NEMESIS

Moving House

2006-09-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

I have moved HERE.
Please adjust your bookmarks and hurry on over!

Migrant History Repeats

2006-09-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

           MIGRANT HISTORY REPEATS

            Waleed Aly The Australian-February 23, 2006

            WHY MUSLIM LEADERS DARE NOT

            SPEAK THE TRUTH?

  Con George-kotzabasis

Waleed Aly’s article is a display of dazzling historical and sociological acrobatics on immigration that leaves his audience breathless. But in his attempt to win the applause of the latter, he forces himself to take some foolhardy risks on the threadbare wire of his argument trying to prove its correctness, that make him lose his reflective balance and fall on a nettles ground that bounces him into the embrace of the seventy virgins. What is more dangerous, to be historically and sociologically incorrect or to be in the company of seventy virgins, is for others to judge.

But let us deal with the premise of his argument and the historical facts of immigration as he presents them, with which he builds his “matchsticks” sociological theory of Muslim terrorism to make his case. His contention is that the so-called local Islamic terrorism of our contemporary times is no different from the Mafiosi terrorism of the 60s, from the Vietnamese triad gangs of the 80s, and treating the Greeks and the Catholics more gently, from the Mediterranean Back welfare fraud of the former and the allegiance of the latter to the Pope. No doubt, all these actions of the above groups are contrary to Australian values, nonetheless they arise from a minority of their communities and therefore it would be both illogical and unfair to blacken their whole communities for the actions of few. Neither, the sociological “deviancy” of a Trimboli or a Condello could denigrate the Italian community in toto and its great achievements as assimilated migrants in this country. Therefore, in similar mode, the beliefs and actions of a small number of Muslim radicals have a sociological pedigree going back to the 60s and 80s, and are of a passing nature, as the deviancy of the few radicals, as it happened with other immigrant groups in the past, will be absorbed within the majority of assimilated Muslims to Australian values in the near future.  Hence, according to Aly, history will be repeating itself, neither as a tragedy nor as a farce, as Marx believed, but as progress toward the embracing of Australian laws and values by all immigrant communities, including Muslims.

In scope and depth this proposition is as serious as claiming, that soft “pasta” made terrorism is similar to religious fanatic terrorism that is fomented by an Islamofascist suicidal ideology and whose reach is global.  That religion, which plays such an authoritarian and dominant role among Muslims, can be relegated to sociology. To keep his canoe theory afloat in the billowing waters of reality, Aly, like a magician has to conjure away the history of Islam as a supremacist religion, which the precepts of its prophet Mohammed reveal and attest.  He also has to hide the fact, that this superiority of Muslim religion and culture inspires the minds and senses of most Muslims. Therefore, any assertion by Muslims that they support and ardently embrace multiculturalism is not only disingenuous but a blatant lie. To expect of them to accept multiculturalism will be akin of expecting them to become votaries of polytheism.

Aly”s argument, that Muslims will be as easily assimilated to Western values as other migrant groups have done from Christian and Buddhist backgrounds, is demolished by his co-religionists leaders.  The Montreal Muslim News, on February 26, among whom one of its hosts is the President of The Muslim Council of Montreal who is considered to be by all media outlets the representative of the views of the community, in criticizing the comments of Treasurer Costello that all citizens should accept the laws and values of Australia, stated the following: “If we look deeply into the sickness that passes for ‘western values’ one can see why we chose Allah over human made systems of morality and conduct”.  It’s this rigid, bigoted, and supremacist beliefs of Muslims that makes Western values terra rejectaneus to them. One also must take note of the historical fact, that unlike Christianity which had its Reformation that Luther nailed on the door of dogmatic papacy, Islam never had its reformation and it’s still “mind-locked” in the dark ages of the 8th Century and therefore it’s completely incapable spiritually of immersing itself in the torrential stream of modernity. This is the reason why, despite the Midas wealth of many Muslim countries, their peoples live in poverty and in cultural ghettos isolated and detached from the modern world under authoritarian regimes. And this is why when they emigrate to the West they remain in their religious and social ghettoes, instead of reaching out from the windows of opportunity that a dynamic free enterprise economy is offering them and reaping the economic and social benefits that emanate from Western education, and engagement with the advanced world of globalization. Hence, bailing out from high rates of mostly voluntary unemployment and dependency on welfare, with all their dire social consequences.  But the question is how can a group of people who spent so much time (praying seven times a day) in the affairs of the other world succeed in the affairs of this one?

All the interactions that Muslims have, even in their dress and in their appearance, e.g. hijabs, white caps, and beards, with other Australians are motivated first and foremost by their religion. To claim as Aly does, that Muslim migrants are “rejecting culture altogether, Western or other wise’’ and leaving it at that without probing and answering, especially, why they reject the Western variety, is to say the least shallow sociology. They are rejecting it because being chained from head to foot with the rigidity of their culture are unwilling to break their chains and thus become free to accept the tenets of a modern world that will lead them to social and individual success. Ultimately therefore, they reject Western society because deep down they feel that they will fail in all their endeavors to succeed. Hence, like all failed cultures, they will scapegoat all the successful ones and blame them for their own shortcomings. And for this vicious circle failure, they will seek and find solace in, and embrace, the millenarian teachings of fundamentalist Islam and its Jihad against the great Satan America and its future promise of a caliphate and paradisiacal bliss.

It’s for all the above reasons and the following fact that the claim of Aly that terrorism in Australia is a “fringe element”, to quote him, is as far from the truth, if it’s not a “warring” lie-as according to Mohammed in war telling lies by Muslims is justifiable- when the radical Sheikh Omran of Melbourne, who considers bin Laden to be a good man, has more than ten thousand followers.

One remains nonplussed, why an intelligent person such as Waleed Aly, leaves all the above facts out from his article? And dons the top hat of a conjuror that attempts to present the beliefs and deeds of religious fanaticism as being sociological and similar to the innocuous, by comparison, deviancy of a Condello from the mainstream? What does he have to hide? It’s up to his keen readers to answer the non-answer of Waleed that dares not speak the truth.

This article was written on March 2, 2006

Con GeorgeKotzabasis

2006-09-06T02:00:00.000-07:00

RECOMMENDATION TO THE USA PRESIDENT

This letter was sent to the USA President on March 21,2006

Dear Mr. President

It’s admirable to see, that in your National Security Strategy you continue to stand like a Titan against your Democratic opponents and the rabble-rattlers of the media, in respect of your historically insightful strategy of pre-emptive war.

Humbly, I would like to make the following suggestions in regard to the great threat emanating from Iran in its determination to acquire nuclear weapons. I don’t believe that conventional realist diplomacy will convince the Ahmadinejad regime, especially when the latter can see the fraction that exists among the major nations that try to stop it from acquiring its nuclear arsenal, as exemplified by Russia and China, to change course and submit to the demands of this seemingly powerful combination of nations. I believe that only a diplomacy that is backed by the threat of an unequivocally resolute use of military action against Iran, if the latter does not conform to its dictates, and which makes it quite clear to its leaders that such action will not only target its nuclear plants, but, also, its political and religious leadership in toto as well as the higher echelons of the military. I think that such a “kiss of death” diplomacy pressed upon the foreheads of the triangular leadership of Iran, has the great potential to sow the seeds of division within it that could oust the radicals and replace them by moderates, who would be keen to accept the injunctions of this “armed” diplomacy.

Thus a “palace revolt” against the theocratic regime could be instigated by means of diplomacy, and usher your policy of regime change in the most peaceful way. And needless to say only the USA under your leadership could exercise this diplomacy. Of course such diplomacy will not attract multilateral support. This, however, will not be an obstacle to your resolute leadership.  But you will have the support of the Coalition of the willing, and that will be enough on this high stakes issue. The probability of achieving this peaceful transformation of regime change is far from being a long shot. But if uncertainty, that rules in the affairs of men and beyond, uncannily plays its mischievous role and negates this probability, then you will have no other option but to resort to a pre-emptive attack against Iran’s nuclear plants and against its triangular leadership.

Mr. President, it’s a terrible and tragic burden to carry on your shoulders. But that is the price that statesmanship must pay in this most dangerous times that issue from the coupling of terrorists and rogue states armed with nuclear weapons.

Respectfully,

Con George-Kotzabasis



                              Alea jacta est

Melbourne Australia

"LIES" ABOUT THE WAR THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL

2006-09-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

                    “LIES” ABOUT THE WAR THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL.

                    Con George-Kotzabasis

A chirping sound and fury of a swarm of crickets from their grassy, weedless, "manicured estates" of politics, the media, academes, and bishoprics, are endeavouring to muffle the sound of reason as to why America and its staunch and historically insightful allies went to war against Saddam Hussein.

The critics of the war, in their impassioned fiery endeavour, to impugn and discredit the Bush, Blair, and Howard governments, are far from being morally and intellectually hampered from using meretricious arguments to make their case against the war. The English essayist Chesterton observed, 'where is the best place to hide a leaf’? His answer was in a tree. The opponents of the war observe, 'where is the best place to hide the truth’? Their answer is in a lie. Hence, they fabricated the biggest lie of all, with the aim to conceal the truth about the war. After their lugubrious doomsday cries and forecasts about hundreds of thousands of casualties, of humanitarian disasters, floods of refugees, and bogged-down Vietnams, all of which failed to materialize, either in Afghanistan or Iraq, they now "pin-up" their arguments on the Americans' unsuccessful efforts to find weapons of mass destruction  (WMD), and on the inability of its armed forces to win the peace in Iraq.  It is as if they expect that these two goals could be accomplished in parallel with the ending of major combat operations, in a regime which brutally oppressed its own people for thirty years, and which practised the concealment of its development of WMD in the form of an exact science. Despite Iraq’s swift defeat in the war, it still has a paladin of sturdy supporters, whose lament of losing power is inevitably transformed into a vigorous opposition to the American-led coalition forces.

The peaceniks, desperate to find a straw to save themselves from intellectual drowning in this ocean of failed predictions and "displaced" conceptions, have now concocted this lie - that the American, British, and Australian administrations were mendacious to their peoples about the imminent threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the civilized world. In this forlorn effort to justify their position, they brazenly and shamelessly distort David Kay's report to Congress about Hussein's WMD, by focusing on the present fact that no such weapons have been found, and triumphantly deduce from this, that Hussein was not an imminent threat against the West. But in this ignominious exercise, they totally disregard the other crucial elements of his findings that clearly substantiate, that the regime retained intact an infrastructure that could develop WMD at short notice.

The eminent columnist of the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, in his column of the ...Post on 10 October wrote that Iraq maintained 'an infrastructure                    (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could "break out" and ramp up production of [WMD] when needed... Just in Time... That David Kay found the infrastructure but, as yet, no finished product'. And again, as reported in the Washington Post on 7 October, David Kay had found strains of an organism in a scientist's home that could be used to produce biological agents. He had also found documents for resuming uranium enrichment efforts for the development of nuclear weapons and a clandestine network of laboratories that contained equipment for continuing chemical-biological weapons research, as well as SA-2 surface-to-air missiles which could be transformed into ballistic missiles with a range of 250 miles, exceeding the 150 miles range which Iraq was allowed to have by the UN.

This is the thundering truth about Hussein's secret program - that he could indeed activate the development of WMD, whenever his regime thought it would be safe to do so. It is this fact that the critics of the war are vainly attempting to muffle and still. The ABC presenter of the 7.30 Report, Kerry O'Brien, in his interview with the U.S. Ambassador, Tom Schieffer, picked selectively from the Kay report to make his flimsy case about the unnecessariness of the war in Iraq - and who obsessively and indefatigably has been doing so even before the commencement of hostilities in Iraq - and leaving out the key elements of the report which verified without any doubt, that the Hussein regime had the capability to develop and produce WMD at a time of its own choosing.

Moreover, it is inconceivable, that while Iran, Hussein's arch enemy and rival in the region, had plans to develop nuclear weapons, Hussein would not have known this, and had he known it, he would commit geopolitical harakiri, by choosing to go into "nuclear hibernation" and that he would unilaterally and altruistically cease all his plans to develop the same weapons. Such an action on his part, would strategically have placed him in a most vulnerable position, and would have made him a hostage to his primary foe in the region. Furthermore, such conduct would entail, the discarding and abandonment of all his ambitions and grandiose plans to be the new Saladin of the Arab world, which would be completely out of character. This kind of transubstantiation, from a ruthless ambitious dictator to a votary of the Dalai Lama, would be the mother of all miracles.

This logic just does not click. Yet it is by this reasoning that the opponents of the war are “constructing” their case against it. As their core argument was and is, that Hussein was never an imminent threat against the West, and they crown the "correctness" of their contention with the fact that no WMD have been found. But I dare say, that not before long, this crown will be a crown of thorns around their heads, and there will be no intellectual resurrection from the naivety that nailed them on the "believers" cross of the bloodthirsty dictator. That this sleight of hand artist was able to dupe and blindfold them in regards to the clandestine network of laboratories and scientists he had in place that could produce WMD on his orders at the appointed time, will be to their eternal shame.

As for the word 'imminent', that is also a spurious invention of the opponents of the war. Neither Bush nor Blair, nor any other senior member of their administrations, ever said that Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to the free world. What President Bush said, was that Hussein's development and possession of WMD and his links with terrorism, posed a 'grave and gathering danger' against the civilized world. In a world of global terror however, this future gathering danger is not years ahead but too near at hand not to consider it as imminent. Indeed, in a world of unleashed fanatic terror, all the actions that the latter could launch are imminent. The terrorists pose a continuous threat to the world therefore it would be the culmination of foolishness on the part of those who are been targeted, not to take these threats as imminent. Also, the rogue states that directly and indirectly support terrorists are themselves deeply enmeshed in this web of imminence. On a scale of a continuum of threats, what is imminent? What can happen in one day, in one week, in one month, in one year, to paraphrase the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld? It is this hard question, that the critics of the war are avoid answering, as a result of their intellectual flabbiness and lack of moral and political integrity.

Statesmen who face a great portentous danger, as presently posed by an 'emerging nexus between terrorist networks, terrorist states, and weapons of mass destruction', to quote Secretary Rumsfeld, will not await for the elusive perfect intelligence, perfect information, before they take decisive and unrelenting action against a formidable and deadly foe. In the realm of human affairs, uncertainty is the absolute sovereign. It is in this context of uncertainty that political leaders prudently and intrepidly, but not foolhardily, have to make their determining and momentous decisions. In the case of the war against Iraq, the Bush and Blair governments had to decide on the sort of action they would take on the basis of (a) the information they had received from their intelligence agencies, whose assessments were based on the calculus of probability, not on certainty (the latter being unattainable), that Iraq possessed WMD, and had plans in place to develop nuclear weapons, and that Hussein would not be squeamish in using them, either directly against his enemies, as he did in his war against Iran and on his own people, or through proxies, i.e., terrorists; and (b) on Hussein's demonstration of his geopolitical ambitions for the region,  the ruthless means he would use to achieve them, and the links he had with global terror, in a span of thirty years of dictatorial rule.

No wise and responsible political leadership, in such critical conditions, would tarry its crucial decisions, until the interminable debates of the experts, as to whether, in the present case, the aluminium tubes were for uranium enrichment or for rocket construction - and if there were going to be used for rockets, the latter could still carry WMD - had reached majority or unanimous agreement as to their use. Even such an agreement could never be foolproof and could only be tested in the real conditions to which it would be applicable. Moreover as experts in intelligence can make mistakes in their appraisals, so too experts in other fields are not immune from making mistakes.

This is the resounding truth as to why Bush, Blair, and Howard, decided to go to war in Iraq. As the latter is not only pivotal to the future defeat of global terror ( if one is serious in defeating global terror, one has also to fight its state sponsors. It is a war on two fronts. ) But also, in its strategic goal to prevent the "apocalyptic" coupling of terror and rogue states.

The ominous and deadly challenge of fanatic terrorism demands leaders of Gulliverian stature, not Lilliputians. The imposing lesson of history is, that in hard times, such as our own, it is the "hard" men that prevail. Flaccid and indecisive leaders, who wait for the will-o'-the-wisp of perfect intelligence and information, before they commit themselves to decisive action, are cast aside and thrown among the debris of history.

CON GEORGE-KOTZABASIS ( FORMER DIRECTOR OF SBS TELEVISION 1986-1996 )

The article was written on
30 OCTOBER 2003

MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

Australia Must Protect Itself From Home-Grown Terror

2006-08-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

                         AUSTRALIA MUST PROTECT ITSELF
                    FROM HOME-GROWN TERROR

                                                 Con George-Kotzabasis

The anti-terror laws proposed by the Howard government, have brought in their wake the civil libertarians' nightmares - that these laws will destroy civil liberties, freedom of speech and assembly, and eventually and irreparably erode the values of our democratic state. The nightmarish shadow of ASIO and its spooks will forebodingly spread and pervade all parts of our society, and no institution or person will be safe from the horrid intrusions of its ghostly agents. Hence, according to the libertarians' 'apparitional' thinking, the offspring of these laws will be a police state.

But how real are these ugly images -read as concerns of the civil libertarians -beyond the tarot cards of their predictions, and what is the probability that they could change the democratic fabric of our society so drastically resulting in people losing their civil liberties? It's in the adversarial response of the critics to these proposed anti-terror laws, that the answer to the above question lies.

The point d'appui upon which the critics of these laws rest their case is fear. But a one-sided fear - the fear that these laws will deprive us of our freedoms - that totally disregards the other greater fear posed by the terrorists, which will deprive us of our lives. Thus, the libertarians' protection of freedom is the protection of the freedom of the dead.

Let us however be more gentle with their claims, and attempt to examine them historically and rationally as they stand. They claim that the anti-terror laws will be implemented in an unfettered and shadowy way - without oversight or legal scrutiny by parliament or any other relevant authority - by ASIO and other security agencies against suspect terrorists and without the latter having recourse to the normal judicial processes that are part and parcel of a just state. They also claim, that these laws "can be used to deal with a range of issues beyond terrorism" and hence open the backdoor to a police state. Furthermore, they are unprecedented in their sweep, such as "preventative detention of suspects"... stripping them of their citizenship and deporting them, "legal powers akin to wartime than peacetime". John North, the President of the Law Council says that "these laws may bring us in danger of capitulating to terrorists, because they would have achieved their objective".  Maybe we should capitulate to weakness and not pass these laws and hence get bombed, which is the ultimate objective of the terrorists. This seems to be less of a danger to Mr. North. And they assert that there is no certainty that these laws will be effective in preventing a terrorist attack in Australia.
(The quotes above are from Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 17 September 2005.)

This is no more than an ardent attempt by the civil libertarians to demolish the rationale and effectiveness of these laws by employing, as above, subterfuge, legal and philosophical abstractions and scarecrows to make their case. They are unwilling to use concrete historical evidence to make their argument (maybe because such evidence would have been detrimental to their claims) or reason, since the premise of their position is founded on the emotion of fear.

            IN TIMES OF WAR LAWS MUST CHANGE

All democratic nations in times of war in the past had to pass legislation that enforced censorship and the detention of suspects propagating and promoting seditious action. And the laws issuing from such legislation had to be applied rigorously against any suspects who could organise themselves into a fifth column within a country at war. But the historically conclusive evidence is that in democratic societies as soon as the war ended, these laws ceased to apply and once again society returned to its former normal state. Undoubtedly, during the application of these laws, mistakes and indeed, abuses were made and some individuals apprehended or incarcerated were entirely innocent. But the scale of the operation and application of these injunctions were so great that it would have been impossible to execute them without making in some cases mistakes and errors of judgment. No human action on any gigantic scale, as for example in war, can ever be error-free. To expect that one could achieve one's goals on such a wide range without human fallibility playing an acting role, both in the mental and moral spheres, is to expect a play about the Fall of Man without any human actors, but only angelic ones, in it.

The human condition is a state of irremediable imperfection. But despite this grim fact, the evolution of human nature has not stopped at its amoebic stage. In the irreversible Darwinian process of the survival of the fittest, the human species had to continuously develop new and more perfect means for its survival. Although these means were far from perfect in a divine sense, they were good enough for its earthly existence. The anti-terrorist laws are in this category of 'good enough'.

Australia, being at war, has no other option but to take these less than perfect hard measures that have a high probability of protecting its citizens from a home-grown terrorist attack. However, the premise upon which any wise legislation or enactment of laws rest, is that these laws must be commensurate to the threat (s) that emanates from illegal action. For example, if there is a spate of housebreaking, parliament has to legislate the appropriate, but not too-harsh laws that could deter this criminal activity from occurring - by jailing the culprits for a short time. If on the other hand, like New York few years ago, when a spate of robberies and murders were occurring which posed a greater threat to the residents of a city than housebreaking, the government would have to pass harsher laws, if it seriously wanted to prevent these 'deadly muggings' from happening, such as those with the 'zero tolerance' passed by the former mayor of New York, Guiliani. Furthermore, because of haphazardness and uncertainty, which is the shadow of all human action, one can never be sure that any laws passed will be completely effective in deterring people from engaging in illegal activities. Nonetheless, despite this ineradicable element of chance that is implanted in all laws, no government can eschew or excuse itself from the responsibility of taking the appropriate punitive measures that have a high probability of being successful against criminal conduct. (A clear example of this were the zero tolerance laws that were enforced in New York. At the time there was a volcanic eruption of protests from civil libertarians that these laws were inhumane, unjust, and ignoble, and that they would be totally ineffective as a deterrent to crime. Their success however, in substantially diminishing crime within a short time, proved its critics to be totally wrong.)

This indeterminacy and unpredictability of all human laws, unlike the physical laws of gravity, in regards to their success against lawbreakers, is moreover augmented, to the highest degree when a government has to legislate laws against a 'consortium' of religious fanatics whose mode of operation has the speed and randomness of quicksilver and whose goal is the destruction of civilised society by the barbaric and ruthless use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear ones, against it. The legislators of these laws that could forestall such lethal terrorist attacks must be aware that all such attacks in the eyes of these fanatics are 'pushed' by the breath of Allah. Hence, the most impossible action(s) fantastically imagined, in the context of such apocalyptic fanaticism, becomes an alarming reality. Muslim fanatic terrorism, has no rational concrete political or social goals, despite its propagandistic pronouncements to the contrary, which are merely a fig-leaf of their real intentions, but only the eschatological goal of destroying decadent Western civilisation. In such circumstances, laws that could be effective against criminal activity would be totally ineffective against zealots who are guided solely by the laws of God.  Hence, one of the most fundamental elements of law, the deterring factor, is completely useless against these fanatics. And this is the reason why the government has to legislate a new generation of laws that would have a chance to be effective against god's outlaws.

In the passing of such legislation however, one has to make a distinction between hardcore terrorists and would-be terrorists. The latter have not reached the point of no return of the fanatics. And either because of fear of what would happen to themselves or to their families, they could be constrained by laws, from entering the gates of hell of active terrorism. This is why the anti-terror laws must be composed of both a 'safe-haven' and a 'purgatory': a safe-haven for those Muslim fundamentalists that can be promptly rehabilitated, and a purgatory for those inveterate and pathological fanatics, whose 'rehabilitation' can only be accomplished, if ever, inside the gates of Infinite Paradise.

