I have grown up around DC and all its talking heads and Deans of this and Deans of that, and right now these people are completely useless in understanding what is happening in the Middle East. I was watching Charlayne Hunter-Gault on CNN discuss the role South Africa could play in stopping the fighting in the ME – since they had worked through the violent end to Apartheid – while I was reading Mark Steyn’s spot on piece about the uselessness of our elite chattering class to influence terrorists in a region where the average age doesn’t pre date the VCR, and in some cases not even the internet. As Steyn points out, our grey beards running to the region to talk to their grey beards simply emphasizes our impotence and emboldens these goons. They are young and on a blood thirsty high from which they cannot be “talked down”. The are running on adrenaline and feel like they are unbeatable. The calm of wisdom is not just off their radar, it is beyond their grasp. They are willing to die for a cause rather than live an empty life filled with empty words. Anyone who claims there must be a way to talk this situation to an end is kidding themselves. These people have decided to win or die, and are happily and energetically heading to the either end fate decides. They are not open to debate, it is seen as a failure to them. Forget what the people in DC and NY say, they have been following a failed path for 26 years or more now. They are simply clouding the situation and ignoring the reality. Better to just listen to Mark Steyn.