of the New Diplomatic Offensive, an Iraq International Support Group should be organized immediately following the launch of the New Diplomatic Offensive.

First, did we miss the Old Diplomatic Offensive? Second, we'd love to think that an International Support Group is going to work but, really, it's just going to be a lot of sitting in a circle on folding chairs wondering when this guy is going to shut up about his wife leaving him for some other guy who blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra.

How can someone be so dead-on snide when English is her second language?

Recommendation 73: The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of National Intelligence should accord the highest possible priority to professional language proficiency and cultural training, in general and specifically for U.S. officers and personnel about to be assigned to Iraq.
We kinda doubt the Pentagon kept forwarding addresses for all those fired gay Arabic interpreters.

Too bad, it would be nice to see them grovelling to get them back.

And my personal favourite:

Recommendation 21: The President should restate that the United States does not seek to control Iraq's oil.

Too hard for him to pull off with a straight face.

Read the whole thing... it's delicious.

•  I agree that 79 seems a bit much.

  I don't see the Bush team adopting anything that isn't very, very simple, even if it's wrong.

  I can't imagine what the ISG was thinking. Bushco not only doesn't do diplomacy, they can't do it. For their recommendations to have any chance of being implemented, a team of professional diplomats/negotiators would need to be rounded up from somewhere, and empowered to do what they do. Do any such people remain at State, or have they all left? And if the North Korea negotiations (before China's implementation of the 6-party talks) are any indication, anything a diplomatic team might negotiate would be negated in Washington.

  Ick.

  by count on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 06:31:19 AM PDT

•  Iraq: 14 bases, 2 Brits planting bombs & oil

  Want to prove that the invasion of Iraq was
  about oil:

  Try this:

  1.  On September 19, 2005 two British soldiers dressed up as Arabs were caught planting bombs at a mosque in Basra.  Remember the incident?  The Brits were so afraid of being exposed that they took a tank to the wall of the jail in Basra to free the 2 British agents provocateur.

  2.  The U.S. has built 14 permanent army bases in Iraq.

  Why would the US/UK want to destabilize Iraq?
  Because if Iraq were a clam and peaceful place, what explanation could possibly justify our continued military presence in oil-rich Iraq?

  As long as Iraq is unstable, American military presence is "needed to provide security" (forget that the NIE said that our mere presence is stoking violence).

  The oil/civil unrest/permanent U.S. presence in Iraq angle also explains the years of "failure" (or cunning awareness) to provide enough troops on the ground to provide security in Iraq.  God forbid Iraq had been pacified from the get-go.  

  Over the last few years we've heard the drivel:
  "Once Iraqis 'stand up' then we can stand down"...
  At first Iraqis were supposed to be able to "stand up" in the first 8 months, then the next 6 months... now 6 or 18 months... a dozen "stand-up" deadlines have passed... and we're still getting more predictions...

  The fact is that no one in this country is debating what we're really doing in Iraq.  Because to do so would be to admit that our society has become so corrupt and materialistic that the deaths of 50K-  600K innocent Iraqis is a price we're willing to pay for getting control of Iraq's oil. Talk about evil!  

  The training of police and Iraqi military isn't working because the United States is not committed to it... rather the U.S. is committed to its NOT working.  The U.S. is committed to the goals of the U.S. oil industry.  To steal natural resources from third world countries.  

  Dan in Baltimore

  by dancobmd on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 06:53:07 AM PDT

•  The ISG is of no consequence...

  ...neither are the news reports on the major media networks, neither is any statement made by anyone in Bush's adminsitration... all totally irrelevant to what is going on in Iraq.  Why?

  Because everything they say is based on the dishonest assumption that the U.S. is in Iraq because of:

  1. WMDs in Iraq; or

  2. an attempt to democratize and reshape the middle east; or

  3. to fight a global war on terror.

  If the discussion about what to do in Iraq has a starting point that is any one of the three war rationales outlines above, then the discussion cannot be helpful.  The ISG is window dressing that helps to convince the US public that the issue is: What to do in Iraq, now?!

  Read my post above...

  by dancobmd on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 06:57:39 AM PDT

•  She was great on Scarborough yesterday

  When I know she's going to be on, I usually watch.

  by rolandzebub on Fri Dec 08, 2006 at 08:04:10 AM PDT