To the raw suspect recruits of would-be terrorists, the applied laws must have provisions that they are not going to be treated too harshly, thus leaving them an opening, a safe-haven, to rescue themselves from the relentless squeeze of the vice of the law that would apply to the hardcore fanatics, either as suspects of being active terrorists or as suspects who propagate and incite terrorism - as some of the fundamentalist imams and teachers in Islamic schools do among their followers. To these imams and mentors who actively or by intent engage in seditious activities and the incitement of a holy war against ourselves and our allies, who are also waging war on global terror, the purgatory of deportation, detention, and imprisonment should remorselessly apply. This is where the deterring factor of the law lies against these votaries of fanaticism -in the concrete rigorous harsh application of the laws against them and not in their abstract state as a threat.

This clear distinction of how to deal with the hardcore fanatics in contrast to their greenhorn recruits, has the great potential to sever the association of the latter from the former, and hence 'dry' the pool from which the fundamentalist mentors of a holy war against the West get their recruits.  And by 'deporting' and 'clinking' their perfidious activities the government will effectively disable them from continuing to be the incubators of terror in this country.

The government must not be constrained by any 'legal-niceties' or illusions in the enactment of the anti-terror laws. The latter must correspond to the great threat that external and home-grown terrorism pose to the country. And the curtain has fallen on all discussions, deliberations, and debates about the causes and ideological roots of terrorism. When someone is ready to stab you to death, you don't restrain his action by parleying with him about the causes that made him an assassin. This is the time for action. The government must take no heed of the animadversions and subterfuges of the civil libertarians. All their assertions are no more than a marivaudage, a sophisticated banter, about this grave and deadly serious issue. In its enactment of these anti-terror laws, it must be solely governed by its historical duty to ordain this imperative legislation to protect Australia.

Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS (Former Director Of SBS TELEVISION 1986-96 )

SEPTEMBER 23 2005

MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

E-mail: kotzabasis@bigpond.com or dinosaur3@bigpond.com

US UNILATERALISM ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO MULTILATERAL WEAKNESS

2006-07-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

   US UNILATERALISM ONLY ALTERNATIVE
TO MULTILATERAL WEAKNESS

                                                                    Con George-Kotzabasis

A virus is threatening to enter and contaminate the bloodstream of a large part of the Australian people, the virus of moral desertion.  Desertion of major and important allies in their hour of need, and desertion of Australia’s long-term interests, as these allies could be crucial, as they have been in the past, for the nation’s survival and its future, in a world where nations cannot easily identify their future enemies in advance.

The fountain of this virus are Messrs. Hayden, Fraser, Whitlam and Hawke, who cravenly, unwisely and un-historically, have taken their “one-night-stand”  (of such length will be its intellectual duration), against the possibility of US unilateral action on Iraq, whose development of weapons of mass destruction is obvious to all savvy observers, and whose harboring and supporting of terrorists is just as evident.

The missing star in this constellation of darkness is Paul Keating, who apparently is hedging his bets on the issue, and who with his status as major domo (Placido Domingo?), will not enter the scene until the bit players are “finished off” the stage.  Ostensibly, only after that denouement will he reveal his “unilateral” position to his admirers and “encoreists”.  And let us wish and hope, that when he enters the act, his stand will be of an intellectually and historically longer duration, than that of the fountainheads, especially of Mr. Whitlam, who prides himself to be a student of Herodotus (the father of history), but who pitifully desecrates the teaching of the great historian indeed.  But when Paul Keating does give his strutting performance, don't count on there being more eggs in the basket than "chickens" in the hatchery, on this issue of US unilateralism.

Also presently, there is a congregation of Christian religious prelates rushing towards this fountain, to water, in the heat of their emotional stand against the possibility of an erupting war in Iraq, their intellectually dry palates, threatening a revolt against a possible war tax and civil disobedience, whilst Muslim fundamentalists are slaughtering Christians all over the world, and threatening to kill millions in the future. According to Richard Reid’s evidence,(the captured British Muslim of Arab extraction, the shoe-bomber), presented before the court, after the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the second and third plan of the al Qaeda terrorists was to attack the US with biological and nuclear weapons.  Could the latter be accomplished without state sponsored terrorism?  That is the question!

¨¨¨

            USA BULWARK OF DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM

For more than six decades, the US has been the bulwark of democracy and freedom, and the successful defender against the onslaught of Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism, as well as against Japanese imperialism, which threatened to reverse the world order back to the dark ages. This was especially so of the communist threat, whose ideology not only pervaded and beguiled many nations and peoples of the poor world, but also, many nations and their intellectual luminaries of the affluent West. These luminaries, in many cases, served as teachers to many post-colonial communist rulers, such as Ho Chi Ming, Pol Pot and Chou En Lai in Asia, and Idi Amin, Lumumba and Mugabe in Africa, not to mention others.

Inevitably, during this period, when the world was threatened to become a laboratory of experiments of communist ideology, a “killing fields” of universal dimensions, the US was compelled to make alliances with unsavory and undemocratic regimes in many parts of the world, to defend itself and the free world from the communist plague. In this confrontation of the US with its mortal enemy, the Soviet Union, the former had no choice as to the moral and political regime status of these allies.

In normal circumstances a nation, espousing the values of freedom and democracy, would not generally ally itself with dictatorial and authoritarian regimes.  In circumstances of crisis however, facing a mortal foe, such a nation is deprived of the luxury of choosing regimes, which share its own values and institutions, as allies. No wonder then, that the Taliban in Afghanistan during its war against the Soviets, was helped and supported by the US, as well as Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, which the Americans considered had moved closer to the Soviets, and hence threatened to alter dangerously the balance of power after the overthrow of the Shah by the fundamentalist leader Khomeini.  Not to mention other right wing regimes in Africa and Latin America, which were supported by the US, in their fight against left wing rebels, who were in turn aided by the Soviets, whose goal was to establish socialist regimes in their countries.

To students of world history, such alliances forged by the US, should be neither a puzzle nor a reason for condemning the latter.  Nor should the US be denounced for the many errors and immoral actions it committed, during its defense of the West from the communist menace.

Infallibility is not a characteristic of humans, nor is angelic morality in crisis conditions. A superpower, burdened with the defense of its own interests and in the exercise of its heavy responsibilities on a global scale, will inevitably commit errors and violate morals in its clash of survival with a mortal enemy.  But a benign superpower, imbued with civilized values, such as the US, will not perpetrate these violations willingly and with deliberation. In the realm of war, although Adrastea, Necessity, is the absolute sovereign and dictates the actions of all combatants, a civilized nation will do its utmost to desist from committing atrocities.  In relation to its adversaries, the US never reached by a long distance the atrocities committed by its enemies.  And one has to be reminded, that it was America, with all its faults, which saved the world from both nazi and communist totalitarianism.  For this historic event alone, mankind should be grateful and thankful to the United States.  (Australia itself was saved from Japanese occupation as a result of US military power). Only inveterate, pathological ingrates, would refuse to give America its due.

      PRIME MINISTER’S FLAWED LOGIC

Bob Hawke’s argument that Australia would become a target of terrorists if it supported the US unilateral action on Iraq is remarkable for its incoherence and flawed logic. If indeed, permanent and non-permanent members of the Security Council of the UN, heeded and acted on Mr. Hawke’s advice, they would be foolish to authorize US military action against Iraq, if such authorization at the same time, would have made these nations targets of terrorism.  His argument therefore that the US should have the imprimatur of the Security Council before it attacked Iraq, is according to his logic, a non sequitur, it would never materialize. Why should any of these nations give the US such authorization, if it is going to provoke the fury of terrorists to fall upon their own lands?

Moreover, if the implications of Mr. Hawke’s contention are, that the issuing of such a mandate by the Security Council, for some mysterious reason, would be respected by the terrorists and would restrain them from attacking nations which supported the US war after the issuing of such a mandate, then Mr. Hawke lives in-cloud-cuckoo-land.

It is almost impossible to believe, that after his forced retirement as PM, triggered by his former colleague and “enforcer”, Paul Keating, that Mr. Hawke has been afflicted by such maladies of illusion. What is more puzzling however, is why Mr. Hawke did not adopt the same position during his tenure as Prime Minister in the Gulf War, when he supported unquestionably and vigorously the senior Bush?  Wouldn’t Australia have been such a target of the terrorists at the time, as a result of Mr. Hawke’s action?  Mr. Hawke is locked in a golden cage of illusions, if he really believes that Australia will be immune from terrorist attacks if only it would not support US unilateral military action against Iraq. (The Bali terrorist attack must have been a sobering snowball hit on Mr. Hawke’s head.  The terrorists must have known that most Australians were against a war on Iraq. Despite this knowledge, they did not desist from attacking Australians).  Australia cannot afford to take the illusions of Mr. Hawke as wisdom coming from the mount, especially in the context of the Bali massacre. In a global context, the future holocaust fundamentalist Islam has in store for Western civilization, will be far worse than the Nazi holocaust.
There is nothing unusual or new about unilateral action in crisis conditions, either for nations or individuals, when one's life is at stake.  And it is not unusual when someone’s life is under threat, that many of his “friends” will abandon him, especially when any help rendered by them to him will involve them in some risk.  Only very few, the stalwartly loyal and the morally strong, will stand by him. And more often than not he might have to stand alone and fight for his survival.  And this is the other broken leg of Mr. Hawke’s logic. Would he suggest to someone whose life is under immediate threat, not to take any defensive action against his identified foe until he is able to secure the permission of his would-be supporters?  If Mr. Hawke mulishly persisted in giving such advice to such a person or nation, he could only do so at the expense of his intelligence and moral fortitude.  But no strong person or nation would heed such advice of weakness.

           THE IRREVOCABLE RIGHT TO DEFEND ONE’S COUNTRY

A nation under attack, as the US is at the moment by terrorists, once its intelligent organizations have the evidence in hand, (Can anyone doubt the efficiency of its intelligent services after the Bali bombing?) that a particular group, nation or group of nations sponsors and aids terrorists, has every right to defend itself by all means, including pre-emptive action, once it warns these nations of the dire consequences that would fall upon them, if they continued to support these terrorists.

And the Bush administration has done so repeatedly. It has warned these nations to dismantle all terrorist organizations and its financial backers immediately, and cease supporting terrorist activities. In addition, if these nations do not heed these grave warnings of the US, they would become targets of its military power.  It is in this context that a US unilateral attack against its mortal enemies is fully justified.  It is the only strategic alternative that a nation has for its survival. This is especially so, when a nation has to fight against invisible foes, such as terrorists, who strike without any warning and at random.  The core question is, does a nation have any other alternative of preventing morally bereft terrorists, anointed by religious fanaticism, who are sure that they are guided by the hand of Allah, from attacking it by weapons of mass destruction?  It is imperative that this question is answered not with pietist wishes, but by resolute and relentless action.  Only the timorous and cravenly will lay prostrate before the apocalyptic mushroom cloud, that the terrorists are preparing to envelope Western civilization.

¨¨¨

The times are not for irresolute, fickle and pusillanimous political leadership.  Complacent and Hamletinesque Clinton is no longer the occupier of the Oval Office. The former president, despite having knowledge that Iraqi intelligence was involved in the terrorist actions of the nineties, did not have the strength of character to confront this source of terrorism by military action, fearful that the casualties the US would sustain in a war with Iraq would shatter the complacency of his Administration and of the country, and that America would never feel “a touch of evil” (to quote the Orson Welles’ film). Instead he made the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 wherein there was ample evidence that Iraqi intelligence was involved, a law enforcement issue and not a war issue, as it should have been.  What will haunt the rest of his life will not be the scandals, the perjury, and his impeachment before Congress, but the collapse of the World Trade Center, as a result of his past inaction, or rather as a result of his cravenly refusal to deal and tackle with force, one of the main sources of terrorism, i.e. Iraq.  And quite possibly, had he done so, this would have prevented the slaughter of September 11.

In contrast, the Bush Administration is resolute and determined to correct the lassitude and paralysis that emanated from the irresolute leadership of his predecessor, accepting this challenge of evil and responding to it with force.  Furthermore, the President is timely wise not to be trapped by the politics played in the UN, especially of its Security Council, and await for the United  Nations’ “Mandate of Heaven”, before the US acts with force against its mortal enemy and its terrorist allies.

The United Nations have been for many years a “Tower of Babel” - a welter of discord of conflicting interests and power plays between its member nations.  Within such a situation it is difficult, and at times impossible, to receive majority support for a nation’s actions, particularly if such actions involve war and are to be taken by a superpower, such as the US.  In this instance, two of the members of the Security Council, France and Russia have conflicting interests with the US, both of an economic and political nature, in the latter sphere as pretenders of global power. Hence, their opposition to the impending war against Iraq.

It is quite probable, of course, that ultimately the US will receive the backing of France and Russia for military action against Iraq, if the latter once again breaches the new resolutions of the UN.  But the US should also have the indivisible and sovereign right to defend its citizens and its soil immediately, from enemy attack.  And this is provided by article 51 of the UN Charter.  Hence the US as a last resort, if it cannot procure the support of the Security Council for its use of force against Iraq, must act alone and unilaterally, without any pangs of conscience, against Saddam Hussein.

¨¨¨

Some people claim that the US war against Iraq is about control of the oil.  Undoubtedly, oil is a strategic resource vital for the industrialized world and for the healthy state of its economy.  But why was this important resource not an item in the agenda of the US in 1991 with the decisive defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War, when the Americans could obtain substantial control of the oil in Iraq, and became an issue only in 2001, after September 11?

Such a claim is totally nonsensical. Oil for the US is only a secondary issue.  The primary issue is the deadly threat that Iraq poses against the US with its development of weapons of mass destruction, and the delivery of these weapons, either deliberately, or inadvertently and stupidly, in the hands of terrorists.  The claim therefore, that an attack on Iraq is about the control of oil, has all the seriousness of saying that a person whose life is under immediate danger, is more concerned that his salad is oiled, than that of securing his own safety.

However, oil is important for America’s two allies, France and Russia, as both have substantial holding interests of this strategic resource in Iraq. That is why the concerted prevarication of these two major members of the Security Council, as to whether the latter should provide the inspectors of the UN a stronger resolution that would give them unfettered access to sites in Iraq, is so salient.  Not to mention other possible mortal weaknesses prevailing in the power plays and procrastinations of France and Russia, such as envy of America as a superpower, and a modicum of schadenfreude in the suffering of the US in the aftermath of September 11, in seeing some wings clipped off from the American eagle. Hence the status quo in regards to Iraq, is not uncongenial to France and Russia especially when, blinded by their short-term interests, they cannot see that eventually their own countries will not remain immune from the massive and deadly attacks of Islamic terrorism.

¨¨¨

It is for all these reasons, that if the US will not finally get the support of the Security Council, because the latter is sunk in a quagmire of multilateral weakness, ultimately it must act unilaterally and pre-emptively against Iraq, and with those allies who have the historical insight and moral courage to stand by it. And the war against Iraq will be a walkover for the US and its allies. Despite the blustering of Saddam’s propaganda machine, Iraqis will not fight to save him.

In these critical times, when Western civilization is threatened to be swamped with a tidal wave of fanatic barbarism, Australia does not need the prescriptions of political quacks, or the vaticinations of false prophets. What it needs is wise and resolute Churchillian leadership, leading from the front, against the great threat posed by the terrorists and their state sponsors, not the myopic and weak leadership of the four fountainheads and of the Church Fathers, who, stung by the populist bee and being in a state of frenzy, are leading from behind.

CON GEORGE - KOTZABASIS

(Former Director of SBS TV, 1986- 1996)

OCTOBER 14 2002   MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

                             E-mail   kotzabasis@bigpond.com

HOW TO DEFEAT THE INSURGENCY BY ITS OWN LETHAL WEAPON

2006-07-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

HOW TO DEFEAT THE INSURGENCY

BY ITS OWN LETHAL WEAPON

                                                     Con George-Kotzabasis

                                                      July 27, 2006

To expedite the defeat of the insurgents in Iraq, the following proposal might make a practical contribution toward this major event.

My proposal is simple but a most effective method in identifying car bombs in time so civilians in urban areas will not be killed, as well as lead to the defeat of the insurgency in the mid-run.

The Iraqi government should immediately pass a law directing drivers, that when they park their vehicles either the driver of the vehicle or at least one other person must be sitting in the front seat of the parked car. No standing or parked vehicle will be unoccupied. A vehicle that was abandoned by its driver and occupants would immediately be seen by nearby commuters and would instantly trigger their quick distancing from it, as they will consider it to be more likely than not a car bomb. Hence, when the terrorists exploded it by remote control or otherwise no civilian or military casualties would occur. Moreover, those abandoning the vehicle could be arrested on the spot, either by security forces, if they were in the vicinity, or even by the commuters, or be killed by the former if they were likely to be terrorists. Hence, a vehicle that was being abandoned by its occupants would instantly have the mark of death writ large on it and would immediately be seen by the vigilant eyes of “commuter watch”. The great advantage of such law would be that it can even be executed by ordinary citizens, and hence turn the latter into virtual “vigilantes”. Thus an important serendipitous side effect of such law will be to actively mobilize the whole nation of Iraq against the insurgents.

The insurgents, certainly, would try to overcome this by having as decoy a kidnapped passenger tied in the front seat of the vehicle. But this possibility could be thwarted by prescribing in the law that the passenger side-window of vehicles when they are parked should be pulled down, so when a passenger is a kidnapped one, he would be able to make known this to “by-walkers” close to the vehicle, as soon as the terrorist driver had left the car.

Of course, this method would not be effective against the suicide bomber who would be willing to lose his life by not abandoning the vehicle.  Notwithstanding this however, the immediate result would be to diminish the number of car bombs by excluding the unoccupied vehicles of which many of them up to this point have been car bombs. And in the mid-term, the increased number of suicide bombers losing their lives by sitting in their cars, will deplete the ranks of the hardcore fanatics.

Thus, by this practical method, the Iraqi government will substantially decrease the number of casualties among civilians and army personnel that the insurgents continue to inflict by car bombs, as well as not before long dry the pool from which the insurgents are getting their suicide bombers. And hence by turning soon their most lethal weapon useless will irrevocably defeat the insurgency.

FIGHT RIGHT WAR OR LOSE THE RIGHT TO EXIST

2006-07-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

                FIGHT RIGHT WAR OR LOSE THE    RIGHT TO EXIST.


In the present decisive confrontation between the civilized countries of the world and fundamentalist Muslim inspired terror and its state sponsors, such as the regime of Saddam Hussein, one re-hears the cry of wilderness of No To War shouted by the peace-loving devotees of the globe, who hold pride of place in their wishful thinking, that in all human conflicts, good will and sober reason are the only effective means in resolving them. To uphold such a position however, after the "Fall of Adam", is to uphold that irenic instincts are the predominant instincts of man. Such a stand revises all known human history and re-writes Darwin's Origin of the Species, by appending to the latter, that conflict is not an immanent characteristic of all species but an aberration. Hence the upholders of this slogan of wilderness can only sustain their stand by re-inventing human nature, or by adopting the tale of Genesis that man, unlike other species, was created in the image of God and not in the image of the "monkey". Thus enlightenment, Clarence Darrow ( in the famous 'Monkey Trial' in the U.S.A. ), is replaced by obscurantism, William Jennings Bryan, by the believers of peace in all circumstances. And ironically, the avant-garde of the progressive movement, as most of the war protestors would proudly claim to be, replace Marx with Habakkuk.

In the stupor of their religious 'oceanic feeling' of the basic goodness of man, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Nietzsche are thrown into the bonfire of their ignorance. Power, ambition, envy, avarice, and passion, have no place in their thinking. Homer, Shakespeare, and Goethe, who premised their great writings on these inherent characteristics of man, are turned into spiritual and intellectual reactionaries.

All these global demonstrations against war, are happening at a time when Muslim fundamentalists, and their suicidal death-squads, have declared a relentless holy war against Western civilization and its so called dens of vice. To raze and exterminate Western culture and its people is the number one item in the "holy agenda" of Muslim terrorism and its state sponsors.

There is no precedent in history that a powerful civilization, such as our own, responded with such imprudence and cowardice by not fighting a mortal enemy who threatened its survival. No nation or civilization with any pride in its achievements would lay prostrate before such a threat. Only nations and civilizations blighted with necrophilia would choose such a course. Fortunately, however, this necrophilia is not widespread among the civilized nations of the world, and blights only the war protestors, who would let their own people to be killed in their hundreds of thousands, under the ruins these terrorists will bring to the cities of the world, once they are in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Thus the real slogan of the war protestors is not 'No to War', but 'Die By Not Fighting'.  This is the doomed message that the agit-peaceniks have for the non- activist majority of the peoples of the world who are threatened by this terrorist holocaust.

                         WORSE THAN APPEASEMENT

War is the bane of the human condition. But there are justified and unjustified wars. Mankind must always strive to achieve peace in the interrelationship of nations by non-belligerent means, whenever this is possible. But paradoxically, often peace can only be achieved by war. War therefore, in some circumstances is absolutely necessary, as a surgeon's knife is that saves a human organism in crisis, and serves as the only effective means of saving a nation from extinction. In our era, where the exponential development of science and technology has been partly transformed into weapons of mass destruction, and when the latter, in the present milieu, can easily fall into the hands of Muslim terrorists, who would have no hesitation to use them against the infidels of the West,  delivered to them by rogue states, unilateral or pre-emptive war, by those nations whose survival is at stake, is the definitive means of survival. And this is why America's war against Iraq is an absolute necessity. It would be the greatest folly, much worse than appeasement, for governments, like the French and German, to be lured into indecision and inaction by the peaceful refrain of the war protestors, by their swan song.

Saddam Hussein poses an enormous threat to the peoples of the world. But to expect that the U.N. inspectors will discover the weapons of mass destruction that will make this threat a reality in the eyes of the sceptics without the pro-active co-operation of the Iraqi regime, is naive in the extreme.    Even if, by some fortuitous chance the inspectors came close in discovering them, Saddam at that point, would fabricate some excuse, such as spying etc., to block and obstruct them from uncovering them. It is therefore foolish to expect that the inspectors, no matter how much extra time they are given, will ever find a 'smoking gun', against the will of Saddam. The fumes of that poisonous gun are already there to be seen by all people whose eyes are not blurred by the smoke-screen of deceptions his regime is churning out, that it does not have weapons of mass destruction.

For acute observers, in contrast to obtuse ones who would only be satisfied with legalistic forensic evidence from the "scene of crime", it is in Saddam's historic record, in his atrocities to his own people, in his use of chemical weapons against the Iranians and Kurds, in his close connections with terrorists in the past and present - the involvement of Iraqi intelligence in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 is well known - in his fabrications and lies, since his bloodstained rise to power, all of which are beyond dispute, that the evidence is so glaring, that his expansive power was and is based on the possession of these weapons of mass destruction and the fear these produce upon his neighbors, and indeed, upon America itself, as a result of his linkage with terrorists. And in the present circumstances, when he is facing an imminent attack by the U.S. and its allies, this evidence becomes even more pointed. Whilst his ventriloquist spokesmen vehemently deny the possession and existence of these weapons, the ventriloquist himself, Saddam, is giving orders to his generals to use these non-existing weapons against the invading Americans.
As well as issuing orders to his Security apparatus, to kill all Iraqi scientists and their families, if the former show any signs of spilling the beans on Saddam's weapon's of mass destruction. ( Why should he threaten to kill them if they have nothing to reveal? )

                 THE WET LABOR OPPOSITION

It is for the above reasons that the calls of Simon Crean, and Kevin Rudd, his Foreign Affairs spokesman, that the U.N. inspectors should be given more time to discover these weapons, before Australia participates in a war against Iraq  under U.N. auspices, are intellectually flabby and politically naive. Such gargantuan political dilettantism on their part is as close to the reality of the situation in Iraq, as metaphysics is close to real life.

