Will this do?
There's some amusing suggestions (see Matt Yglesias or even Andrew Sullivan) that Mark Steyn's new column (Steyn not Steel, note, though I can see some similarities Steel's a bit more clued-up), on how Iraq is basically as peaceful as the UK, with a small Northern Ireland style problem in some areas, was perhaps written back in May 2003, which explains its inaccuracy.There's some evidence. Steyn refers to the murder of two British soliders in N.Ireland 'soldiers were yanked from a cab in the wrong part of town and torn apart by a Republican mob' as 'a few years ago'. It was in 1988. Which is 16 years ago. If perhap it was written in 2003, it would only have been 15 years ago. Ok that line doesn't work...
Perhaps it was written in the last gulf war? Yglesias has a better explanation for why Steyn's view so contradicts those of the CIA or CSIS.
Steyn's reporting from on the ground in Iraq is much better than the CIA's or CSIS's. But wait a minute, that's right, Steyn isn't reporting from on the ground in Iraq because it's so goddamn dangerous that Western journalists don't leave the Green Zone anymore.
posted by Matthew @ 9/20/2004 07:21:00 AM
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