Mark Steyn: “Screw Algeria’s sovereignty,” rescue the hostages

“I mean, ‘Algerian special forces’ is something of a contradiction in terms,” Steyn said. “I think when these things happen somewhere on the other side of the world, you hope that the highly trained elite forces will come to the rescue. And that belongs to a very select group of nations. I mean, if you remember that Russian theater siege for example, where the Russians went in and killed a bunch of people — I mean, even the Russians aren’t any good at that. There’s maybe half-a-dozen nations in the world capable of rescuing those guys without leaving a lot of blood on the floor.”

“It does call into question — I mean I would have thought that the first thing that would happen is that the nationals, the government of the nationals being held hostage would have conferred as to who had people, who could get there and screw Algeria’s sovereignty,” he continued. “We got into a lot of trouble in Libya from over-respecting the sovereignty of nations that cannot enforce their own sovereignty. And that’s what we should have done in Algeria, too. We should take as saying we’re not going to fuss about visas from the Algerians.”