Once again, on the crucial issues of the nation, as on the legislation against terrorism, the Labor opposition is responding with characteristic mediocrity and with the mantra of populism. Politics however, is about leadership, not about putting one's wet finger up in the air and feeling which way the "mass wind" is blowing. ( Wet politicians like Mr. Crean and Mr. Rudd, are in the wrong profession. Demonstrating as models, the strength of diapers should have been their vocation.) It is leading from the front, not leading from behind, by having the majority of people "behind" one before one makes a crucial decision, especially when one's nation is under a great threat.

The majority of people do not have the vital information that is provided to governments by their intelligence agencies by which the former make their grave decisions in the Affairs of Nations. Hence, they are incapable of making an informed judgment, in the present case, as to whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or whether or not it has links with terrorism, as a result of lacking this information. Their judgment therefore about war is premised on their emotional attitude about war and peace. And it is more likely than not to choose peace, as an outcome of their reasonable fear about the consequences of war, even when war is an absolute necessity to prevent a greater catastrophe.

The Opposition's opportunistic jump on the bandwagon of the populist anti-war movement, and the locking of its position, in regards to the impending war in Iraq, with this key of populism, is therefore totally irresponsible. In the aftermath of the Bali massacre, the real danger is that Australia itself could be attacked
by these fanatic terrorists. Labor is completely inutile to face and confront effectively this great danger. "Flirting" with an inadequately informed electorate, in regards to a war with Iraq, it hopes it will be placed in the matrimonial bed of power at the next Federal election, by "ravishing its innocence". Hence, on the altar of winning the election Labor is prepared to sacrifice the security and the vital interests of the country.

One cannot decisively defeat global terrorism if one de-links the latter from its state sponsors. The Opposition's inability to make this linkage between terrorists and rogue states, and its lack of historical insight to go to war against the latter, proves it to be completely incompetent to lead the country in these critical times. A nation that does not have the will and mettle to fight a right war loses the right to exist. And a political party, such as Labor, that is morally and intellectually wimpish and lacks the will and vigor to take the lead in such a war, loses its right to govern.

CON GEORGE-KOTZABASIS ( FORMER DIRECTOR OF SBS TELEVISION 1986-1996 )

JANUARY 27 2003  MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

REALIST FOREIGN POLICY: US ISOLATIONISM CURE AGAINST TERROR

2006-06-30T02:53:00.000-07:00

REALIST FOREIGN POLICY: US ISOLATIONISM CURE AGAINST TERROR

          Con George-Kotzabasis—June 29,2006

Chuck Pena, a realist in foreign policy argues, in his piece in the Washington Note, June 16, 06, as a result of the “debacle” of the US invasion of Iraq, ‘that US interventionism is a root cause of anti-American resentment in the Muslim world-which breeds hatred and becomes a stepping stone to violence, including terrorism.’ He suggests, therefore, that the US ‘stop meddling in the internal affairs of countries…except when they directly threaten US national security interests’, lessen its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and cease supporting authoritarian regimes, such as the Saudi Arabian and that of Egypt. He strongly believes, that such a new course in America’s foreign policy can  ‘cure the disease’ of terror. Hence, the withdrawal of the US from the hotspots of the world, such as the Middle East, is the prudent course to take and avoid, according to him, the disastrous intervention in Iraq from happening again.

This is no less than a new version of the US isolationism of the past. And this is isolationism with a vengeance. As such a policy will be taken by the only superpower in the world. And historically will be unprecedented. As no great, powerful nation in the past withdrew from the turbulent spots in the world, for the purpose of avoiding the resentment of those nations that were the fomenters of this turbulence, especially when the latter threatened the order upon which its power rested. Such a policy is completely unrealistic, especially when it’s recommended to be adopted by the sole superpower, which is the major force that keeps the world’s order, and deals a severe blow to the realist credentials of Chuck Pena.

But it’s obvious that pessimism is the paternity of this new version of isolationism. In the face of US casualties and reverses in Iraq, in the aftermath of its victory against the Saddam regime, some foreign policy realists have lost their grip on history as well as their strength to stand firm against these reverses. In all human enterprises mistakes and reverses are part of the process, and this is especially so in war. To believe that one can engage in warfare without committing errors and without the risk of suffering reverses is the belief of armchair strategists who presumably can plan their wars with the precision of Laplace’s demon leaving nothing to chance. Alas, such absolute knowledge that can foresee every reaction of an enemy to one’s action and hence plan victory against an enemy with algorithmic precision, has not been bequeathed by providence to man. But despite this weakness of man, some people have been endowed by nature to be strong in the face of all errors and reverses and to have the ability to turn them around. This is the endowment of great commanders, and this is the difficult task they have in the Iraqi war today. To cut and run, as a result of these tactical reverses that the Americans are going through, would be the greatest error that would surpass all other errors, as well as being a stupendous strategic reversal, of the US war against global terror.

Wars cannot be waged nor can they be won with pessimists a la Chuck Pena. It’s the vocation of optimists to win wars. And there are auspicious signs--beyond the dramatic selectivity of most of the media to pick the most gruesome events in Iraq, i.e., the daily terrorist killings of civilians and the frequent killings of US troops which are the two aspects of the war that have maximum impact upon the public--that with the formation of a government of national unity, the strengthening of its security forces, the amnesty announced by Prime Minister al Maliki, and the elimination of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi, that the insurgents will become  not only more isolated  from, but also more hated than feared by, the Iraqi people. This will lead to the demoralization of the insurgents and the loss of their élan to continue fighting.

Moreover, and this is the most important feature of the insurgency, the fact that the main target of the insurgents are not their counter-combatants but civilians, exposes their military weakness, their increasing inability to kill, the by now, better trained Iraqi security forces, in armed combat. And the narrowing of the sieve, through which car bombs can penetrate into populated areas, will further disable the insurgents to continue to commit their atrocious attacks against civilians.

In the chronicle of insurgencies, no insurgency that was unable to fight its enemy in battle and resorted only in targeting and killing civilians was successful in destabilizing and eventually overthrowing the established regime. This fighting inability of the Iraqi insurgency is accentuated further, by having to confront the prowess of the occupying forces. And although it can inflict more than moderate casualties upon the occupying power and upon Iraqi security forces by the stealthily moving car bombs and laying road bombs, it cannot win the war by stealth. Furthermore, its increasing isolation from the people will deprive it of any logistical support that is getting from the latter, as well as the cover behind which it can hide. Hence, the insurgents will become cherry picking targets of the American-led forces.

In such militarily disadvantageous milieu the insurgents cannot survive for long. It’s this optimistic scenario that is unfolding from ‘the fog of war’ in Iraq, that the pessimists, like Chuck Pena, are unable to see. The Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq, and more generally for the region, has a high probability of being successful. And its success will destroy all the unrealistic propositions of the pessimistic realists, that America, the sole superpower, should withdraw from the hotspots of the world and insert itself into a cocoon of neo-isolationism.

NEW YORK TIMES PUBLICATION OF TERRORIST FINANCE TRACKING

2006-06-27T02:16:00.000-07:00

THE BETRAYAL OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times’ (NYT) decision to publish the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, whose goal is to identify terrorist networks through the use of financial data, is totally irresponsible and will seriously harm the war against global terror.

By this action, the NYT has converted its centuries old logo from, “All The News That Are Fit To Print”, to All The News That Are Fit To Betray America.

WILL THE SLEEPING WEST FALLINTO THE TERRORIST INFERNO?

2006-06-20T00:10:00.000-07:00

WILL THE SLEEPING WEST FALL

INTO THE TERRORIST INFERNO?

The resplendent holy crescent of Islam that has been transformed by Muslim fundamentalism into an unholy black sharp scimitar is hovering over the cities of the West ready to fall and 'behead' Western civilization. Yet despite this ominous great danger, a substantial part of its population is slumbering in deep depths of insouciance and complacency, and is zestfully indulging in its economic prosperity, comforts and pleasures that emanate from freedom and the ethos of amity, cooperation, and coexistence, without realising how brittle and short-lived these have become under this scimitar wielded by the terrorist fanatics. The nannies that rock the cradle that is putting the people to sleep, is an assortment of epigonistic political leaders in Western countries, such as the socialist triumvirate of Chirac, Schroeder, and Zapatero, and a miscellany of unimaginative and intellectually malevolent, and therefore misplaced, commentators and feuilletons, such as Kerry O'Brien, Paul McGeough, and Robert Fisk - all three morally weak and with an axe to grind - who so unworthily dominate the commentary in the media. It's this coupling of an inferior breed, that has produced the offspring of drowsy disinterest among most people in the West, to this great danger that is posed by global terrorism.

It would be a gross mistake to underestimate this lethal threat that hangs over all civilised life. There is no room for complacency here that this danger will dissipate  once the temporal aims of terrorism are achieved. But the terrorist threat is not 'motioned' by a political agenda, i.e., by the problem of the Middle East and the settling of the Palestinian issue or the withdrawal of the American-led coalition forces from Iraq and Afghanistan but by an apocalyptic agenda, whose primary 'motion' is the subjugation and destruction of Judeo-Greco-Roman civilisation. This threat, therefore, cannot be partitioned into certain regional areas, as it has a global reach, since its goal is no other than global dominance.

ISLAMIC TERRORISM NOT REVOLT OF POOR

The political analyses, therefore, that claim that countries which are closely allied with the American hegemon and are involved in the latter's imperialistic wars of monocratic rule, are targets of terrorism, are cerebrally unhinged and totally wrong. Moreover, Islamic terrorism is not the revolt of the poor, the politically disenfranchised and oppressed but the revolt of the Arab religious fundmentalist geist of the educated, the rich and those who crave to be the trailblazers of a new caliphate, all of whom are literate to such a high degree that they can distort and re-interpret even the writings of Mohammet, in their thrust for power.

Undoubtedly however, the leaders of terrorism have  a plenty supply of terrorist-fodder from the under-classes of the Muslim world, both from the East and the West. And the magnetic power they have to draw their suicidal recruits into a Jihad against the West from lumpen Muslims arises from the position they hold in the pecking order of Islamic fundamentalism. To illustrate this gravitational power that proceeds from this order, two examples, one from the macroscopic and another from the microscopic world of Muslim fundamentalism will suffice. In the macroscopic domain, the tremendous influence bin Laden has among ordinary Muslims emanates from the position he has in the hierarchy of this belligerent warring fundamentalism. In the microscopic one, the influence among his followers that the imam of Melbourne, Mohammet Omran has, derives too, from the position he retains in this hierarchical order of doctrinal fundamentalism. It is this combination of the educated, literate authority and knowledge of a wealthy élite, and the uneducated, illiterate recumbency and ignorance of the lower orders, that is the magma that ignites acts of terror by lumpen Muslims.

Strategically, therefore, the loci of power of global terrorism lie in the Mosques and in the madrassas, and among those fundamentalist Muftis and mentors who are its vehement, vociferous, and fanatic propagators and propagandists. It's here therefore that military strategists must strike their deadly blow. The war against global terror cannot be won in the field of battle, unless it's also taken into the breeding grounds of terrorism, wherever they happen to be located, in the East or in the West.

FANATICISM IS THE STRENGTH OF TERRORISM

In this strategic thrust, the decision-makers and planners of the war against global terror, must discover and identify both the dynamic of fanaticism, and its opposite,  the static of fanaticism . It's on this dual identification, that the total defeat of global terror lies.

Since antediluvian times, history has shown that the quintessence  of all millenarian movements is a dogmatic, fanatic and unshakable belief in a paradisiacal tomorrow. The earthly sufferings, nature-and-man-made, of human beings, blighted with ignorance and fear of the unknown, have motivated millions of them throughout history to embrace fanatically and fatally millenarian movements. Ultimately to their detriment, since eventually these movements would not open the golden gates to an abode of earthly paradise, but would cast them into a dark pit of hopelessness, despair, and destruction. Modern examples of this fatefully destructive millenarianism in its large scale secular form, are the Hitlerite vision of The One Thousand Years Reich, and the Marxist-Leninist utopia of utopias, Communism, and on a smaller scale in religious form, the Jonestown mass-suicide in Guyana, South America.

In all cases, millenarian-eschatological doctrines thrived in crisis situations, either in the aftermath of catastrophic wars or abominable and abysmal socio-economic injustices, as millions of people lashed by the scourge of war or poverty, clasped to their bosom these doctrines, either as the consolation for or revolution of their hopelessness. Likewise, non-literate and solely religious cultures, which tend to spend more time in the affairs of heaven than in the affairs of the earth, in encountering the economic, cultural and scientific achievements of Western civilization, suffered an unbridgeable cultural shock. Their peoples, who were stuck in a milieu of poverty, lack of education, corrupt governments and destitution had no other remedy for their ordeal and despair but the panacea of religious salvation. Messiahs who promised to bring about a new age of material and spiritual blessings, and throw their respective Satan into a bottomless pit, were an irresistible force to this mass destitution.

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and its terrorist suicidal death-squads, fits perfectly the above schema. The prophet-like preaching of its leaders and their actions in the field of battle against the great Satan America - which has given to its leaders a heroic stature, such as Osama bin Laden has, even in the eyes of moderate Muslims - is drawing many young Muslims, as a result of their failed, but proud culture, both from the middle and from the under-classes, into the fatal embrace of the seventy virgins. To this wild and virile chase of the will-o'-the-wisp 'virginity' by would-be terrorists, and especially, by those who have passed the threshold of hesitation into active terrorism, martyrdom is an infinitesimal price to pay for the infinite prize of the hedonistic pleasures of a boundless seraglio. Moreover, the holy war against the West, and the telluric triumph of Islam over the great Satan, America, fulfils to the brim the great pride of Arab culture. It is of such stuff that the dreams of terrorists are made. And to the eyes of these suicidal zealots, no power on earth can prevent the realisation of these dreams, since these dreams are the epiphany of the mind of Allah.

How can the West, confront, counter and defeat such an awesome, formidable, and fanatic foe, who is fighting under the banner of God, armed with weapons of mass destruction, and possibly soon with nuclear weapons? An enemy with a shadowy existence, with the wings of Mercury on its heels, moving swiftly to its global targets, being able to hide and receive aid and comfort, and indeed, recruits, in the numerous Muslim diaspora in the West, not to mention its home-ground, the East?  This is the historic challenge, of Herculean tasks, that Western civilization is being called to take. Will it be able to slay this multi-headed Hydra of terrorism and its bestial existence, and will it have the will and strength to accomplish the severe and stringent tasks that are absolutely essential to its defeat, or will it wear the 'Shirt of Nessus'?

HOW THE WEST MUST DEAL WITH TERRORISTS?

The answer to the above questions resides in the kind of political leadership Western democracies will own, i.e., whether this leadership will have the ironclad characteristics of statesmanship, and the prescience, imagination and wisdom to confront this mortal challenge, not with traditional strategies and tactics, since it confronts an unearthly, heavenly inspired enemy, but by unconventional and ground-breaking strategies and tactics that will have more than a chance of subduing and defeating these 'outlaws of god' . A leadership, furthermore, that will have the strength to swim against the stream of populism and its anti-war 'canons', and not to be a hostage to political considerations and repercussions that could emanate from its ruthless and merciless actions, as a result of its new strategy and tactics, against its fanatic foe. One must be reminded, that all political repercussions rapidly dissolve in the cup of victory. If its military actions lead or seem to be leading to the defeat of the terrorists, then all remonstrations and demonstrations against these actions, will burst quickly, in a puff, at the stroke of victory.

In all strategies, discerning and identifying the strength and weakness of one's enemy, is vital for his defeat. The strength of global terror does not reside in its moral courage or in its technical and mental competence to devise new means and methods in its lethal attacks against the West, or in the purported injustices inflicted by America on Muslim countries, but in its suicidal fanaticism. It's the latter that imbues in its holy-warriors the robotic courage that turns these means and methods into flagrant successful attacks against its infidel enemies.  It's on this dynamic of fanaticism that Islamic terror accomplishes its most arduous and rationally most unimaginable attacks. And the more successful these attacks are against the great Satan America and the infidels of the West, the more this dynamism increases, and hence, becomes a stronger gravitational force to would-be terrorists to join the ranks of the holy-warriors.

It is here where Anglo-American strategists must strike their fatal deadly blow -to deprive terrorism of the ability to be successful in its operations. In the context of global terror, therefore, success is the quintessence of the dynamic of fanaticism. And concomitantly, failure is the core of the static of fanaticism. But the focus of this strategy on the 'success of failure' for the fanatics of Muslim terror cannot be accomplished by the 'Martial arts' of the past, but only by a new imaginative war-craft that would intrepidly and remorselessly be waged against these hordes of fanatics.

FANATICISM SPREADS LIKE BIRD FLU

One of the primary characteristics of fanaticism is, that it spreads swiftly like a bird flu. Like medical practitioners, therefore, the practitioners of war against this virus of fanaticism, have to take swift, and necessarily and inevitably, ruthless measures that will prevent this epidemic from expanding and infecting the minds of an even greater number of proud and/or vulnerable culture-shocked  Muslims. As very often in medicine, the best antidote to poison is another kind of poison.  Likewise, the antidote to fear is fear. Hence, the fear of terror has to be fought with fear. One has to implant the fear of the terrorists into their own hearts. This is the only and most effective way to defeat quickly and decisively global terror. But this is a very difficult task for the civilized West to take on and to perform. To fight by the laws of the jungle, even against an enemy who is the embodiment of the jungle, would be incongruent, and, indeed, a blatant violation of all the principles of a civilised people. Principles, however, in all societies since the beginning of history, are in a state of permanent 'competition'.  In a critical situation of childbearing, for example, the principle of life is split in two, as an obstetrician has to make a choice whether to save the life of the baby or of the mother; in a sinking ship, its captain gives priority to women and children to have access to the ship's boats than to men. And in crisis conditions, it's obvious that the principle of life, more often than not, overrides all other principles.

In the aftermath of 9/11, it's indubitably clear, that the existence of Western civilization is under a mortal threat -a threat that cannot be negotiated away by any order of human reasoning with these addicts of fanaticism, unlike the threat of nuclear war between the two superpowers in the Cuban crisis, when Krutchev, at the reasoning of President Kennedy and of the dangers this confrontation would have upon mankind, "blinked", and withdrew the nuclear missiles from Cuba. In the case of these fanatics, however, their robotic programming will never allow them to blink before any reasonable argument or danger. But this robotic program is written by the graph of success. Once, however, one destroys this success, the program becomes static and dysfunctional. As a series of mounting failures in the operations of these zealots against the West, will engender a progressive doubt in their minds that, after all, Allah may not be in favour of their actions. And, if at the same time, this doubt is accompanied with fear about their capture or physical elimination by their enemies, this will lead to an irreversible demoralisation within their ranks, and with mathematical precision will bring forward their total defeat, as the mark of death will be indelibly imprinted in the minds of the terrorists and their supporters.

For this feat however to be accomplished, Western strategists must employ remorselessly their awesome military power and technology overtly and covertly against these holy-warriors, both in the field of battle as well as in the loci of their ideological and doctrinal power, i.e., in the Mosques and madrassas. The success of this strategy will involve the setting up of a clandestine organisation of international special forces of condottieri, who will serve as covert hit-squads against suspected terrorists and their mentors, including those who have been acquitted by courts on the basis of legal technicalities, wherever they happen to be, in the East or in the West. This will give to the terrorists and their supporters an overwhelming sense that the legal process of civilized societies will no longer serve as a shield behind which they can cover. The incontestable overpowering force and Humint (spying intelligence), and the deadliness of the covert operations, will loom like an incubus over the head of global terror, and its ubiquitousness will be an endless nightmare for all its practitioners and supporters. Undoubtedly, some innocent people will become victims of these lethal clandestine operations. But as in all human critical conflicts of such enormous and intricate proportions, the fallibility of human nature will inevitably extract its toll, in the coin of innocence. Moreover, the rogue states that continue to support terrorists politically and materially will be threatened with sanctions and ultimately with force, if they don't change their ways. (All the ideas contained in this paragraph were passed to the Pentagon by the writer in October 2001. )

It is by this strategy of 'displaced fear', from the terrorists to the terrorists, in combination of the success of failure in their operations against the West, that the nadir of fanatic terror will be reached.

Only by daring to use 'infernal' means of warfare against fanatic terrorism, will the West be saved from slipping and falling into the inferno of terror. The Gordian Knot of global terror will not be loosened by any U.N. nostrums of diplomacy
( Diplomacy will have a backseat in this crucial conflict), nor by snake oil palliatives that will soothe the purported grievances of the terrorists, but by cutting it ruthlessly with the ‘unsheathed sword’. Will the leadership of the Western world, especially the American, have the gumption and the moral and political strength and wisdom to use these deadly instruments against its mortal foe? In this existential struggle of Western civilization against fanatic terrorism, the question for political leaderships with éclat, is - to be, or not to be.

Con George-Kotzabasis (Former Director of SBS TELEVISION 1986-96)

OCTOBER 23 2005

MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

E-mail:kotzabasis@bigpond.com

Blogger NEMESIS: http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com

http://learngerman.elanguageschool.net

LIBERALS IN DENIAL ON GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ

2006-06-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

LIBERALS IN DENIAL ON GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ

Swagger is Back: Post-Zarqawi Iraq  Creates Spin Opportunity  For Republicans.
                                  Steven Clemons Washington Note--June 14,2001

A short reply: Con George-Kotzabasis—June 15, 2006

No positive news coming out from Iraq will satisfy the sniveling and sniggering liberal intelligentsia, except, it seems, the defeat of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Not long ago, they were impugning and pillorying the Administration for its inability to capture or kill either bin Laden or al Zarqawi as a significant sign of the failure of the war against global terror. Now, that one of the pivots of their argument has been “violently” removed, they transformed it, to quote Clemons, as “swagger is back.”

The formation of a government of national unity with a new Prime Minister, the completion of appointing to the senior cabinet posts of Defense and Interior a Sunni and a Shi ite respectively, the abysmal failure of the critics of the war, in regards to their prognosis that Iraq was in the midst of a civil war—and now that   “their” civil war is not occurring they have re-christened it as “sectarian violence”—the death of Zarqawi, these achievements, according to Clemons, merely ratchet “up the arrogance and hubris of America’s position in Iraq.”

On the contrary, the good news that are coming out of Iraq indicate, that the war might turn out to be a resounding success of the Bush administration’s strategy of spreading fledgling freedom and democracy not only in Iraq, but  in the region in general. And the liberal intelligentsia will have so much egg on their faces that their financial donors, such as Soros, will have to hire numerous nannies to clean their faces.

DAVE MEYER Revisiting the GWOT

2006-06-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

   DAVE  MEYER: Revisiting the GWOT

                                              WASHINGTON  NOTE  June 05, 2006

A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis

‘It’s time to kill the “war on terror” ’, states Dave Meyer, as if one could kill terror with rhetoric.  He continues, ‘the phrase… has both inspired and been exploited to advance a pernicious agenda. It’s based on fear’. And the latter ‘abandons reason in dealing with enemies.' But in all species, including man, fear is a predominant characteristic. And throughout their biological evolution, fear started a veritable “arms race” between predators and preys to develop the organs of attack and defense respectively. Fear therefore, has not received its breathe of life from political elites with “pernicious agendas.” In human species, it has deep Hobbesian roots.

But fear has a dual origin. It springs both from reality and hallucinations. Dave Meyer, and Glen Greenwald, carelessly, or because of their own political agenda, do not bother to make a distinction between this dual provenance of fear, and hence they let their guard down. One therefore, cannot take their proposition seriously. For if they claim, that the fear that sprang from the attack of 9/11, and the foreboding that a future attack could take the form of a mushroom, is a hallucination, then they show themselves to be escapees from their straitjackets.

In any sense of the word, the American people, and their savvy counterparts from the rest of the world, had every reason to be deeply concerned about their security from the reasonless attack emanating from religious fanaticism. Any administration, of whatever political hue, would have been politically irresponsible and stupid had it not taken this fearful threat as real, and would have been accountable for such stupendous dereliction of duty.

But it’s obvious, that Glen Greenwald’s ‘fantastic new book’, to quote Meyer, will be rich in its fantasies.

ATTACK ON AMERICA AN ATTACK ON WESTERN CIVILIZATION

2006-05-31T02:57:00.000-07:00

ATTACK ON AMERICA AN ATTACK ON
WESTERN CIVILIZATION

A knife was plunged into the back of Western Civilisation on the 11th of September, 2001.  The attack of the terrorists on the World Trade Centre and on the Pentagon, was not only an act of war against the United States, but also an attack on Western culture and its institutions, whose pinnacle is cosmopolitan America.

Moreover, it was not an act of emancipation from the imperialist yoke of the US, as some people with a warped cock-eyed historical sense have seen it, but the prelude of a holy war in the name of Islam against the depraved West by a fanatical group of Muslims, who view the US as the embodiment of the West’s evil.

Furthermore, these recruits of fanaticism, as the hijackers were, who were prepared to sacrifice their lives, were not of the mettle of Japanese kamikaze brave warriors, but cowards who could not perpetrate their ‘heroic’ action without the ‘Koranic’ promise of securing a one-way-ticket to paradise for their martyrdom. They were an inferior disgruntled breed, who having been conscious of the fact that in the race of civilisations they had fallen behind, were full of envy, hate and resentment against the West, which in this historical age has won the race.  To illustrate, in a simplified way, that this inability of Muslims to contest other civilisations and win, is deeply rooted in their religion, is exemplified by the commandment of the Koran that its believers should pray five times a day.  Imagine a marathon race that lasted all day, whose protagonists were of a mixed religious background, and the position of those who would have to stop and pray five times, at the finish of the race.

No wonder, that the verdict of history can be so harsh on cultures whose people spend so much time in the affairs of the Other world than in the affairs of the present one.  And no wonder, that by the criteria of economic social and political development, countries with such religious rigidity are falling behind countries of the developed world.  It is not surprising therefore, that people who are trapped in such religious conformity, will seek and find scapegoats for their own and for their governments’ failings.  This is especially so among the educated and demographically increasing younger generations, whose resentment is intensified even more against the West, because their societies cannot provide them with employment, due to the fact that their elitist and authoritarian regimes spend their incomes on conspicuous consumption, on internecine wars, and on overseas investments in the economically developed countries of the world, instead of investing their capital in the industrial infrastructure of their own countries.  For all these deficiencies of their own regimes they blame the Americans.  The young therefore, become terrorist fodder in the hands of their fundamentalist leaders, such as Osama bin Laden, because all their ambitions and talents cannot find an outlet within the corrupt regimes of their own countries.

What, however, is most disturbing for the West, is that the distorted interpretations of the Koran by the fundamentalist mullahs, motivate a sizeable part of the young to throng behind their fanatic leaders’ calls for a Jihad, in almost all Muslim countries, as well as some Muslims of the diaspora who reside in the West.  For if the will of Allah allows killers of innocent people to enter the kingdom of God, then killing of the innocent would be an act of salvation and guarantee for their mass murderers that they would enter infinite paradise. If there are, as it is obvious, some Muslims who cannot see through these distorted interpretations of the Koran, then Western nations have no other option but to respond to the battle-cry of their leaders, and fight them to the end. No civilised human rights laws should protect this murderous mass of fanatics who are determined to bury civilised life.

No United Nations human rights shield should protect these terrorists, as well as those who harbour and promote them.  When the heart of Western civilisation is the target of these extremists, then the top priority for the west should be their elimination. The only maxim that should apply to terrorist criminals, is that those who live by the laws of the jungle should also be prepared to die by the laws of the jungle.  But this is a maxim of the brave. ….

It would be foolish after the ruins of New York to search for soft options.  It is for this reason that the humanitarian calls, of well intentioned people -and of the not so well intentioned potpourri of socialists, anarchists, and their fellow-travellers- for peace in conditions of a ruthless war launched by these fanatics against the West, lack historical knowledge and are bereft of reason.  To assert, as these groups do, that the terrorist attack in New York and Washington, is the comeuppance for the US for its policies in the Middle East and of its bombing and embargo against Iraq, is to show the ingrained bias and hatred these groups have against the US, as well as display their shallow historical analysis of events of the last fifty-five years.  Such assertions are no more than political and historical alchemy, and should be treated with the appropriate intellectual contempt they deserve.

According to article 51 of the UN Charter, in regards to an armed attack against a nation, the US has every right to defend itself against this attack of the terrorists on its soil. Moreover, it has a moral and strategic responsibility to respond to this dastardly strike against civilians with its full might, especially, when this strike is merely the beginning of what is to come, if these fanatics of al Qaeda and other extremists groups happen to obtain biological and nuclear weapons, which they would use with a zealot’s glee against the infidels of the West. Against this apocalyptic threat that confronts the West, the latter has to act with all its power, pre-emptively, fearlessly, and decisively.

(((

The first signs are, that this ‘war’ against terrorism will be unlike any other wars.  The battlelines will be three-dimensional.  They will involve ‘blitzkriegs’ on the economic, diplomatic and military terrain. But in the diplomatic field it will be the end of diplomacy as we know it.  The United States will play hard ball diplomacy on an international scale, and its “mission will determine its coalition”, in the words of its Defence Secretary Rumsfeld.  Its foreign policy will be prudently flexible, but it will not allow itself to be beguiled and misguided by the siren songs of that tower of Babel, the United Nations, to open another welter and ‘banter’ on the table of negotiations.

There cannot be a crossing, a meeting of minds, with such ruthless, fanatical opponents. The scourge of terrorism will not and cannot be resolved on the table of prolonged negotiations, but on the battlefield, especially when the time-bomb of biological and nuclear devices is ticking-on.

The US military retaliation must be massive and swift.  The times are not for timorous leaders, military sceptics, and indecisive Hamlets.  President Bush, having an intelligent, decisive administration, shows all the signs that he will tackle this problem, unlike his predecessor, complacent, Hamletinesque Clinton, by grappling the bull of terrorism by its horns.  But, he will not be a reckless matador. This is illustrated by the fact, that despite the carnage of New York and Washington and the immense provocation – it was the first time in its history that the US mainland had become a target - this attack was on the Bush Administration, yet the latter did not respond with a knee-jerk reaction, but with prudence,  stoicism, and deliberation. It took almost a month before it responded militarily against this challenge of the terrorists.  And before it started firing its missiles on Afghanistan, it forged a notable coalition, encompassing Europe and Asia, of which China and Russia are the most important, against terrorism, as a necessary, if not indispensable weapon in its fight against these fanatics.

In his address to the nation, President Bush made it clear, that the war on terrorism will be unconventional, protracted, and not without casualties.  It will not be a war fought by divisions and army corps.  It will be fought in the shadows of intelligence, since its enemy has a shadowy existence, and by special forces, whose aim will be to take out terrorist bases, and either capture or eliminate its core personnel and its leaders.  To borrow and example from the animal world, it will be a war of the hawks against the hedgehogs.  The only difference being, that the hawks will not only operate on the ground, but also underground, ferreting out the terrorists from their burrows. The special forces will sweep from the sky, and as soon as they accomplish their mission, they will disappear into the sky again.  No time for their enemies to pin them down. The element of surprise will be a great military advantage, and will play a decisive role, psychologically and physically in beating the terrorists.

Also, military strategists should consider the stretching of the unconventionality of the war more widely, by employing and deploying mercenaries against terrorists. There is a vast international pool of veterans highly skilled in the art of combat and clandestine warfare, who  would be willing to use their prowess against terrorism.  It would be most imprudent for Western governments not to tap this pool of international condottieri and bring it into its war mechanism against terror, because of moral scruples. In crisis conditions, all morality is answerable to the circumstances of the situation, not to ‘god’.  No moral norm can be unconditional.  Hence, the recruitment of mercenaries is neither immoral nor unconscionable, if it is going to contribute towards the defeat of terror.
(((

The ‘war’ against the Taliban and bin Laden must be fought with all the US armaments, excluding biological and nuclear weapons. The teary comments of parts of the media on civilian casualties, have a misplaced perspective, and weaken the support that the coalition must have among its people to defeat this mortal enemy. No modern warfare can occur without civilian casualties, especially in the case of these fanatics who often use civilians as a shield.

The fact is however, that more civilians are killed by these dictatorial regimes than are killed when these regimes are struck from outside.  Saddam Hussein massacred more civilians than the US bombing during the Gulf War. The Taliban and the Northern Alliance have slaughtered more civilians in their fratricidal war against each other, than the US bombing will ever do.  In Rwanda, the Hutu regime massacred 800,000 Tutsi civilians in its tribal war against the latter. Where are the tears of the media for the above historical facts?

To accuse the US, that it deliberately targets civilians, is a gross fabrication and distortion of the truth.  If its war planners had such an unjust and feeble-minded policy which targeted civilians, then such a policy would jeopardise its moral standing against terrorists, as well as lose in one sweep the support it has from the coalition, that it so wisely and diligently has put in place.

The US has to retaliate with all its might against this global threat of terrorism.  It should give no intellectual quarter to the sceptics and pessimists of academia, who claim that the war against terrorism cannot be won. Professor Fred Halliday, in an article published in The Guardian on 27 of October, claims that “eradicating terrorists does not eradicate their cause”. And a war against terrorism is “war against an enemy.of whom action can have no predictable end”. The most effective way to eradicate their cause is to put an end to the perceived invincibility and successes of the terrorists. Even fanatics, once they are deprived of their ‘invincibility’ by being defeated decisively in their operations, will lose their confidence that God is with them, and will abandon their cause.

As to the second contention of Professor Halliday, one can only reply that action against an enemy can never have a predictable end. But because of the unpredictability of war, one does not reel from fighting a mortal enemy who is threatening one’s survival.  No one among the North Vietnamese leadership, could predict or even conceive that they could win the war against the United States, but unimaginative, intellectually nipple-fed professors, are always predictable.

The ‘war’ in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda, will not be difficult to be won by the Americans.  The defeat of the Soviets by the mujihadeen as an example of what would happen to the Americans, is inappropriate. The mujihadeen won the war against the Russians, not because of their formidableness as fighters, but mainly because of the material, logistical support and military advise the US had given it.  In this ‘war’ the Taliban is totally isolated, and is not a beneficiary of strategic support and advice. The only support it has, is the support of fanaticism.  And while fanaticism might induce courage, it depletes intelligence.  But it is by intelligence that wars are won. Wayward, blind courage does not win wars.  In modern warfare when one’s opponent is resolute, as the Americans are in this conflict, ‘robots’ which are motivated by fanaticism are destined to finish in a scrap heap of metal.

The defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, will ease the defeat of all other terrorist networks that exist in other countries. The West cannot rest until this infamy of global terrorism is crushed.

( October 15th 2001
Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS

Printed in The English Supplement, ‘Neos Kosmos’, November 19-20 2001

Madeleine Albright

2006-05-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

                               HAIL DIPLOMATIC CONSENSUS AND FALL

                               INTO TERRORIST HELL

Madeleine Albright, in her article " Bridges, Bombs,or Bluster," published in Foreign Affairs, criticizes the Bush administration in its war against Iraq, for using the "shock of force" to trump "the hard work of diplomacy". Both, the substance and the tenor of her argument, reveal her irrepressible desire and concern to defend her metier, as the former primary diplomat in the Clinton administration, as well as justify the latter's timorous and inutile stand against terror. Precisely, to quote her,  “Clinton saw terror as a team enterprise, not a solo act”, because of this misperception, Clinton's administration failed to do anything effective against terror during his two terms in office. Moreover, by refusing to take a strong stand against terrorism, a stand that would necessarily shed American blood, in the likes of a top Madison Avenue advertiser, he advertised, with incomparable historical foolishness, the Mogadishu complex to the world at large and to the Muslim fundamentalists and their death squads, with devastating consequences, that America was too scared to spill its blood in defending itself, even against the most ominous and heinous acts of terror.

The former Secretary, with one word of hers, nolens volens, exposes this diplomatic failure of Clinton and her own during their term in office, and with the same "stabbing" word, she stabs her argument for diplomacy to death. She states, that Clinton “tried” to halt WMD proliferation and the need of nations to unite to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries and their funding. The complete failure of the former President to achieve these objectives however, precisely was, a result of his dependence solely on the overtures of diplomacy. And instead of addressing and redressing this floundering of diplomacy, the former President chose to "runaway" from the "draft" of leadership. President Bush, in contrast, persuaded by his Secretary of State, went to the UN and made intense efforts to convince his allies of the strategic necessity to invade Iraq as a quintessential part of the war against terror. And only when these efforts failed to become fecund, indeed, only when the even "amorous passes" of Colin Powell failed to break the pretentious "chastity belt" of France, Germany, and Russia, President Bush, with the characteristic strength of his Administration, decided to go to war "solo", with the Coalition of the willing, and refused to escape from the draft of leadership.

Diplomacy is a voracious   consumer of time, and the latter is a key element to its success. In war however, timing is the sine qua non for its success. A nation, as the US does, that faces a great apocalyptic imminent threat and waits for diplomatic consensus, before it takes forceful and preemptive action against such a threat, chooses to fall, in this case, into the terrorist's hell.
Secretary Albright, seeks “redemption” not through contrition, for the "abortions" of diplomacy, under her term in office, but through diplomatic alienation. For to persist obstinately, especially in critical circumstances, in the wiles of diplomacy, when it's obvious that all its efforts are failing, is to alienate the art of diplomacy.

Historians, when they will make their comparisons, will aver that Madeleine Albright's "orbiting" around the State Department, was far off the planetary force of a Dean Acheson or of a Henry Kissinger. Secretary Albright's censure of the Bush administration is Nonebright.

              CON GEORGE -KOTZABASIS ( DIRECTOR OF SBS TELEVISION 1986-1996 )

               AUGUST  30,  2003

               MELBOURNE  AUSTRALIA

INTRODUCTION: UNVEILING THE WAR AGAINST TERROR

2006-05-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

         AMERICA’S INNOCENCE RAVAGED ON 9/11

The papers that have made this book, have been written in a controversial and polemical style, not for the purpose to provoke polemics with one's pacifist opponents, but for the purpose of making, even if it is small, a contribution toward the defeat of global terror, whose goal is no less than the destruction of Western civilization.

September 11 has placed open societies and their democratic freedoms at the crossroads of victory or subjugation. No intellectualist quibbling or obfuscation can cover and evade this historic fact. Fanatic Muslim terrorists pose a threat to civilized societies of biblical proportions, especially if they acquire weapons of mass destruction through rogue states.

Yet the liberal intelligentsia in its necrophilous stance attempts to shift the blame from the terrorist perpetrators to their victims. In their mind's eyes, September 11 was the comeuppance of America for the ills the latter had "rained" upon the oppressed of the world by spreading its rapacious eagle's wings over the globe in its pursuit of dominance and empire. Thus the terrorist’s threat is subordinated and replaced by the liberal invention of its own "evil empire". Turning logic on its head, fanatic terrorism becomes less dangerous and is transformed into a "lesser evil". In an ironic twist, the threat posed by terrorists against the West, is turned into the threat of the "Lone Avenger". But that the latter might ride through the canyons of America, in his pursuit of punishing evil, not with six caliber pistols in his holsters but with nuclear weapons, is of no concern to them. Hence, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are all liberals. Foreordaining the destruction of Western societies by a fanatic horde of religious barbarians.

People, who have studied history in the sublime pages of Thucydides, Gibbon, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Meinecke, and Huntington, can only rally one answer to this great threat. Fight it to the death with no quarter given to it. History has transparently shown, that the greatest atrocities against mankind were committed by religious fundamentalists, and by all omniscient purist ideologues. Examples are the religious wars of 17th Century Europe, which decimated almost two thirds of its population, and the Nazi and Communist ideologies that massacred millions in the 20th Century in their pursuit to breathe life, like God, to their misplaced and displaced utopias. Muslim fundamentalist inspired terror, is also set in among these dangerous misplaced utopias. But it is even more dangerous, in that its proponents and its fanatically blind activists unshakably believe are guided by the invisible hand of Allah and that they are His instruments.

This is the reason why all diplomatic overtures in this war against terrorism and its state sponsors, are doomed to failure. It is just impossible to negotiate any set of compromises of give and take, which is the substance of diplomacy, with these Muslim fundamentalists. It would just be as futile an attempt, as it would be to argue against God.

My first paper, 'Unveiling the War against Terror' presages precisely the above. The Bush Administration would not enter into this course of diplomatic failure and it would not be lured by the United Nations' siren songs. While it was wise of the Administration to forge a notable coalition against terrorism, the latter would not be indispensable in its fight against terror. The same paper predicts the unconventionality of the war against terror, i.e., the primary role Special Forces would play in this war - and the splendid performance of the Australian SAS Forces in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq, exemplified this role - as well as the defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda, in contrast to the conventional wisdom of most media commentators, who asserted that the American forces would not win and would be bogged down in Afghanistan, just like the Soviet forces. It was also prescient in its finding that strategically it would be a pre-emptive war, hence, anticipating the Pentagon's new strategy against terror and against rogue states. (This paper was sent to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in November 2001 ).

The second paper titled 'U.S. Unilateralism only Alternative to Multilateral Weakness', responds to The Open Letter of the former Governor General Bill Hayden, and of three former prime ministers, Fraiser, Whitlam, and Hawke, and condemns their un-historic and populist stand against America's impending war in Iraq. Their 'un-heroic cunctation', to quote John Maynard Keynes, is another monument of folly build with the debris of Munich. To await for the more and more evanescent imprimatur for the war in Iraq by the UN Security Council, would have been the ultimate inanity. The paper also predicts, that the 'missing star in this constellation of darkness' (the signers of The Open Letter), Paul Keating, would also take an anti-American stand, which soon afterwards he did, but as is his wont as primo uomo, he would give his performance as a "soloist".

The third paper titled, 'How to Legitimize the Interim Government in Iraq’ ... is a strategic proposal and was sent for this purpose to both President Bush and vice-President Cheney in late August 2003. As is shown by subsequent events, the Americans put on a fast track the formation of both the Interim Government in Iraq, as well as the arming of the Iraqis, two of the suggestions that I had made in this paper. I am confident, that my third suggestion, which is the axis of my proposal in this paper, the master plan, i.e., the Iraqi people should be given the equity of the nation's oil wealth, will also be adopted. And the Interim Government of Iraq at its formation in July 2004, will make this historic pronouncement to its people, and by doing so will confer 'unassailable legitimacy' to itself.

All the other papers emphasize that the war against global terror is a two front war, that is, one also has to fight the rogue states if one is serious in defeating this terrorist menace. As these rogue states have the potential of becoming the suppliers of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Moreover, one of them predicts that the defeat of one rogue state, in this case Iraq, will have domino effects upon all other rogue states. And the dominoes have already started falling, as the recent capitulation of Libya has shown.

'The war against global terror and its state sponsors is an existential war, a war of survival, and cannot be fought on humane grounds'. All wars brutalize their combatants and under their immense pressures 'can break the strongest of wills, the best of disciplines'. The war against global terror and its state sponsors magnifies this brutality. Its combatants are fighting, and are threatened by a shadowee enemy and cannot distinguish easily friend from foe. In Iraq, American soldiers are giving candy to Iraqi children, but as soon as they turn their backs to them, the latter are throwing stones at the soldiers in place of thanks. It is due to the heavy pressures of terrorist warfare that the American soldiers' discipline is buckling and, while regrettable and even deplorable, one can see and understand the torture of prisoners in Iraq and in Afghanistan as one result of this. It should also not be forgotten that most of the prisoners were and are terrorists who could provide vital information to their American interrogators about their networks that could save thousands of lives, as well as lead to the defeat of terrorists in the field of battle. 'In such a setting, the torture of prisoners is the tragic price of such a war that statesmanship must pay'.

The papers are not written in the suave language of diplomats nor in the smoothing words of the gentile classes. In times of war, a writer has to mobilize his words, as a general has to mobilize his troops for battle, forcefully. They are written for the purpose of rallying people behind their governments, as a call to arms. They are also written to provoke people to search for the truth and debunk all those who claim to possess it. And last but not least, to salvage the truth of the war from the politically designated distortions and fabrications of its liberal and leftist critics, that has been so characteristic of much Western thinking and so ubiquitous throughout most of the media since 9/11.

Con George-Kotzabasis
May 9, 2004 MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

P.S. The above text is the Introduction of my book “Unveiling The War Against Terror: Fight Right War or Lose The Right To Exist”, that was published in May 2004, and which is available at Readings Bookshops at Hawthorn and Port Melbourne, in Melbourne.

2006-05-02T01:42:00.000-07:00

September 2, 2006

WHAT AMERICA MUST DO IN A DANGEROUS WORLD

Con George-Kotzabasis

At the threshold of the Twentieth-first century a marathon race has started whose finishing line is the Archimedean Point. Whoever crosses this line first, will be able, according to one's cultural and political origins, to "tilt" the world either into a higher order of economic development, equality, justice, and freedom, or into the abyss of economic stagnancy, inequality, injustice, and servitude. The major contestants in this race are the secular West and theocratic Islam. And because of its high stakes this is an implacable contest, as it involves no less than the continuation of progress toward a higher enlightened civilization in the future, free from all kinds of false prophets and gods, or its retardation to a benighted past where all kinds of self- proclaimed Habakkuks, prophets, were reigning. Hence it is a matter of whether the cultural, political, and scientific achievements of a secular civilization that were forged in the fire that Prometheus, the Robin Hood of the gods, stole from Zeus, and gave it to indigent mankind, will have a future or not. Anyone, therefore, who has a modicum of pride for the achievements of Western civilization realizes fully, that this is a duel à outrance.

Cosmopolitan America, as the incarnation of this civilization and economically and militarily as the sole superpower, is the main contender in this existential contest of survival with the dark forces of fundamentalist Islam. But the contender's ability to ward off and defeat decisively the deathly squads of suicidal fanatic terrorists depends on the strength and skills of his coach, on the political leadership of America. And the signs are that the present leadership of the US will not fault the American people, and indeed, the peoples of the world.One can state this, notwithstanding the tactical errors the Bush administration committed in the course of the war in Iraq. No military action on a huge scale can be taken, without errors and risks. No government, no matter how astute, can act unerringly nor can it jump over the shadow of happenstance that follows like a curse all human actions. The god of war, unlike Einstein's god, does play dice. Those politicians, pundits, and academics who with relish and pride critique the Bush administration, with the benefit of hindsight, for its mistakes in the Iraqi war, show themselves to be ignorant of the lessons of history, morally and intellectually weak, and bereft of political and strategic acumen. Therefore, they are completely disqualified to lead their nations in these critical times, when a horde of fanatic terrorists threaten the foundations of free and democratic societies.

EVEN GREAT STATESMEN MAKE MISTAKES

Only political tyros and the totally unimaginative could not see that in a long war, which President Bush at its commencement termed it as such, and more so, in a complex war, as the war on global terror is, inevitably, mistakes and reverses on the field of battle would be made. And these mistakes would translate into high costs in the loss of life, both among the armed forces and civilians. No war in human history occurred without errors and reverses. Even great statesmen, such as Winston Churchill, who was responsible for the debacle of the landing at Gallipoli, were not immune from errors of judgment. The worth and mettle of leadership, however, is revealed by standing firm despite any reverses. Instead of being blown away by the winds of pessimism and despair. As the German philosopher Nietzsche said, the worth of a man's character is shown in difficult circumstances. To be drifting from one's course in rough weather, is not the mark of strong leadership. Moreover, no leader worth his salt would put his war plans, in critical times, at the beck and call of public opinion. Only wet politicians would put their wet fingers up on the air to feel which way the populist wind is blowing. That is why the leadership of Blair, Bush, and Howard is to be commended for its unflappable stand against the stormy winds of populism against the war in Iraq.

America's destiny, as a great nation and as the sole superpower, is to prevent the Western world from falling into the terrorist inferno. To accomplish this historic and most difficult task, it has to rally parts of this world behind its diplomatic and military strategy against fundamentalist Islam. In any war, even the most powerful nations cannot do without allies. But while allies are necessary, they are not indispensable. There are moments in history, when great nations or nascent nations at the threshold of their greatness, have to fight alone for their survival or glory. The Romans, in the second Punic War, on 202 BC, had to defeat Carthage and the great threat Hannibal posed against the Roman Republic. Alexander the Great, when he invaded Asia on 353 BC, and made Macedon and Greece a world power.

The US is already a world power and it does not have to fight for glory. But it does have to fight for its survival. Against a ruthless fanatic enemy who once he acquired weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear ones, would use them with glee not only against the cities of the US, but also against the cities of other European countries, in his pursuit to establish the "prehistoric" barbaric Caliphate by destroying the modern world. People who would hastily and thoughtlessly dismiss such a threat as a fantasy or paranoia, are naive and lack imagination. In our contemporary times, when war economically and militarily has become asymmetrical, and a phantom enemy, i.e., the terrorists, can launch lethal attacks by the most frugal economic means against powerful nations, the reality of such attacks take a portentous dimension. The knowledge emanating from the leaps of science, technology, and telecommunications that was kept once in the "inner sanctum" of the economically dominant nations, has now become through TV and the internet, accessible to all nations, and indeed, to the poorest of NGOs. Hence, the Western cognoscenti have been dethroned from their monopoly of knowledge, by the no longer scanty knowledge of the masses.

In our case, this knowledge, like a cataract is falling into the virulent streams of fanatic Islam and we witness its warriors carrying in one hand the Koran, and in the other, PCs in the shape of scimitars ready to behead Western civilization. We also see Islamofascist states, such as Iran, vehemently pursuing its aim to acquire nuclear weapons, disdainfully snubbing the powerful nations of the world, and cleverly playing on the weaknesses of the latter that prevent them from forging a strong policy that would stop Iran from achieving its goal. And only inveterate superficial thinking would consider that the acquisition of a nuclear arsenal by Iran would not pose a deadly threat to mankind. That Iran would ultimately conform to the prescriptions and regimen of deterrence. But the leitmotiv of Islamofascism is not rationality but blind and fanatic belief in the ever after. Once the genie of fanaticism is released from its sealed bottle and has spread its deadly virus among any people, it fatally determines the latter's course of responses and actions. And even if some of their leaders, who have not completely lost their wits, will be unable to control the passions of fanaticism and they themselves will succumb to it and become its victims. It's an incontestable fact, that revolutions, and, indeed, more so, religious revolutions, eat their own children.

UNILATERALISM ONLY OPTION IN A WORLD OF MULTILATERAL WEAKNESS

The airborne deadly salvos of 9/11, have moved the world into a most dangerous zone. Only the blissfully complacent, and historically and politically ignorant, can continue optimistically to believe that the security and economic prosperity of Western countries are not under an imminent threat, and that they cannot abruptly disrupted. Moreover, this danger becomes even greater, as an outcome of the division that exists among the major nations of the West as to how to respond to it. Since many nations of Europe, such as France, Russia, Spain, Italy--now with its new Prime Minister Prodi--and even Germany, with its pro-US Chancellor Angela Merkel, are under the misconception that they are not equally threatened by global terrorism and its state sponsors as America is, and that they can buy out their security by making concessions and appeasing the terrorists. As if the latter can be influenced by benign diplomatic overtures. This illusionary, confused perspective of the degree of danger these nations are facing by militant Islam, prevents them from rallying behind America, which is the only nation in the world that can decisively defeat fanatic Islam.

It's at this point that the American leadership must realize, because of the various and conflicting opinions of how to confront global terror, that it would be impossible, in the short run, which counts, as in the long run we will all be dead, to use the phrase of J. M. Keynes, particularly in this conflict, if we don't take prompt and the right actions, to bring all the Western nations to endorse and participate actively behind a pugnacious diplomatic and military strategy that would rout global terror and its state sponsors. The challenge therefore for America's leadership is, whether it has the will and strength to act unilaterally or with the support only of a few steadfast allies, in a world of multilateral weakness.

All the signs indicate that the Bush administration will not deviate from its trailblazing position to act unilaterally and preemptively as a last resort, when all other alternatives in the short term are not realizable. Throughout all history, resolute and wise leaders in critical times had to act within the limits of "the stern laws of necessity", to quote the great historian Edward Gibbon. Tragically, wars cannot be waged without sacrifices of life and sacrifices in civil liberties, whenever the latter are necessary to save lives and to defeat the enemy. The clamor of the civil libertarians, who sponsor unreservedly liberties at the expense of life in times of war, ensues, in the present case, from the bias and hate against the Bush administration than from any real concern about liberties. As one cannot imagine them to be so muddleheaded that they cannot realize, that when the armed forces of the nation are engaged in war, it's also incumbent on the home front to make the necessary sacrifices. And it's no excuse to say, as many do, which is a fabrication, that this is an illegal war. Whether the war is legal or not, it's still the irrefragable moral duty of all Americans to support their troops in war. To do otherwise is treasonous.

Moreover, one cannot effectively wage war by the fiat of legal process, especially when one is fighting a physically unidentified enemy in civilian clothes operating among millions of civilians. Therefore, there must be a radical fundamental change in the rules of war, to confront this unique aspect of terrorist aggression, that cannot abide to the rules of civil conventional laws that apply in peaceful times. That is why in all constitutions the provision of emergency laws is the sine qua non that protects nations in great dangers. Of course there is always the possibility that such laws could be used for the wrong reasons. Hitler and Stalin, were exemplaries of this practice. But because of this possibility, to refuse to take prompt and decisive action that could save thousands of lives, is not only dereliction of a leader's duty, but also, bottomless stupidity. Also, these new rules of war, both in the field of battle and on the home front, which is riddled with a fifth column of Jihadists, must be exercised with the utmost celerity and must not be impeded by an overly slow and pedantically interpreted legal process. An illustration of the ineffectiveness and doltishness of such a finicky process, was the event that led to the escape of Osama bin Laden, when the latter was trapped by C.I.A. clandestine forces in Tora Bora on the side of Pakistan in December 2001, as a result of the lengthy deliberations of legal experts in the army, whether an attack upon him would be legal or not, thus missing the opportunity of killing him.

The gauntlet that has been cast by the fanatic Jihadists onto the domain of Western civilization, must be picked up by America on the point of its sword. No conventional diplomacy, no refined appeasement, no olive branches, will stop these warriors of god from their determination to destroy the modern world and replace it with their primeval religious obscurantism. American leadership, must not abdicate from its manifest historical responsibility, as the sole superpower, to exercise its might against this virulent fanaticism and its state sponsors, both with wisdom and unflagging remorselessness.

This article was written on May 2, 2006

Migrant History Repeats

2006-04-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

           MIGRANT HISTORY REPEATS

            Waleed Aly The Australian-February 23, 2006

            WHY MUSLIM LEADERS DARE NOT

            SPEAK THE TRUTH?

Waleed Aly’s article is a display of dazzling historical and sociological acrobatics on immigration that leaves his audience breathless. But in his attempt to win the applause of the latter, he forces himself to take some foolhardy risks on the threadbare wire of his argument trying to prove its correctness, that make him lose his reflective balance and fall on a nettles ground that bounces him into the embrace of the seventy virgins. What is more dangerous, to be historically and sociologically incorrect or to be in the company of seventy virgins, is for others to judge.

But let us deal with the premise of his argument and the historical facts of immigration as he presents them, with which he builds his “matchsticks” sociological theory of Muslim terrorism to make his case. His contention is that the so-called local Islamic terrorism of our contemporary times is no different from the Mafiosi terrorism of the 60s, from the Vietnamese triad gangs of the 80s, and treating the Greeks and the Catholics more gently, from the Mediterranean Back welfare fraud of the former and the allegiance of the latter to the Pope. No doubt, all these actions of the above groups are contrary to Australian values, nonetheless they arise from a minority of their communities and therefore it would be both illogical and unfair to blacken their whole communities for the actions of few. Neither, the sociological “deviancy” of a Trimboli or a Condello could denigrate the Italian community in toto and its great achievements as assimilated migrants in this country. Therefore, in similar mode, the beliefs and actions of a small number of Muslim radicals have a sociological pedigree going back to the 60s and 80s, and are of a passing nature, as the deviancy of the few radicals, as it happened with other immigrant groups in the past, will be absorbed within the majority of assimilated Muslims to Australian values in the near future.  Hence, according to Aly, history will be repeating itself, neither as a tragedy nor as a farce, as Marx believed, but as progress toward the embracing of Australian laws and values by all immigrant communities, including Muslims.

In scope and depth this proposition is as serious as claiming, that soft “pasta” made terrorism is similar to religious fanatic terrorism that is fomented by an Islamofascist suicidal ideology and whose reach is global.  That religion, which plays such an authoritarian and dominant role among Muslims, can be relegated to sociology. To keep his canoe theory afloat in the billowing waters of reality, Aly, like a magician has to conjure away the history of Islam as a supremacist religion, which the precepts of its prophet Mohammed reveal and attest.  He also has to hide the fact, that this superiority of Muslim religion and culture inspires the minds and senses of most Muslims. Therefore, any assertion by Muslims that they support and ardently embrace multiculturalism is not only disingenuous but a blatant lie. To expect of them to accept multiculturalism will be akin of expecting them to become votaries of polytheism.

Aly”s argument, that Muslims will be as easily assimilated to Western values as other migrant groups have done from Christian and Buddhist backgrounds, is demolished by his co-religionists leaders.  The Montreal Muslim News, on February 26, among whom one of its hosts is the President of The Muslim Council of Montreal who is considered to be by all media outlets the representative of the views of the community, in criticizing the comments of Treasurer Costello that all citizens should accept the laws and values of Australia, stated the following: “If we look deeply into the sickness that passes for ‘western values’ one can see why we chose Allah over human made systems of morality and conduct”.  It’s this rigid, bigoted, and supremacist beliefs of Muslims that makes Western values terra rejectanus to them. One also must take note of the historical fact, that unlike Christianity which had its Reformation that Luther nailed on the door of dogmatic papacy, Islam never had its reformation and it’s still “mind-locked” in the dark ages of the 8th Century and therefore it’s completely incapable spiritually of immersing itself in the torrential stream of modernity. This is the reason why, despite the Midas wealth of many Muslim countries, their peoples live in poverty and in cultural ghettos isolated and detached from the modern world under authoritarian regimes. And this is why when they emigrate to the West they remain in their religious and social ghettoes, instead of reaching out from the windows of opportunity that a dynamic free enterprise economy is offering them and reaping the economic and social benefits that emanate from Western education, and engagement with the advanced world of globalization. Hence, bailing out from high rates of mostly voluntary unemployment and dependency on welfare, with all their dire social consequences.  But the question is how can a group of people who spent so much time (praying seven times a day) in the affairs of the other world succeed in the affairs of this one?

All the interactions that Muslims have, even in their dress and in their appearance, e.g. hijabs, white caps, and beards, with other Australians are motivated first and foremost by their religion. To claim as Aly does, that Muslim migrants are “rejecting culture altogether, Western or other wise’’ and leaving it at that without probing and answering, especially, why they reject the Western variety, is to say the least shallow sociology. They are rejecting it because being chained from head to foot with the rigidity of their culture are unwilling to break their chains and thus become free to accept the tenets of a modern world that will lead them to social and individual success. Ultimately therefore, they reject Western society because deep down they feel that they will fail in all their endeavors to succeed. Hence, like all failed cultures, they will scapegoat all the successful ones and blame them for their own shortcomings. And for this vicious circle failure, they will seek and find solace in, and embrace, the millenarian teachings of fundamentalist Islam and its Jihad against the great Satan America and its future promise of a caliphate and paradisiacal bliss.

It’s for all the above reasons and the following fact that the claim of Aly that terrorism in Australia is a “fringe element”, to quote him, is as far from the truth, if it’s not a “warring” lie-as according to Mohammed in war telling lies by Muslims is justifiable- when the radical Sheikh Omran of Melbourne, who considers bin Laden to be a good man, has more than ten thousand followers.

One remains nonplussed, why an intelligent person such as Waleed Aly, leaves all the above facts out from his article? And dons the top hat of a conjuror that attempts to present the beliefs and deeds of religious fanaticism as being sociological and similar to the innocuous, by comparison, deviancy of a Condello from the mainstream? What does he have to hide? It’s up to his keen readers to answer the non-answer of Waleed that dares not speak the truth.

Con George-Kotzabasis (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96)

March 2, 2006 – Melbourne AUSTRALIA

Con GeorgeKotzabasis

2006-04-15T00:16:00.000-07:00

RECOMMENDATION TO THE USA PRESIDENT

This letter was sent to the USA President on March 21,2006

Dear Mr. President

It’s admirable to see, that in your National Security Strategy you continue to stand like a Titan against your Democratic opponents and the rabble-rattlers of the media, in respect of your historically insightful strategy of pre-emptive war.

Humbly, I would like to make the following suggestions in regard to the great threat emanating from Iran in its determination to acquire nuclear weapons. I don’t believe that conventional realist diplomacy will convince the Ahmadinejad regime, especially when the latter can see the fraction that exists among the major nations that try to stop it from acquiring its nuclear arsenal, such as presently Russia and China, to change course and submit to the demands of this seemingly powerful combination of nations. I believe that only a diplomacy that is backed by the threat of an unequivocally resolute use of military action against Iran, if the latter does not conform to its dictates, and which makes it quite clear to its leaders that such action will not only target its nuclear plants, but, also, its political and religious leadership in toto as well as the higher echelons of the military. I think that such a “kiss of death” diplomacy pressed upon the foreheads of the triangular leadership of Iran, has the great potential to sow the seeds of division within it that could oust the radicals and replace them by moderates, who would be keen to accept the injunctions of this “armed” diplomacy.

Thus a “palace revolt” against the theocratic regime could be instigated by means of diplomacy, and usher your policy of regime change in the most peaceful way. And needless to say only the USA under your leadership could exercise this diplomacy. Of course such diplomacy will not attract multilateral support. This, however, will not be an obstacle to your resolute leadership. But you will have the support of the Coalition of the willing, and that will be enough on this high stakes issue. The probability of achieving this peaceful transformation of regime change is far from being a long shot. But if uncertainty, that rules in the affairs of men and beyond, uncannily plays its mischievous role and negates this probability, then you will have no other option but to resort to a pre-emptive attack against Iran’s nuclear plants and against its triangular leadership.

Mr. President, it’s a terrible and tragic burden to carry on your shoulders. But that is the price that statesmanship must pay in this most dangerous times that issue from the coupling of terrorists and rogue states armed with nuclear weapons.

Alea jacta est

Melbourne Australia

TIME FOR RALLYING AROUND A STRONG LEADERSHIP

2006-04-14T03:46:00.000-07:00

TIME FOR RALLYING AROUND A STRONG LEADERSHIP

Con George-Kotzabasis

"The greater the danger is, the greater is
the need to reach agreement quickly and
easily about what must be done; not
misunderstanding in times of danger
is what human beings simply cannot do
without in their relations". Friedrich Nietzsche

Francis Fukayama in his intellectual volte face from a neo-conservative who supported the war in Iraq has now, with the difficulties that have issued from the war, turned himself into a "soft-power" conservative. In his article in The Melbourne Age on April 8, 06, "Time For Softer, Smarter US", he argues, "that before the Iraqi war, we were probably at war with no more than a few thousand people who would consider martyring themselves and causing nihilistic damage to the US", whereas now we are facing tens of thousands as a result of our invasion of Iraq. Because of this America should use "soft power rather than hard power" promoting "political and economic development... by focusing primarily on good governance, political accountability, democracy and strong institutions". Another reason why a soft power policy is more prudent is that the "unipolar world that emerged after the Cold War has stoked broad new currents of anti-Americanism", and one way to mitigate the latter is for the US to use its power latently, instead of displaying it arrogantly. Also, the broader involvement of international institutions is a prerequisite, if this new policy is to bear its fruit. Although he concedes that these institutions "are inherently slow, rigid and hobbled by cumbersome procedures". And he admits that the implementation of such a policy cannot be quick and would "require tremendous patience". But the conundrum of what to do with the war in Iraq continuous to haunt him. As he states, that "walking away... would leave a festering terrorist sanctuary". And finally,and unwillingly, giving credit to where credit is due, to President Bush's doctrine of pre-emption, he acknowledges that the war against terrorists could be pre-emptive and could often violate the principle of national sovereignty.

There are however historical, political, and strategic reasons that Fukayama's soft power strategy will be a greater failure than the presumed failure of hard power. Moreover, one cannot contrive "smarter" US policies as a recipe of success. All policies of government in their major part are made by smart people. But in the scope of their implementation are often "outsmarted" by a multiplicity of variables that no human mind can foresee or imagine or absolutely control. But that does not mean that one has to be nihilistic about intelligence. The latter rules the world, but it's not an absolute sovereign. It has its limits. And within these limits governments carry out their realpolitik on calculations of the highest probability and without being immune from committing errors. The war in Iraq is an illustration of this. It started with a smart military strategy which within three weeks defeated Saddam's army. But at the commencement of the American occupation, US strategists committed a series of mistakes, such as the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the delay in setting up an interim Iraqi government, which had the result that units of the disbanded military personnel regrouped into the ranks of the future insurgency. No one anticipated that from the ashes of the defeat of Saddam's forces the Phoenix of insurgency would rise. Only a clairvoyant could possibly see the unraveling of this possibility and could have prevented the errors of the Americans.

But let us deal with the main reasons why Fukayama's soft power idyll has no chance of being successful. The historical and political ones go together. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a result of its inability to compete with the unsurpassable economic and military power of the US, the latter became the sole hyperpower in a unipolar world. It carried, like Atlas, all the burdens of the globe on its shoulders as well as the responsibilities of keeping the world in order, and suppressing either by diplomacy or force the tribal and sectarian conflicts that would arise from nascent states in their pursuit to expand and consolidate their power, but which could destabilize parts of the rest of the world - not to advert to the humanitarian issues. But responsibilities are coupled with dangers. Dangers that emanate both from success and failure. The US has both on its scorecard. The defeat by the might of its military power of the Axis alliance in World War II, and especially the defeat of the Soviet Behemoth by its economic power and belligerent diplomacy, brought in its wake both the admiration and the envy of the world upon the US. But admiration is a passing passion, unlike envy. The former lasts as long as when the performance ends. The duration of the latter however does not end in one act, but continues to exude its bitter vapors against the US as long as the latter dominates the world scene. Monopoly of power, generates monopoly of hate. Not only by nations that have been pushed by the US from their former positions of power, but also by nations that have been America's allies during the Cold War, as a result of being cast to play, as nations with proud cultures such as France, a secondary role in the affairs of the world. And of course, by most Islamic nations, whose failure to make their entry into the world of economic development and prosperity blame America for their condition, which is more likely than not the outcome of their failed culture, and the overdetermination of their people's lives by religion in a secular world where people can only succeed by adopting whole-heartedly the latter's values.

This is the fate of America as "Prometheus Unbound", in a unipolar, unequal, and enviable world. Whatever America will be doing in the affairs of the world, it will not be able to avert the wrath of these nations. Even its most benign, if not altruistic, humanitarian actions will be seen as having a rapacious interest at hand. In the political domain, the policies of democracy, good governance, that Fukayama is suggesting, if they are going to be implemented under US auspices, will be seen by many nations as latent expansion of US imperialism. America therefore finds itself in the unenviable situation of being "damned if you do, and damned if you don't".

But in the dangerous situation that the Western world has been placed by the attacks on New York and London, it's better to be damned for one's actions than for one's inactions. As strategically,only by swift hard power action can one ward off and prevent such danger from expanding into an even more lethal form than 9/11. And this cannot be otherwise, even if, because of the magnitude of scale and its uncertainties, mistakes will occur, as it happens in all wars, in the performance of these actions.

A strong leadership, such as the Bush administration is - despite the critique of the malevolent rabble-rattlers of the media and the populist cocottes of its political opponents - cannot mortgage its strategic policies against this potential mortal threat to the weathervane of polls nor to its fickle allies and that Babel of discord and indecision, the United Nations. And the people of the Western world who have not lost their pride for the achievements of Western civilization, must rally behind a strong leadership that protects this civilization from the deadly attacks of a horde of fanatic barbarians.

A CURSE IS HAUNTING

THE LEADERSHIP OF EUROPE

A revisiting curse is haunting the ruling elites of old Europe, the curse of Munich. The three witches of Macbeth have taken leave of their domicile on the Scottish highlands, to settle on the banks of the foggy politically putrid vapors of the Seine, the Neva and the Rhine, to brew their curse while singing in unison their ditty, weakness is strength and strength is weakness. It's this same ditty, that the diplomatic emissaries of the accursed triumvirate of Chirac, Putin, and Schroeder - the latter being now replaced by Angela Merkel who apparently would like to take a sturdier pro-American stand but she is politically constrained in doing so - will be singing too in the international forums that are attempting to deal with the critical situation that is unfolding in Iran. Tragically, however, the repetition of the disastrous policy of the Munich appeasement, which John Maynard Keynes called heroic cunctation, in our century, is not going to be repeated the second time around as farce, as Marx presaged, but even as a greater tragedy than the trail of events that followed the appeasement of 1938. Alas, this is the apocalyptic threat that is posed against the West by Iran's future acquisition of nuclear weapons, whose unappeasable fanatic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in his pursuit to wipe Israel off the map, and to destroy even, Khomeini's Great Satan, America, as a holy warrior would deploy with paradisiacal bliss against the infidels of the West. Especially, when he has made it translucently clear that he wants to bring "the reappearance of Imam Mahdi, the Messiah, who would herald the Last Judgment and the end of the world", to quote Dr.Leanne Piggott, from the University of NSW. Moreover, the Islamic Jihadist alliance of Iran with a sundry of suicidal terrorist fanatics who operate on a global scale enhances this threat at an exponential rate and makes it even more ominously real.

How Western nations, especially the United States, will respond to this perilous threat emanating from the uncompromising fanatical stand of Iran's president, is the most crucial issue of our times. There is no room for optimism that Iran's "unbalanced act", under its present leadership, will fall into the net of diplomacy. Especially, when its leadership is witnessing the lack of unity and discord that exists among some major Western nations, as well as with that powerful outsider China, as to the best way to frustrate and stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. Its leaders therefore make the safe wager that these nations will be unable to consolidate a strong unshakable unity that would prevent Iran from entering the nuclear club. Thus the religious fanatic Ahmadinejad, is taking lessons from the most secular of modern dictators while the leaders of old Europe shut their eyes before these lessons. If the transmigration of souls, according to ancient belief, could bring back Hitler's soul, this time embodied in the form of a lecturer giving seminars on topics of brinkmanship, political bluff and deception, in which he excelled, among his audience one would notice the peculiar absence of Europeans, with one exception, and the presence of a few Americans from a rare breed, considering their strong isolationist heritage, but not from the blue ribbon states. However, one could not miss the conspicuous presence of a swarthy southern Asian, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself, who being keen to learn the arts of diplomatic mendacity, dissembling, and cozenage, from a master virtuoso -- who was able to transfix the Prime minister of a great country, Britain, in a state of irremediable illusions that played such a tragic part in not preventing the great catastrophe that would befall upon the world -- was absorbing in a state of trance the imperative lessons that the transmigrated soul of Hitler was exuding. Thus it was, that the present leaders of old Europe, whose peoples in the recent past had suffered death and destruction on an immense scale, as a result of incomprehensible and unforgivable errors of judgment, a welter of unimaginable illusions, and a cowardly lack of resolve, by their political predecessors, are doltishly unable to comprehend the lessons of that tragic era and deliberately are closing their eyes to the diplomatic debacles an ensemble arriviste European politicians had suffered in the hands of Hitler. Thus, Talleyrand's touchè about the Bourbons, that they have "learnt nothing and forgotten nothing", completely applies to the present parvenu leaders of old Europe.

But to respond in advance to those who argue that there is no parallel and no similarity between Hitler's Germany and Ahmadinejad's Iran, either in industrial-military power or in ideology (after all Ahmadinejad has not written his Mein Kampf), is to be purblind to the reality that in a war of a clash of civilizations between Islamofascism and Western freedom, the former as an aggressor does not have to be the equal in overall industrial or military might over his enemies, but only to be relatively equal in the ultimate destructive weapon. And his strength from the fanatic resolve that emanates from a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, which is the godly substitute of Mein Kampf, makes his ideology even more dangerous than the one of the Nazis. Moreover, Iran would possess an enormous strategic advantage over its infidel enemies by having at its disposal numerous suicidal fanatic terrorists, both from Muslim countries and those residing in the West, as fifth-columnists, whom once it had supplied with weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, with portable nuclear weapons, would deploy them lethally against the West.

The contention that the possession of nuclear weapons by Iran would not pose a threat to the West as the former would follow, like the Soviet Union, the logic of deterrence, the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, is completely wrong as it totally disregards the fundamental difference that propelled the geopolitical ambitions of the Soviet Union and those that propel Irans. The former, despite the rhetoric of its uncompromising ideology, from its inception always encompassed in its policies Western rationale and realpolitik, from Lenin's NEP, New Economic Policy, to Stalin's alliance with Hitler, which was epitomized by Stalin's question, how many divisions does the pope have? Such a stand by the Soviets was hardly surprising, since the father of its ideology Karl Marx was profoundly steeped in the culture of Western civilization, not to mention the fact that Russia itself after Peter the great was part of that civilization. Also, a more recent example of realpolitik by the Russians was Krutchev's blinking before Kennedy's naval blockade of Cuba, and the threat this confrontation between the two superpowers portended for mankind.

Contrariwise, the Iranians under the fanatic leadership of Ahmadinejad, whose goal is to bring the City Of God on earth, rationality is overtly absent from his policies of aggression, especially when he perceives that its enemies sui generis are morally and politically weak and would not be willing to jeopardize the comforts and luxuries that flow from an unruffled economic development by taking a stand of belligerence against Iran that would imperil their comfortable lives. An illustration of such a misconceived perception was, first, the belief of Osama bin Laden that he could directly attack the US without the latter retaliating against him and the Taliban with all the might of its military force. And secondly, Sadam Hussein's belief, that by manipulating the peaceful propensities of the major European countries, of France, Germany, and Russia - since they were lavishly feeding themselves off from the trough of corruption that Saddam had provided for their insatiable greed, through the oil-for-food programme, they were careful not to destabilize this sumptuous trough - he would be able to check the Americans from attacking him. In both these cases it was the "irrational exuberance", to use a term of the former Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, of bin Laden and Saddam that brought their destruction. And it's the same irrationality that enshrouds in its black veil Iran's fanatic leadership. Indeed, president Ahmadinejad's irrationality is even more deep-seated in view of his denial of the holocaust and his statement of wiping Israel off the map. It will also be much more dangerous if this irrationality is going to be armed with nuclear weapons, as it would threaten a great part of the world with annihilation including of course Iran.

To expect that deterrence would prevent such destruction from occurring is a wish of the will-o-the-wisp. The concept of deterrence, in geopolitical terms, has its deep roots in rationality and can only affect and impact rational actors. It would be a great illusion to expect leaders, such as Ahmadinejad, who are ardent believers in final Last Judgment ideologies and whose only rational communication is with the heavenly clouds, would be prone to involve themselves in a rational discourse. This would be especially so, if they sense that their foes are disunited and weak and see themselves holding the upper hand. Indeed, the debility of its enemies in the minds of these fanatics, reassures them that the implacable and uncompromising hard stand against their foes has the imprimatur of their God. Moreover, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and its jumping over all the diplomatic hurdles that so foolishly an impotent leadership of the West placed as a substitute for its lack of decisive action that would have prevented such acquisition, would make Ahmadinejad not only a hero, of almost a Saladinesque stature, among Iranians, but among all the Muslims of the world. Such a great political, diplomatic, and strategic victory over the pre-eminent powers of the West by Ahmadenijad would confer upon him such a political aura that would vouchsafe his presidency in perpetuity. Hence, all the blissful hopes of the West that a robust political opposition could oust the mullahs and Ahmadinejad from the helm of power would prove to be a mirage.

So there are two paramount questions that Western nations must answer. What kind of strategy, and which nation or nations could implement such a strategy that would effectively crash the insatiable desire of Iran's leaders to acquire nuclear weapons? To answer the second question first, the only nation that irrefragably could implement such a strategy successfully is the United States. Supported by a number of nations and their peoples from Europe and Asia that would exclude however Spain, France, Russia, and possibly even Germany under its new government, since the solid support of an American strategy by the latter nations would be highly improbable. The reason being that these nations as lesser powers but with visions of grandeur-with the exclusion of Spain-view the US with envy if not with animosity. Moreover, in a world where the US is the sole hyper-power and these nations are not militarily threatened by another super-power, as they were during the Cold War, they consider themselves to have enough elbow room in the international arena to achieve their differentiated geopolitical interests without endorsing, and in opposition to, US interests. Another politically insurmountable problem is, particularly for France and Germany and some other south-western European nations, even if a new leadership arose within a short time among the latter with a desire to take a pro-American stand, that this leadership would still be politically hoisted on their nations' own petard - as Greece and more lately Germany have shown - as their peoples contaminated with the virus of anti-Americanism, that was so virulently propagated by their former political leaders and cultural elites, would frustrate such a desire. It's for these important reasons therefore, that it would be a stupendous folly of any Administration of the US to believe that its strategy against Iran would be endorsed or supported by the above countries. However, this reasoning does not apply to nations with modicum means of power, as exemplified by many eastern European nations liberated from the Soviet Union's bondage, as well as of nations which were forced to be parts of the USSR, and whose peoples overwhelmingly tend to have amicable feelings toward the United States. Furthermore, they realize that by being allies of America, the latter can protect their interests from the pressures and incursions of their more powerful neighbors, such as Russia and Germany. It's no surprise therefore that some of the Eastern European countries, such as Poland, are deploying their troops in Iraq alongside the Americans.

The corollary of the above problematic, i.e., the lack of a diplomatic consensus between the US and the major nations of Europe and China, is that conventional diplomacy in this confrontation between the intransigent leadership of Iran and the leaderships of the US and the EU, cannot play a crucial role in stopping Iran from accumulating nuclear weapons. Hence, the US will be compelled tragically to use the cruel and violent means of war against Iran if it's seriously concerned that Ahmadinejad armed with nuclear weapons will be a real and a deadly threat to Western civilization. But while consensus diplomacy will be absent, diplomacy will not cease, as it will be replaced by the soloist hyperactive and bellicose diplomacy of the Americans. While the date of the latter's military attack against Iran will not be identified, the reality of such an attack will be forcefully announced by the US government, so that it will leave no doubt about its consummation in the hearing of the Iran leadership. However, before such an attack occurs, this "armed diplomacy" of the US will make quite clear to the Ahmadinejad regime that it will not only be targeting its nuclear plants, but, also, its political, religious, and military leadership aiming at its elimination. This "kiss of death diplomacy" forcefully pressed on the foreheads of this triangular leadership of Iran has a great potential of sowing the seeds of division in its ranks with the result of ousting the radicals of Ahmadinejad and replace them with moderates, who would be keen to accept the injunctions of this armed diplomacy.

Thus, a palace revolt against the theocratic regime could be instigated by means of diplomacy. And usher regime change in the most peaceful way. Of course, such diplomacy will not attract the support of the ballet tip-toeing nations of Europe. But this will not be an obstacle to the resolute leadership of the Bush administration. And the latter will obtain the backing of the coalition of the willing, which will be adequate on this high stakes issue. The probability of achieving this peaceful transformation of regime change is far from being a long shot. But if uncertainty, that rules in the affairs of mankind and beyond, uncannily plays its mischievous role and negates this probability, then there will be no other option for the Bush administration but to adhere to its original principle of pre-emption, to refer to the British historian Niall Ferguson. The US will have no other option but to attack both Iran's nuclear plants and its three-tier leadership.

It's a terrible and tragic burden for any president to carry on his shoulders. But this is the price that statesmanship must pay in this most dangerous of times. Emanating from the coupling of terrorists and rogue theocratic states armed with nuclear weapons.

Alea jacta est

Con George-Kotzabasis (former director of SBS TV 1986-96)

March 10, 2006 Melbourne AUSTRALIA

THE "TREASON" OF THE MEDIA

2006-03-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

   THE "TREASON" OF THE MEDIA

A cosmic tidal wave of Muslim fanaticism is threatening Western civilization and its peoples with destruction. Since 9/11, the terrorist myrmidons of Islam have unleashed a ruthless and relentless war against Western countries in the name of God. With such indefatigably fanatic believers in their godly mission, no compromise is possible and all overtures of diplomacy by Western and other governments are bound to fail. As Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation has said, to the Jihadists, 'war is its own reward, a perpetual condition until Judgement Day'. It is for this reason that all efforts of the United Nations -as it has been shown in Afghanistan prior to the overthrow of the Taliban - to reach some sort of accommodation based on reason with these terrorist zealots and their state sponsors, would be an exercise in futility and would have  no chance of being successful. Fanatic terror can only be strategically compromised and defeated on a world scale only by "platetary" intelligence and military power, whose arsenal and force must be deployed overwhelmingly against the terrorists with no quarter given.

Also, the nations whose political leaderships, such as Bush's, Blair's, Berlusconi's, and Howard's, are clear-sighted about the real stakes of this total war against global terror, which must also involve the rogue states which are the silent, if not the loud, sinister allies of terror, must initiate and undertake covert, clandestine operations against suspected terrorists on a global scale, - as I had suggested in a paper of mine back on October 2001 - as well as against the breeding grounds of terrorism, i.e., the madrassas, wherever they happen to be situated, in the East or in the West.

Total war by definition, is a limitless war against an enemy, and Western political leaders who profess to be involved in such a war against global terror, as both Bush and Blair have averred to be, cannot avoid and eschew its imperative and remorseless demands.  One must use all means and techniques of warfare, including foreign mercenaries organized in covert operations against these shadowy terrorists, whose murderous deeds have no frontiers and all areas of the world are open targets.

One has to recognise, that in total war, one also has to fight the allies of one's foe, in this case the rogue states which directly or indirectly support the terrorists, which is pivotal to the easing of the defeat of the latter. By decisively cutting the Gordian Knot of the logistical support in materiel and manpower the terrorists receive from these states, one irreversibly debilitates the morale and militancy of the former. Hence, total war against the terrorists, is strategically a two-front war. But that does not mean that one has to start a war against all rogue states. Such a course would be strategically foolish! One has only to pick and fight one rogue state, and by defeating it decisively, one  can simultaneously defeat by "proxy" all other rogue states, as the Americans have done in Iraq and as Libya exemplified this defeat by proxy, with the caving-in of Colonel Qaddafi. And it is apparent that Syria is next in line.

In the context of such a total two-front war against global terror, the media in general have an historical responsibility, as the fourth-estate in the political structure of  democratic countries, to generate a factual awareness, beyond any shades of ideology, among its readers and viewers about the real stakes of the war against these fanatic barbarians - an awareness that will mobilize the people of these countries that are engaged in this war to stand unflinchingly behind their governments.

As in any critical armed conflict that involves the survival of a nation, the moral fibre of its civilians is just as important as the moral fibre of its armed forces in the defeat of a mortal enemy, such as the terrorists are. Any moral or intellectual doubts and scruples that the media might have about the justice or strategic correctness of the war, must be expressed with infinite prudence and wisdom without compromising or sacrificing this awareness, in the name of the freedom of the press, that is so vital to the moral strength of its people to support their government in war. The moral fortitude of any  people does not arise from some sort of immaculate conception, but only by falling, like the mythical figure of Antaeus, on the earth of reality that unravels and reveals the dangers that a nation countenances. In this peoples' fall on the earth of reality, the media must be a primary pusher to this fall, as strength can only be generated by the coupling with strength -in the present case, the realization that the strength, the power, of the terrorists can mortally endanger one's existence. Once such a realization imbues the inner being of a people, it instantly conceives in them the mettle and determination to confront this great  danger head on.

It is in this moral and spiritual realm that the Western media could have reached the peak of its achievement. Regrettably however, instead of concentrating its immense power of persuasion to forge and mould the spiritual strength of its readers and viewers, it chose to betray, both to itself and to its audience, its vocational noblesse oblige. It chose to select and pick the most negative, indeed, the most gruesome aspects of the war in Iraq, such as the civilian casualties, the prolonged and apparently irrepressible and undefeatable insurgency, the abuse and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, etc. etc., to make its case against the war.  The result of this enamoured "nuanced" selectivity to which the media is hooked on, was to enfold its readers and viewers into a thick cloud of doubt from which all ability to perceive the whole gamut of this total war against terror was lost.

The impessionistic analyses of events by its commentators and pundits, gave the impression to its audience, that it was their governments which were the real culprits of the war in Iraq. This in turn generated among many peoples, whose governments were involved and engaged in the war, an almost complete discouragement and great doubts about the need and justice of the war. The ominous dark clouds that menacingly loomed over the cities of Western civilization replete with the lightning bolts of the terrorists, were no longer real and became merely a fantasy of the "mythical" and “lying” world of Bush, Blair, Berlusconi, and Howard. But the commentators who believe that Al Qaeda could not obtain weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons from rogue states, or if they did, they would not use them without warning against the cities of the West, are fools and knaves.

Only America, among all the nations of the world, has the military power and resolve to prevent and preempt  this from happening. Ostensibly however, the court jesters of the media are very proud of their intellectual performance before their populist audiences in exposing the above named leaders as the irredeemable liars and wrong-doers of the war. And it is by this breathtaking flippancy that they will claim, as intellectual pretenders, the Nobel Laureates for being the keepers of the freedom of the press.  But history, being neither forgetful nor forgiving, will play an everlasting trick upon them. It will render its harsh and remorseless verdict by condemning this "treason" of the media toward the nations, such as America, Britain, Italy, and Australia, whose leaderships had the moral courage and political acumen to be the gatekeepers of Western civilization, against this surge of fanatic terrorism which threatened, and threatens, to bring all civilized life to an end.

ALEA JACTA EST
Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS  (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96 )
June 8 2005 Melbourne Australia
E-mail: Kotzabasis@bigpond.com

HUFFINGTON'S FALLACY ABOUT WAR'S UNPOPULARITY

2006-03-18T00:04:00.000-08:00

HUFFINGTON’S FALLACY ABOUT WAR’S UNPOPULARITY

Con George-Kotzabasis -- March 14, 2006

A reply to: RUMMY FAULTS HISTORY

Huffington Post-03.09.2006

According to the graph that Arianna Huffington presented in her post, it shows clearly that Roosevelt during World War II was by far more popular than Bush is with the war in Iraq. But while this is obvious, one can also argue that the unpopularity of Bush is not a result of the war itself, but of the presentation of the war, especially in its later phase. The Americans in their majority after 9/11, as similarly they did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, strongly supported the war against global terror and its state sponsors. The war, however, was knocked off its strong base as a result of a serious error of the Bush administration to abandon its tangible base, i.e., the war against global terror, and to link it instead with “intangibles”, i.e., weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the building of democracy in Iraq. Hence irreversibly diminishing the meaningfulness of the war, especially in the face of not finding WMD and the difficulties of installing democracy in the country. Operation Iraqi Freedom, under which the invasion of Iraq was undertaken, was propaganda wise, a total disaster.

The American public did not care one whit about the freedom or the establishment of democracy in Iraq -- as likewise it did not care in its isolationist mood about the European war prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor -- and therefore was completely unwilling to expend American blood and resources for this goal, notwithstanding its humane and idealistic intentions. But it definitely did care about the protection of its security and vital interests. This is why nearly 80% of Americans immediately after 9/11 – despite the unacceptability of the electoral result in Florida by many Americans -- supported the initial declaration of President Bush that this war was a war against global terror that threatened the security of the US and its vital interests. As the American historian Daniel Pipes contends, the invasion of Iraq should have been called “Operation American Security”, as it would have been on this basis that the public would have supported the war unflappably, and would have made the necessary sacrifices for it.

If Bush had not deviated rhetorically from the original and true reason of the war in Iraq, i.e., war against global terror and the prevention of the deadly coupling of fanatic suicidal terrorists with rogue states armed with WMD and possibly soon with nuclear weapons, the war would not have lost, despite the heavy loss of life and matériel, its popularity. It was due to this serious mistake, this rhetorical “misfire” of the Administration from its original purpose that the war lost its “fire”.

Notwithstanding this error of the Administration however, Secretary Rumsfeld’s claim that all wars are unpopular is incontestable and therefore he is right in his history. Backing this claim, upon which Arianna in her congenital bias against the Secretary poured her vitriolic scorn, Rumsfeld has an illustrious defense witness, Roosevelt himself. The latter, despite his enormous popularity, he would still not dare to involve America in the War against the Axis powers, as he was quite conscious of the public’s strong disposition to isolationism and aversion to war. Indeed, he was so cautious that he would not even supply armaments to Britain, as he was concerned that such action would give the impression to Americans that he was preparing the country for war. And he used all kind of devices such as the famous Lend-Lease by which he would supply those armaments to Britain and its allies. Only Pearl Harbor did what Roosevelt would not risk doing without it.

Arianna should douse off all her illusions. We are fighting the “Big One”, as in World War II, in its by far more lethal form, suicidal fanatic terrorism, “the one we have to win”, so that Arianna can continue writing her brilliant satire, and “misrepresent” George Clooney, on The Huffington Post.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON'S ARISTOPHANEAN WIT AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR

2006-03-09T02:44:00.000-08:00

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON’S ARISTOPHANEAN

WIT AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR

A retort: Con George-Kotzabasis

Bush and the Truthiness Taliban

Huffington Post-February 27, 2006

Arianna, coming long ago from an ancient philosophical stock, always presents her arguments with cogency and “tinsel town” wit. But whilst her Aristophanean wit has the power to lift even the basket - laid Socrates into the clouds, she is no Athena, and lacks wisdom. She argues that the Bush administration “sold us the invasion of Iraq” with false claims and half-truths, which she satirizes as “truthiness”, and she jeeringly says that the “’Saddam unleashed mushroom clouds’ could be the logo for the truthiness society”, i.e., the Bush administration. But after the lethal attacks on New York and Washington, the Bush administration, or any administration, would hardly need to sell the war to Americans by sleek and crafty Madison Avenue techniques, as a majority of Americans would have bought the war, and did, at any price.

The fact is, that Bush invaded Iraq not because Saddam had a link to the 9/11 attack but because of the high probability of his link with a future 9/11, that would have been more devastating than the first one. No responsible and insightful political leadership could disregard and discount this probability of a connection between terrorists and rogue states in the near future, and do nothing about it. The war in Iraq had as its primary aim the prevention of this ominous coupling of suicidal fanatic terrorists with rogue states, the latter being willing and able to furnish the former with the lethal weapons that would mortally endanger America and the rest of the West. Only someone who was living in a state of pathological complacency and moral and intellectual indifference, enjoying the stupefying and ephemeral glittering comforts of ones narrow and egotistical existence could have mocked and lampooned the above “truthick” threat as “truthiness”. In times of danger, it’s utter foolishness to indulge in the rambling diversions of witty political satire or in gloomy broodings instead of taking firm action.

Moreover, to bring in Halliburton’s corporate shenanigans, which for many Americans is justifiably an emotional issue, is to bring into the debate of the war the American public “roaring like an oak on fire”, to quote Aristophanes, when more than ever, in face of some US strategic errors, cool deliberation is needed. Especially when, the question as to whether the US should stay the course in Iraq or should cut and run, must be answered by the public and its leaders from the Congress and the House, soberly and wisely. Probing to the highest possible degree whether a premature withdrawal from Iraq would bring in its wake dire and catastrophic consequences for the people of Iraq and of the region in general, and whether it would also embolden the terrorists to perpetrate even more deadly attacks against the US and the West in general. With such high stakes in place, Arianna’s insinuation that corporate greed is a major cause of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is ethically and intellectually irresponsible. It’s also, historically and economically benighted. In all economic systems of demand and supply economic units prosper. In war when the demand reaches astronomical heights only the biggest and the most possibly efficient corporations can supply these huge demands. And by the irreversible laws of economics they are the biggest beneficiaries. But does this economic reality in any way impugn a just war? If I’m allowed to remind Arianna, Themistocles (I’m using this historical event as an illustration not as a comparison in respect to the personal merits of Bush or Cheney to those of the great Athenian), the victor of Xerxes invasion of Greece that saved the latter from despotism and slavery, was subsequently accused of peculation and was banished from Athens. Did this accusation in any way diminish Themistocles’s illustrious standing as one of the greatest generals of his era of whom Thucydides so admirably had written about?

It maybe, that all the above examples are for Arianna seeds sown in a barren soil and she will never reap their invaluable lessons. It seems she is more concerned in vying with comedian Stephen Colbert - whom she calls the “godfather of truthiness” – for the first prize of truthiness, and it’s more likely than not that she will win the Dionysian Oscar for truthiness in this contest of wits.

WIIL IRAQI POLITICIANS LEAD THE COUNTRY INTO CIVIL WAR?

2006-03-02T00:22:00.000-08:00

                    WILL IRAQI POLITICIANS LEAD

                   THE COUNTRY INTO CIVIL WAR?

                   Con George-Kotzabasis   March 2, 2006

Many media commentators, after the murderous rampage of Shiites and Sunnis, have contended that Iraq will not be able to step back from the brink of civil war. But one can still argue, despite the bleak and gloomy events of the week before, for a more optimistic scenario, that Iraq will avoid its fall into a civil war. Two facts stand against the possibility of civil war. The first one is, that nearly ten million Iraqis had taken heed of the calls of their political and religious leaders and participated in last December’s elections. The second one, that all politicians that were elevated in their positions of power did so on the back of a democratic process and not by the barrel of the gun. Hence, the base of their power is the electorate and not any of the militias.

Certainly, the three major factions, the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds do have support among the militias, and the Sunnis might even have some support among the insurgents. But none of these militias separately or combined in two, possess enough military muscle to overwhelm the others or other, and hence determine the political course of the country.  Therefore, none of the political groups that are presently ensconced in positions of power could secure the latter by using the militia that supports them. Any attempt to do so, would lead to a prolonged civil war with all its uncertainties about the outcome, and which would oust many of the politicians from their present positions of power. Hence, the fomenting of civil war is against the vital interests of those who hold power. And it would be most unlikely that Iraqi politicians would be so foolish as to let go the bird that is in their hand for the two birds that are in the bush.

This is why there is a great chance, that the leading factions of this troika, the Shiites and the Kurds will be willing to make the necessary compromises and accommodate some of the weighty demands of the Sunnis, as well as US ambassador Khalilzad’s blandishments to form a government of national unity.

Hence, the balance, whether Iraq will be embroiled in a civil war or not, lies in the wisdom of its politicians. There is a high probability, for the reasons mentioned above, that wisdom is bound to prevail.

AUSTRALIA PROTECTS ITSELF FROM DISLOYALTY OF SOME MUSLIMS

2006-02-26T19:27:00.000-08:00

                  AUSTRALIA PROTECTS ITSELF

                  FROM DISLOYALTY OF MUSLIMS

                   Con George-Kotzabasis February 30, 2006

The Treasurer Peter Costello, is to be congratulated for his insightful and replete with reality comments made in his address to the Sydney Institute, on February 23, 2006. Citizens who are not willing to accept, respect, and be loyal to the laws and values of Australia, and who hold dual citizenship, should be stripped of their Australian one.

Australia is one of the most decent and tolerant countries in the world. It treats all of its citizens and immigrants of all ethnic backgrounds, justly, fairly, with its proverbial “fair-go”, and with no discrimination. But while this is so, it would be a great folly to tolerate any sectarian creed that does not tolerate the values of the majority of Australians, and whose goal is to undermine and erode these values by devious and deceitful means.

Muslim fanatics-and some are in our midst- that have converted The Holy Crescent of Islam into the unholy scimitar of Jihad that is ready to fall and “behead” our Western values, must not be allowed to practice their nefarious activities in our country.

The stalking horse of Muslim fanaticism that has been placed in Europe by the terribly mistaken immigration policies of past governments, is now threatening parts of the Continent with destruction. Either by internal terrorist attacks, as in Spain and Britain, or by the upshot of demographics, as a result of the high birthrates of Muslims. A smaller stalking horse is also in the midst of Australia. And it’s as dangerous, at least to our values, as the one in Europe. This is the issue that governments in Australia have to countenance and resolve. Costello’s robust, no munching words of the problem, opening of the issue that citizens must be loyal to Australian values first, has to be applauded.

What was the reaction of the leaders of the Muslim community? All of them in their “square” unity denounced Costello’s comments as being incendiary and fomenting division between Muslims and the general community, especially when his comments painted the whole Muslim community as being radical and disloyal to Australian values. Costello’s comments did neither, but as usual their leaders raised phantoms to argue their case. More revealing, however, were the critique of the Treasurer by The Montreal Muslim News in Canada, of which one of its prominent hosts is Salam Elmenyawi, the President Of the Muslim Council, on February 24. Its moderator said, that “if we look deeply into the sickness that passes for ‘western values’ one can see why we chose Allah over human made systems of morality and conduct”. This statement in itself speaks volumes of how many Muslims view Western values.

But what was the reaction of the liberal media in Australia? The “dowager” of the liberal commentariat Michelle Grattan, considered the comments of Costello as imprudent as they will incapacitate moderate Muslims to change the views of radicals, and hence, community tensions will remain escalated. She posed the rhetorical question-which she deemed to be unanswerable, indeed, it was, but more to her than to Costello, as we will explain-if you deport the father of a five year old child who was born in Australia, how do you explain to him the reasons of his father’s deportation? Certainly, one has to consider the family of its deported father, but to place it first? If the innocent father of an Australian child was murdered in a terrorist attack, as it happened in Bali, or as it might happen in the future, how would Grattan explain to this child the innocent killing of his father? Thus inadvertently, and as a result of her lack of imagination, Grattan ranks the family of a potential terrorist first and the families of Australia second.

One would expect that the media as the Fourth Estate of a democratic society has the moral and intellectual responsibility to make its audience aware of the great dangers posed by internal terrorism, instead of obfuscating this danger with rhetorical questions as those of Grattan. But history will not be kind to its pundits and commentators. It will condemn them for their marshmallow position toward terror and for the betrayal of their own vocation.

Con George-Kotzabasis (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96)

February 27, 2006 Melbourne AUSTRALIA

INTRODUCTION: UNVEILING THE WAR AGAINST TERROR

2006-02-23T20:46:00.000-08:00

         INTRODUCTION:  UNVEILING THE WAR AGAINST TERROR

The papers that have made this book, have been written in a controversial and polemical style, not for the purpose to provoke polemics with one's pacifist opponents, but for the purpose of making, even if it is small, a contribution toward the defeat of global terror, whose goal is no less than the destruction of Western civilization.

September 11 has placed open societies and their democratic freedoms at the crossroads of victory or subjugation. No intellectualist quibbling or obfuscation can cover and evade this historic fact. Fanatic Muslim terrorists pose a threat to civilized societies of biblical proportions, especially if they acquire weapons of mass destruction through rogue states.

Yet the liberal intelligentsia in its necrophilous stance attempts to shift the blame from the terrorist perpetrators to their victims. In their mind's eyes, September 11 was the comeuppance of America for the ills the latter had "rained" upon the oppressed of the world by spreading its rapacious eagle's wings over the globe in its pursuit of dominance and empire. Thus the terrorist’s threat is subordinated and replaced by the liberal invention of its own "evil empire". Turning logic on its head, fanatic terrorism becomes less dangerous and is transformed into a "lesser evil". In an ironic twist, the threat posed by terrorists against the West, is turned into the threat of the "Lone Avenger". But that the latter might ride through the canyons of America, in his pursuit of punishing evil, not with six caliber pistols in his holsters but with nuclear weapons, is of no concern to them. Hence, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are all liberals. Foreordaining the destruction of Western societies by a fanatic horde of religious barbarians.

People, who have studied history in the sublime pages of Thucydides, Gibbon, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Meinecke, and Huntington, can only rally one answer to this great threat. Fight it to the death with no quarter given to it. History has transparently shown, that the greatest atrocities against mankind were committed by religious fundamentalists, and by all omniscient purist ideologues. Examples are the religious wars of 17th Century Europe, which decimated almost two thirds of its population, and the Nazi and Communist ideologies that massacred millions in the 20th Century in their pursuit to breathe life, like God, to their misplaced and displaced utopias. Muslim fundamentalist inspired terror, is also set in among these dangerous misplaced utopias. But it is even more dangerous, in that its proponents and its fanatically blind activists unshakably believe are guided by the invisible hand of Allah and that they are His instruments.

This is the reason why all diplomatic overtures in this war against terrorism and its state sponsors, are doomed to failure. It is just impossible to negotiate any set of compromises of give and take, which is the substance of diplomacy, with these Muslim fundamentalists. It would just be as futile an attempt, as it would be to argue against God.

My first paper, 'Unveiling the War against Terror' presages precisely the above. The Bush Administration would not enter into this course of diplomatic failure and it would not be lured by the United Nations' siren songs. While it was wise of the Administration to forge a notable coalition against terrorism, the latter would not be indispensable in its fight against terror. The same paper predicts the unconventionality of the war against terror, i.e., the primary role Special Forces would play in this war - and the splendid performance of the Australian SAS Forces in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq, exemplified this role - as well as the defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda, in contrast to the conventional wisdom of most media commentators, who asserted that the American forces would not win and would be bogged down in Afghanistan, just like the Soviet forces. It was also prescient in its finding that strategically it would be a pre-emptive war, hence, anticipating the Pentagon's new strategy against terror and against rogue states. (This paper was sent to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in November 2001 ).

The second paper titled 'U.S. Unilateralism only Alternative to Multilateral Weakness', responds to The Open Letter of the former Governor General Bill Hayden, and of three former prime ministers, Fraiser, Whitlam, and Hawke, and condemns their un-historic and populist stand against America's impending war in Iraq. Their 'un-heroic cunctation', to quote John Maynard Keynes, is another monument of folly build with the debris of Munich. To await for the more and more evanescent imprimatur for the war in Iraq by the UN Security Council, would have been the ultimate inanity. The paper also predicts, that the 'missing star in this constellation of darkness' (the signers of The Open Letter), Paul Keating, would also take an anti-American stand, which soon afterwards he did, but as is his wont as primo uomo, he would give his performance as a "soloist".

The third paper titled, 'How to Legitimize the Interim Government in Iraq’ ... is a strategic proposal and was sent for this purpose to both President Bush and vice-President Cheney in late August 2003. As is shown by subsequent events, the Americans put on a fast track the formation of both the Interim Government in Iraq, as well as the arming of the Iraqis, two of the suggestions that I had made in this paper. I am confident, that my third suggestion, which is the axis of my proposal in this paper, the master plan, i.e., the Iraqi people should be given the equity of the nation's oil wealth, will also be adopted. And the Interim Government of Iraq at its formation in July 2004, will make this historic pronouncement to its people, and by doing so will confer 'unassailable legitimacy' to itself.

All the other papers emphasize that the war against global terror is a two front war, that is, one also has to fight the rogue states if one is serious in defeating this terrorist menace. As these rogue states have the potential of becoming the suppliers of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Moreover, one of them predicts that the defeat of one rogue state, in this case Iraq, will have domino effects upon all other rogue states. And the dominoes have already started falling, as the recent capitulation of Libya has shown.

'The war against global terror and its state sponsors is an existential war, a war of survival, and cannot be fought on humane grounds'. All wars brutalize their combatants and under their immense pressures 'can break the strongest of wills, the best of disciplines'. The war against global terror and its state sponsors magnifies this brutality. Its combatants are fighting, and are threatened by a shadowee enemy and cannot distinguish easily friend from foe. In Iraq, American soldiers are giving candy to Iraqi children, but as soon as they turn their backs to them, the latter are throwing stones at the soldiers in place of thanks. It is due to the heavy pressures of terrorist warfare that the American soldiers' discipline is buckling and, while regrettable and even deplorable, one can see and understand the torture of prisoners in Iraq and in Afghanistan as one result of this. It should also not be forgotten that most of the prisoners were and are terrorists who could provide vital information to their American interrogators about their networks that could save thousands of lives, as well as lead to the defeat of terrorists in the field of battle. 'In such a setting, the torture of prisoners is the tragic price of such a war that statesmanship must pay'.

The papers are not written in the suave language of diplomats nor in the smoothing words of the gentile classes. In times of war, a writer has to mobilize his words, as a general has to mobilize his troops for battle, forcefully. They are written for the purpose of rallying people behind their governments, as a call to arms. They are also written to provoke people to search for the truth and debunk all those who claim to possess it. And last but not least, to salvage the truth of the war from the politically designated distortions and fabrications of its liberal and leftist critics, that has been so characteristic of much Western thinking and so ubiquitous throughout most of the media since 9/11.

Con George-Kotzabasis
May 9, 2004 MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

P.S. The above text is the Introduction of my book “Unveiling The War Against Terror: Fight Right War or Lose The Right To Exist”, that was published in May 2004, and which is available at Readings Bookshops at Hawthorn and Port Melbourne, in Melbourne.

AMERICA: CINDERELLA AND HER UGLY SISTERS

2006-02-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

         AMERICA: CINDERELLA AND HER UGLY SISTERS.
Once upon a time, the curiosity, intrepidity, and adventurous spirit of the descendants of a cosmopolitan civilization of Judeo-Greco-Roman origins, discovered a new continent that would grow in time, on the "downside" of Eden, economically, politically, culturally, and morally, into the most beautiful and fairest of her sex. But like all creatures who are made 'in the prodigality of nature', she would ineluctably attract, and be victim to, the jealousy, envy, and hate of the  "ugly" world. Thus, the American Cinderella, at the peak and bloom of her economic, political, military, and cultural power, would draw upon herself the wrath and jealousy of her ugly sisters. This is in short the story, of the vicissitudes and the fate of the American Cinderella in a hostile, enviable, and unequal world.
It is a stupendous fallacy, and tendentious to believe, that America is hated for its so - called economically exploitative policies, and its arrogant foreign policy, both of which, according to its critics, obstruct and prevent nascent nations from also basking under the sun of economic prosperity and political freedom. On the contrary, the main cause for this resentment against America by these nations, as well as by those with pretensions of global power, such as Russia, France, and Germany, which no longer perch on the top branch of the tree of political power, is the overwhelming and unassailable power that America exercises in the economic, political, military, cultural, and scientific spheres, over the rest of the world.

It is for this reason therefore wrong to premise, that only by changing these so called reprehensible and objectionable policies toward the less privileged nations and turbulent spots of the world, will America be able to stop the waves of hate from crashing against its shores. That ostensibly the emollient to hatred lies in benign actions. Such analysis of the situation, however, is monstrously superficial and deeply faulted. The hatred against America has its roots in the curse of envy. As America's conspicuous eminence in the above named spheres, like Veblen's conspicuous consumption, gives rise to envy among all peoples and nations, who cannot at this stage emulate it.

There is nothing unique or unprecedented throughout all history, that strong civilizations have always distended and expanded their dominance by battering old and opening new frontiers. All dominant powers exercised and demonstrated this dominance in vigorous and often violent ways.  Not only in their unquenchable desire to conquer new lands, but also, when they had to defend their vital interests and their domain from the threatening incursions and forays of potential deadly enemies. And just as often this violent action, or resort to arms by these powers, was unilateral and preemptive. The Greek historian Thucydides, in his depiction of the dialogue between the Athenians and the Melians, gives a tour de force instruction about the reality of political and military power, i.e., the weak must submit and pay tribute to the strong, because if the weak were in the same position as the strong, they would have also done the same thing.

It is the softening of the brain, and not of the heart, that will not concede and accept this reality of power. Moreover, no civilization or nation which possesses such power but is squeamish in using it, will   be able to prevail against its competitors or enemies and eventually, like a lion who is no longer capable to roar, will lose this power and  will cease to be preeminent among nations. And there is no example in history, that a civilization or nation that possessed such power, voluntarily abdicated it. It could only lose it in a clash with a stronger civilization or nation than itself.

In the present historical juncture with the rise of fundamentalist Islam and its terrorist death squads which threaten the stability, if not the viability, of the nations of Western civilization, especially of America, which is the embodiment, the "cosmopolis" of this civilization, the latter as a strong nation, inevitably has to take up the cudgels and defend itself and the world from this deadly menace. No nation or civilization, imbued with a modicum of amour propre and pride for its achievements, would allow itself to succumb, without fighting back with all its vigor and might, to a dangerous thrust of a horde of barbarians. And one must be reminded, that only America, among all other nations, has the technological wherewithal, the military power, and will, to confront and defeat terrorism and its state sponsors on a global scale. Furthermore, the defeat of global terrorism is pivotal on a war on two fronts. Whose critics, among which are Simon Crean and Kevin Rudd of the Labor Opposition, so simplistically and lamentably fail to see or acknowledge. One cannot decisively defeat terrorism without simultaneously fighting and defeating its state sponsors. Both, the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Saddam in Iraq, had this strategic aim. Which regrettably, was not spelled out lucidly and publicly, either by the Pentagon or the White House. And the destruction of the regimes of the Taliban and of Saddam, were, also, part of a quintessential process of 'creative destruction', to use the immortal phrase of the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, for the countries' future economic and political development.

The war against terrorism however, is not solely the responsibility of America. Because apparently it seems the latter is the main target of the terrorists. It is just as well the responsibility of all the free nations of the world. To replicate the American isolationism of the 1930s, during which the ominous dark clouds of Nazism hovered all over Europe, as the Labor Opposition has done by its statements that Australia should concentrate its forces in the region, when the terrorists have only one region in their deadly sight, i.e., the free world, is to 'have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing', to quote Talleyrand. Labor's stand on this grave issue is totally out of joint. While it is in full agreement that Australia must fight global terrorism, it is calling at the same time that its armed forces should stay within the bounds of the region. Apparently, political senility is the disease that is decrepitating the Opposition on this vital issue. Thus by definition, making it completely unqualified to govern the country in these critical times.

As for the calophonous, cheerful cries, of the not so intelligent cosmopolitan liberal intelligetsia, to make love not war, they unimaginatively forget that only because America has fought and is fighting necessary wars, that it is by the "grace of America", that the peace-loving of the world can indulge in their predilection for the gratifications and pleasures of the boudoir. Moreover, they conveniently forget, that it was "peccant" America that saved the world from the twin miasma of Nazism and Communism, which threatened to intern and engulf the world in its monstrous death camps and gulag archipelagos.

America as the sole super-power has the moral, political, and historical responsibility to defend the institutions and mores of Western civilization from this mortal threat posed by muslim fanaticism. As the American political commentator Robert Kagan has brilliantly argued, in the 'anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable', Immanuel Kant's   'Perpetual Peace', can only be achieved by America decisively and relentlessly exercising its mighty power against these deadly foes of life, peace, and freedom. And whilst in such exercise, it is wise to have allies from both old and new Europe, to win this war not only in the battlefield, but, also, in the interlocutory of diplomacy, at the same time, America must not allow itself to be trapped in the power plays and procrastinations of its fickle allies, as are played out in the security council of the United Nations. To quote another political theorist Michael Glennon, 'states pursue security by pursuing power. Legalistic institutions that manage that pursuit maladroitly are ultimately swept away '. (Foreign Affairs May/June 2003.)

The security of the free world which is presently threatened by the baneful and atrocious attacks of al Qaeda and  its affiliate bodies spread all over the globe, can only be accomplished by America using its  military power preemptively and unilaterally, if that is necessary, against these mortal foes.  America, as the embodiment and protector of Western civilization and freedom, has no other alternative but to respond to this challenge of terrorism with all its might. The ghastly specter of fanatic terrorism will not be exorcised by saintly incantations nor by sprinkling with oil its stormy waters. And as no great nation can escape its own destiny, America has no choice but to exercise its military power against this reign of terror, with the wisdom that applies in a Hobbesian world of bellum omnium  contra omnes.

                      CON GEORGE - KOTZABASIS
(Former Director Of The Special Broadcasting Services 1986-1996)

                      June 18 2003

                      MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

                      E-mail   kotzabasis@bigpond. Com

Blog: http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com

A retort Con George-Kotzabasis

2006-02-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Arguing with Bush Professor Juan Cole

INFORMED COMMENT-- January 1, 2006 http://www.juancole.com/

A retort: Con George-Kotzabasis

Professor Cole’s piece is contaminated with incurable negativity. It shows him to be a sturdy contestant for the Bush hate trophy from which so many academics of the Left “rake” their inspiration to make their comments about the grave political issues au courant. He argues that for Bush to state, that the elections in Afghanistan and in Iraq are an achievement of self- government, “is the height of hubris” as such “self-government” is laughable and cannot be constructed under an American military occupation. However, only by distorting the context within which Bush made his statement, can he cogently vindicate his contention against the President. And this is exactly what he is doing. Both in Afghanistan and in Iraq the elections were a massive demonstration of their people of their unquenchable desire for “self-government”, within the context of recently toppled dictatorial regimes. And it’s precisely within such a context that one who is intellectually objective should interpret Bush’s statement.

He claims furthermore, that the invasion of these two countries, especially of Iraq, were not legal. But who defines the legality of the invasion? The UN, which for many years now had lost the plot and resolve to deal effectively with the crises of the world, e.g. Rwanda, the Congo, and presently Darfur in Sudan, not to mention others, and which was steeped in the corruption that Saddam had set up with the food-for-oil scandal? Or would it be the French, the Russians, and the Germans, who were in cahoots with Saddam, whose ingrained envy as politically miniscule and morally petty rivals of the US hegemon induced them to obstruct all the reasonable defensive actions the latter was forced to take, in the aftermath of 9/11, against the two rogue states that sponsored global terror?

But this chapter of history is not yet closed, and the academics that cannot see anything positive emanating from this “illegal invasion” might eventually have a lot of egg on their face.

A retort Con George-Kotzabasis

2006-01-31T01:04:00.000-08:00

                    FIRST REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTORAL

                    VICTORY OF HAMAS       Professor Gilbert Achcar

                    Posted on INFORMED COMMENT-- January 28, 2006 www.juancole.com

A retort: Con George-Kotzabasis

The radical-left, is enamored in using the language and the words (“prognoses”) of the tragic revolutionary Leon Trotsky, with seldom however having the sharp political nous and insight of the great revolutionary. Professor Achcar, by making his “prognoses” about the electoral victory of Hamas on a hastily foreclosed analysis that precludes all other possibilities, may find his prognoses to be completely wrong. He “honeycombs” his argument with the delectable finalities that are so sweet to the intellectual palate of the radical left. He argues, that the electoral result of Hamas “is the final nail in the coffin of its neo-con-inspired, demagogic and deceitful rhetoric about bringing  ‘democracy’ in the ‘Greater Middle East’.

Eager to be the carpenter of this coffin that will bury all lies and deceits of the neo-cons, he cannot see in the sawdust of his own making, that there is a high probability that Hamas in government will not squander the international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, by continuing its belligerence and terrorist attacks against Israel. Nor will it sacrifice on the altar of its radical ideology the financial support it receives from the EU and the US, which will be vital for its continued viability as a government, and more importantly, for the economic survival of its people. (The statements of some leaders of Hamas  – if they really believe this – that if this financial support is cut by the western donors it will be substituted by the financial support of Arab countries is, to say the least, a forlorn hope.)  To do otherwise, is to provoke an uprising of the Palestinian people, including Hamas supporters, against it. And already we have witnessed such a possibility in a dress rehearsal of the clashes between the supporters of Fatah and Hamas in the immediate aftermath of the elections.

Hence, there are more optimistic scenarios that could evolve from the electoral victory of Hamas, than the “gloomy finality” of professor Achcar. One of them is, that Hamas will chose a diplomatic demarche, under mounting international pressure, to resolve its problems with Israel. Thus, there are still many moves to be played on the chessboard of nascent democracy in the Mideast, and the policies of the neo-cons are not yet checkmated, as the omniscient ideologues of the left want us to believe.

AMERICA: THE COST OF ALLIANCE

2006-01-15T23:06:00.000-08:00

              AMERICA: THE COST OF ALLIANCE

                                                  John Langmore The Age—January 9, 2006

A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis

               A NECESSARY ALLIANCE IN A WORLD

               OF MULTILATERAL WEAKNESS

Old socialists never die they just morally and intellectually wither away. John Langmore with his article in The Age demonstrates the veracity of this aphorism. In a world where the values and the peoples of Western civilization are under a mortal threat by the Islamo-fascist suicidal forays, and when many western countries under an American-led coalition are being aware of this threat and are militarily engaging this deadly enemy on the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and in the deserts of Iraq, to say, as Langmore does, that our shared values with the US are declining, is to expose himself as being noetically totally irrelevant in the analysis of events au courant in the world of global terror. By saying furthermore, as a corollary to this contrived “decline” of our shared values, that maybe they are replaced by “the market-fundamentalist economic ideology and complied with neo-conservative foreign policy,” he willy-nilly unfurls the banner of his own socialist ideology whose congenital bias inevitably bars him from being objective about the issue of the American alliance.

The values of open societies and their freedoms are the values that are politically uniting   a modern world and underpin its great economic, cultural and scientific achievements. These values can only decline if the countries that are their beneficiaries and custodians lose the moral and intellectual strength to fight for them when they are challenged by their foes. America and its staunch allies, Britain and Australia, being fully aware of the real stakes of the war against global terror, are in the forefront of defending these values upon which the freedom and prosperity of the West are founded. The legitimacy of their military action has risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of the World Trade Center that portended the great danger that Western civilization faced before the twin dangers of fanatic Islamic terrorism and the upshot of Muslim demographics, especially in the counties of the West, as Mark Steyn so brilliantly adumbrated in an article in The Wall Street Journal.

Langmore’s argument, that America’s de-legitimized actions in Korea, Vietnam, and now in Iraq, needed some sort of apparent legitimacy that presumably was provided partly by Australia, is cognitively and historically unsustainable. First, in regards to Korea and Vietnam, it is as serious as claiming--during the rivalry between the two superpowers for world dominance-- that the Soviet Union’s and China’s support of these countries did not pose a grave threat to America’s interests and to Western interests in general, and somehow the US did not have the moral and political legitimacy to protect these interests. Secondly, in the present case of Iraq, to argue also, that the US’s invasion of Iraq is illegitimate, is to embrace and uphold the politically feeble and morally corrupt arguments of Kofi Annan, Chirac, and Schroeder, who all three, as the Food-For-Oil scandal proved, were in cahoots with Hussein and had therefore a sinister interest to claim falsely that the war against the latter’s regime was illegitimate.  Moreover, to show the selfishness of the US’s actions, Langmore quotes two academics, Stuart Harris, and Amin Saikal who emphasize that “the US has long made clear that the US national interest comes first in its actions.” This is a profound statement! But where in all the history of mankind can we find a nation, that was unwilling to commit suicide, had acted altruistically in its foreign policy? (Langmore, and the two academics of the ANU, should re-read Thucydides and distill some profound lessons about power politics from the tour de force arguments of the great historian). It’s very often the case however, that the “selfish” interests of a great nation coincide and are also beneficial to the interests of its allies. That was so during the cold war as it is so with the war against global terror.

He also contends, that Australia incurred substantial costs in uncritically accepting US intelligence on Iraq, both by its commitment to engage its armed forces in Iraq, and by the abandonment of adhering to international “norms, treaties, and law” embodied in the UN, whose ability and competence to be a catalyst for “conflict resolution, peace keeping…are lost.” First, the US intelligence was shared by all the intelligence services of the major countries of the West, which included the UK, France, Germany, and Russia, as well as Australia. For Australia to have gone against this highly reputable consensus of the most credible, but not perfect, intelligence services of the world about Iraq, its intelligence operators would have had to be “double-agents” of the West’s and Iraq’s intelligence that would have given them exclusively the true real situation about the existence or not of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Despite however this error of US intelligence, the fact is, that Iraq had the technical and scientific apparatus and programs in place to develop WMD, and indeed, nuclear weapons (British intelligence was correct in its probe that emissaries of Saddam had gone to Niger seeking uranium-in spite of ambassador Wilson’s contrary statements, to which the media had given wide publicity, which however, were soon proven to be lies- albeit its government might have been reluctant to supply it), as soon as the UN sanctions were lifted, which Saddam hoped to achieve by the falling out of old Europe with the US  and by the Food-for-Oil corruption.

Secondly, Langmore’s argument, that international norms and treaties, whose custodian was the UN, could play a decisive role in conflict resolution, in this case of Iraq, when the latter contemptuously infringed a sundry number of UN resolutions, and when Kofi Annan’s visit to Saddam, just prior to the American invasion, failed abjectly to bring him along in accepting the peaceful proposals of the UN, is to abscond from reality. And display egregiously his total ineptness to fathom and evaluate Saddam’s stratagem in playing on the diplomatic rift and impasse of France, Germany, and Russia with the US, that Saddam was using so cleverly to further his aims.

It’s the fundamental weakness of the UN’s multilateralism that makes unilateral action, in a world where there is only one superpower, and in a situation when the order of the world or parts of it are gravely threatened, the only realistic option to prevent such a threat from taking a virulent form. The UN, in speaking for the separate interests of so many is incapable of speaking in the interests of all. A present glaring example of this is the situation in Darfur, where, genocide is virtually perpetrated by the Sudanese government and the UN, not unlike the genocide in Rwanda, is incapable of stopping it. The visits of Kofi Annan in Sudan and his diplomatic overtures to its government were completely fruitless and the Secretary General failed miserably in his mission. Nor was he more successful in persuading the Organization of African States to take a strong stand against the Sudanese government and coerce it to desist from its murderous actions. Thus it was, that the interests of all, of humanity, to stop the genocide in Darfur, were sacrificed on the altar of the separate interests of Sudan and of the African States.

Langmore, being a fugitive from reality, cannot perceive that the “rhetorical” diplomatic power of the UN, as an entity of resolving the critical issues of our time and in mobilizing nations to take a stand against aggression, makes it totally unfit to play such a role. Furthermore, he does not realize that in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Bali bombings, Australia’s alliance with the US is crucial for the security of the country. As only the US, among all nations in the world, can defeat global terror. And within such an alliance, or any alliance, the security of Australia cannot come on the cheap.

Con George-Kotzabasis (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96)

January 16, 2006   MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA
                        .

Federall Plan to License Clerics an Absurd Measure Bound to Fail

2006-01-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

              Federal Plan to License Clerics an Absurd Measure Bound to Fail

                                                                                                         Amir Butler

                                                                         The Age—January 9, 2006

A brief response: Con George-Kotzabasis

Amir Butler, of the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network, has let the cat out of the bag. He argues in his article, ‘that it would then be an unwelcome and unfortunate intrusion on freedom of religion for the Muslim Advisory Council to interfere’ with  ‘those religious …clerics,’ who ‘continue to enjoy the support of increasing sections of the Muslim community’, and who are selected…on the sectarian tastes of their constituency.’ (He is talking here about radical fundamentalist leaders and imams).

He may reproach the intrusions of the Muslim… Council, but he must be, as presumably a moderate Muslim, in full support of the “intrusions” of ASIO among those radical leaders and imams and in those increasing sectarian sections of the Muslim community, who as followers of the former could be the hotbeds of home-grown terror.

The jury is still out on Iraqi democracy

2006-01-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

      The jury is still out on Iraqi democracy

                                                      Steven Clemons  -The Australian December 20, 2005

A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis  (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96)

       TURNING POINTS WILL NOT COME

        UNLESS STAYING ON THE POINT

Steven Clemons argues by implication that the Iraqi election was neither a milestone nor a turning point, as “there is still a lot of treacherous ground to cover”. He mocks Kristol and Kagan for writing in the Weekly Standard that the Iraqi election was “an eruption of democracy in the heart of the Arab world”, and Kaplan for stating in the New Republic, that the election “really was a milestone”. And he strikes with the last arrow of his mockery President Bush for declaring that the election “was a landmark in the history of liberty”. But being a professional he does not burn all his boats just in case the history making of the “neo-conservatives” and its Executive in the Oval Office turns out to be right and the arrows of his mockery change into boomerangs. He states, that “Kristol, Kagan, and Kaplan-as well as Bush-may still prove to be correct”, albeit he still holds their position to be “more sentimental than logical-not to mention self-serving”.

But let us respond to the crux of his argument that “beneath this big number [of voters] are some unpleasant realities”. The religious leaders of the country issued a fatwa instructing their followers that it was their “religious duty to vote”. This was to him “soft coercion rather than a strong buy-in to democratic process”. The importance lies however, that “this big number” of voters followed the directions of their leaders who were themselves convinced of the value of the democratic process and who had embraced it so ardently. In a country such as Iraq, whose people had lived for so long under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes and who had never experienced the benefits of democratic freedom, only their leaders could usher them into a democratic system of government. Kemal Ataturk is the ne plus ultra example of leading his people to embrace modernity after four centuries of Sultanate despotism. Clemons completely disregards, indeed, misses, this historic fact, in his endeavor, so heedlessly and so hastily, to understate the advent of democracy in Iraq. As the most important feature is not in the “buy-in” of democracy by the people, but the successful “sell-in” of democracy to all the religious and secular factions of Iraq by their respective leaders. It is in this “U turn” of the leaders of Iraq toward democracy in their bid to secure power and in their rejection of violence and the barrel of the gun as a means of achieving power, that augurs well for a democratic future in Iraq.

Clemons also argues, that the high turn out of Sunnis at the elections was prompted as a result that many of them were tortured and murdered by the present Shi’ite dominated government, hence the continuation of the latter would further endanger the Sunnis. He concludes, therefore, that it was fear that caused the Sunnis to participate in such great numbers in the elections, and not only “hope and belief in democracy”. But the Shi’ite dominance was installed with the first Interim Government that was elected last January. Why then the Sunnis who were tortured and murdered surely before last October did not participate in the constitutional elections held on this month?

He furthermore states, ‘that most Iraqis…don’t believe that politics is the best…’solution’ to their problems. They feel that violence remains the more pragmatic way to achieve justice and to protect one’s interests”. To say this in the face of all polls that show that security is the greatest concern of most Iraqis and which can only be achieved by the elimination of violence exposes Clemons as being unhinged from reality. Unless of course he believes the proclivity of the majority of Iraqis for violence has the latent aim of the restoration of a new Saddam who would provide this security.
Such a hidden desire by Iraqis for a new despot however is counter factual and goes against the grain of all the probable scenarios that could unfold in Iraq. The rise of a strongman in Iraq could only happen if the Americans withdrew from the country prematurely with the likelihood that their early departure before Iraq was stabilized could spark a civil war.

Finally, in a burst of risible absurdity, he downgrades the “mountain” of neo-conservative strategy, i.e., the spread of democracy, into a “mouse” of political score pointing, by saying with a serious mien, that “framing an election as a success to score political points will only blur the US ability to see what is really unfolding in Iraq”. But if it was not a success could he say that it was a failure? Or would he choose some sort of a hybrid between success and failure, such as Richard Haass’ “ballotocracy”?

Turning points in history are not instant made nor are they made by a spectacular event. They are made in a long hard building process. The turning point in Iraq will come as the policymakers of the Bush administration stay unflappably and with tenacity on their original strategic point of spawning democracy in the Middle East. Iraq is the pivotal point of this strategy that will turn the world of the terrorists and their state sponsors on their own heads. By defeating the insurgency in Iraq it will defeat also by proxy all other rogue states, as Libya has shown, as well as expedite the defeat of global terror. All the indications are that the Americans are going to stay on the point of their victory.

HELMAN ON RICE THE NEW TRUMAN DOCTRINE

2005-12-26T00:24:00.000-08:00

           HELMAN ON RICE THE NEW TRUMAN DOCTRINE

                                                          Ambassador Gerald Helman

                                              Informed Comment (Blog) –December 14,2005

A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis

Ambassador Helman must be reminded that even mountains can be moved by action. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush/Rice international order is a framework for the creation of a new order made in the image of a series of novel actions both in the world of diplomacy and in the field of war. These actions cannot be compared to any actions of the past nor can they be guided by successful actions of the past. Both the unique nature of the present enemy and the revolutionary changes in technology, especially in telecommunications and the advent of the Internet, as well the fundamental shift in geopolitical power, i.e., that the US is the sole hyperpower, demand a pivotal re-evaluation and transformation in the domains of diplomacy and military strategy.

The Bush administration had the historic burden of making this re-evaluation and transformation in circumstances where the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were already galloping with scimitars drawn against America and the infidels of the West. In such circumstances political action, on the part of the US, was the child of necessity born of the coupling of reliable and credible intelligence about the prowess of the terrorist threat and its ability soon to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons supplied by rogue states.

Once the genies of fanatic millenarian terrorism were out of the bottle, the Bush administration did not have the leisurely time to sift through a sieve of deliberation all the evidence it had in hand - and some of it was in conflict both about its source and its credibility - but had to make a swift decision how to confront this enemy on the basis of reliable evidence and of the indisputable fact that Saddam possessed WMD in the past and had used them against his enemies.  As well as having links with many terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda. Within the context of a boundless threat posed by the terrorists, the argument of the critics of the Administration that there was no evidence linking Saddam to 9/11, and therefore his regime should not have been attacked, is puerile and bereft of strategic nous. Saddam’s link or not with 9/11 was already irrelevant. I t was the likelihood of a future 9/11 link that was strategically relevant for imaginative, astute, and resolute policymakers.

Helman argues, that the war against terror “will require strong continuing international cooperation”. But he cannot perceive, that unlike the past when there were only two superpowers in a deathlock and America could get the solid support of all the countries of the West since it was providing the shield that protected them from the threat of the Soviet Union, now that America is the sole hyperpower it would have had great difficulties in receiving this strong cooperation from all the countries of the West. What will America then have to do now that it does not have in its grasp this elusive international cooperation from all the major countries of the world? Helman does not even pose this question least of all answer it.

Finally, he comments on the great importance and influence that NGOs exercised in the aftermath of the Second World War in the economic and political restructuring of the destroyed countries as a guide to the present problems, especially in the Middle East and in Iraq. Though NGOs can still be important in some cases, they are being to a great extent been supplanted by TV and the Internet. The people living under authoritarian and oppressive regimes by having regular access to the above outlets are daily “spoonfed” with information on how other people who reside in democratic countries prosper and live in freedom. That is why it is more than possible that democracy can be advanced by other states. And coming to my opening, it is by decisive and successful action that the Bush administration can move the “mountain” of international cooperation toward itself. There are auspicious signs that the Bush/Rice international order will as yet succeed in this historic task in Iraq.

WHAT was not a lie

2005-12-08T04:04:00.000-08:00

               WHAT WAS NOT A LIE

                                                         Frank Rich New York Times November 27, 2005

A reply:      Con George-Kotzabasis

Frank Rich is an erudite and a stylistic writer. And his words are often searing as lava streaming down a mountaintop. But while “rich” in the vein of his verbalism he is poor in his strategic thinking. He disdains and derides Bush’s and Cheney’s explanation and defense of “the origin of the war” by going to the past. All wars, however, have a past. And the past of the present war is concentrated in two numerals, 9/11. This was the date when the ghosts of terror came out of their closets. And this was the time when the Bush administration would have to “recalibrate” its defensive and offensive strategies in the ghostly world of terror.

After the brutal attacks on New York and Washington, one would hardly need to marshal “doomsday threats…to sell the war”, as Rich claims. Since these attacks had already sold the war to the American public. No “half-truths and falsehoods” could replace the truth and actuality that America was facing a mortal enemy with inestimable lethal resources at his disposal, including nuclear weapons that could be supplied to him by rogue states. The Bush administration having reliable evidence in its hand based on intelligence- not the perfect intelligence that its critics demand which does not exist-had to take action to prevent this ominous threat from possibly snowballing into a “mushroom”.

Undoubtedly, the information and the intelligence in hand were controversial, both about its origins and assessments. But it would have been a gross political error to having suspended any military action until these conflicts between the experts were resolved. Statesmen, in critical situations have to make their momentous decisions on less than perfect information and intelligence. In the human world of uncertainty, it’s on reliable intelligence that the ship of state moves and accomplishes its goals.

Rich may well be satisfied and indeed, feel triumphant in identifying, like so many others, the errors of the war committed by the Administration. But his triumph is the triumph of a “hindsighter”, whose great achievement is merely the starting of the alphabet from Z to A.

The strategic goal of the war in Iraq was to establish an Archimedean point from which it could turn the world of terrorism and its state supporters upon their own heads. The defeat of the insurgency in Iraq had and has the great potential to defeat by proxy all other rogue states, as Libya has shown, as well as put a stop to the global financiers of terror, the Saudis, whose promiscuous funding have set up the indoctrinating grounds of terrorism, in the form of the madrassas. And finally, it would expedite the defeat of global terror.

Rich, on the Olympian mists of his verbalism has missed this strategic reality of the war in Iraq.

A retort Con GeorgeKotzabasis

2005-12-04T23:16:00.000-08:00

                                    THE "BETRAYAL" OF THE MEDIA

A retort: Con George-Kotzabasis to Michelle Grattan’s Lecture with the title: Gate-Keepers and Gate-Crashers, Melbourne University May 2, 2005

The title of your lecture is a misnomer! It should be named the 'Gate-Keepers and the History-Crashers', read as the "betrayal" of the media, in the context of this historic mortal threat to Western civilisation posed by Muslim fundamentalism, in the aftermath of 9/11. But I do realise that as a hostage to the political shibboleths of the past, you could not deliver such a lecture. Only a Charles Krauthammer of the Washington post, or a David Brooks of The New York Times, and closer at home, a Greg Sheridan or a Tony Parkinson respectively of The Australian and The Age, could have given a lecture on this topic.

The betrayal of the media, can be clinically diagnosed by its pathological revulsion against the Bush, Blair, and Howard administrations, whose moral, spiritual, and political fortitude to swim against the populist tide against the war, and to be the defenders, the Gatekeepers of Western civilisation, against this fanatic necrophilous onslaught of terrorism, brought the wrath of its pundits on their heads.

The suitors of the media, passionately courting the "see-through" charms of populism and stricken in the heart by the populist arrow of Venus and mistily fallen in love with it, at the start of the war transformed their love into hatred for the Coalition of the willing. Dizzily enraptured in the flaming vapours of their inamorata, they lost their ability to be clear-sighted about the real stakes of this total war against global terror, and how to defeat it comprehensively. To accomplish the latter, one would have had   also to fight the rogue states (the allies of one’s enemies), such as Saddam Hussein's, which were and are essentially the silent, if not loud, sinister allies of terror. That means that total war strategically, is a two-front war, which cannot but also involve the rogue states. The argument   the “liberal” media used to denigrate the propriety of the war, that is, that no WMD have been found, is chimerical, as all sources who acknowledge that although no hard evidence of WMD has been dug up, Saddam Hussein had the ability and the scientific apparatus in place to develop, just in time, WMD as soon as the sanctions of the UN were lifted. Yet another oversight that the “liberals” of the media continue not to give media coverage to…to their and their civilization’s own peril!

Instead of recognising this simple truism, the media scribblers and their foster siblings of academe, dipped their pens into their malevolent ink and wrote on their "yellow" pages all the abominations of the war that presumably were deliberately perpetrated by the American-led Coalition, and pronounced Zhdanov-like, and omnisciently, Bush's strategy in Iraq as deeply flawed and as a foolish diversion from the war against global terror. Mentally anchored in the still, and by now putrid waters, of their "progressive" socialist ideology of the sixties and seventies, they dug out from the graveyard of history, the "scarecrows" of American imperialism spreading its rapacious wings over the globe in its pursuit of dominance and exploitation, corporate profits from the war, blood for oil, etc., etc. to make their case against the invasion of Iraq, instead of marshalling and concentrating their thoughts on the real cause of the war in Iraq, i.e., the attacks  on 9/11, and the underlying meaning the invasion had  for the total defeat of global terror. Even the French Newspaper, Le Monde, now concedes that Bush after all might be right, i.e., the democratization of the Middle East would be the way to defeat global terror.

That is how it was, that the “liberal” media, unable to liberate itself from the shibboleths, fetishes and wooden idols of their "progressive" ideology, and cast away the rosary of their left-wing devotion, which strangles them morally and intellectually, could not possibly be objective and factual in their punditry about the war in Iraq. And like stunted children, who will not grow up, they will gambol and play out their fantasies on paper and on TV screens, but no serious person will take any notice of them.

In the context of this existential threat that fanatic terror poses against Western civilisation, your lecture in toto was morally, politically and intellectually, a miscarriage.

Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96)

May 2, 2005
Melbourne Australia

E-mail Kotzabasis@bigpond.com

P.S. The above contribution would have been made, if there was discussion from the floor, at a lecture given by Michelle Grattan, with the title 'Gate-Keepers and Gate-Crashers', on May 2, 2005, under the auspices of The Alfred Deakin Trust, at Melbourne University.

Reply Con GeorgeKotzabasis

2005-11-30T00:20:00.000-08:00

Reply: Con George-Kotzabasis to the “critics” of John Stone’s article,

SOME WILL NOT INTEGRATE, - Online Opinion 25/11/2005

John Stone is a highly accomplished, principled, respectable and the wisest of Australians. No other Australian would have deserved the mantle of national leadership on his shoulders than John Stone.

The vacuity and piffle of his “joker-critics” is shown by their inability to see even the witty joke of his last two sentences, least of all to understand his argument. Stone is mentioning a series of events, which as a result of Britain’s failure of multiculturalism, and France’s equal failure of its “assimilation-integration” policies, and the high birthrates of its Muslim migrants, that are now coming to haunt Europe with its destruction, either, by homegrown terror or by the upshot of demographics.

In the Netherlands, thirty per cent of children under the age of thirteen are Muslim. No wonder, the great Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis argues, that Europe by the end of the century will be Muslim.

It’s exactly this awareness, about the dangers that Australia could be facing by a large number of non-integrated Muslims that Stone tries to instill with his article among Australians. The savvy ones will be his “takers”, the obscurantists will be his knockers.

The anti-terror laws: subterfuge no substitute for argument

2005-11-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

                         ANTI-TERROR LAWS: SUBTERFUGE
                         NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ARGUMENT

The anti-terror laws proposed by the Howard government, have brought in their wake the civil libertarians' nightmares - that these laws will destroy civil liberties, freedom of speech and assembly, and eventually and irreparably erode the values of our democratic state. The nightmarish shadow of ASIO and its spooks will forebodingly spread and pervade all parts of our society, and no institution or person will be safe from the horrid intrusions of its ghostly agents. Hence, according to the libertarians' 'apparitional' thinking, the offspring of these laws will be a police state.

But how real are these ugly images -read as concerns of the civil libertarians -beyond the tarot cards of their predictions, and what is the probability that they could change the democratic fabric of our society so drastically resulting in people losing their civil liberties? It's in the adversarial response of the critics to these proposed anti-terror laws, that the answer to the above question lies.

The point d'appui upon which the critics of these laws rest their case is fear. But a one-sided fear - the fear that these laws will deprive us of our freedoms - that totally disregards the other greater fear posed by the terrorists, which will deprive us of our lives. Thus, the libertarians' protection of freedom is the protection of the freedom of the dead.

Let us however be more gentle with their claims, and attempt to examine them historically and rationally as they stand. They claim that the anti-terror laws will be implemented in an unfettered and shadowy way - without oversight or legal scrutiny by parliament or any other relevant authority - by ASIO and other security agencies against suspect terrorists and without the latter having recourse to the normal judicial processes that are part and parcel of a just state. They also claim, that these laws "can be used to deal with a range of issues beyond terrorism" and hence open the backdoor to a police state. Furthermore, they are unprecedented in their sweep, such as "preventative detention of suspects"... stripping them of their citizenship and deporting them, "legal powers akin to wartime than peacetime". John North, the President of the Law Council says that "these laws may bring us in danger of capitulating to terrorists, because they would have achieved their objective".  Maybe we should capitulate to weakness and not pass these laws and hence get bombed, which is the ultimate objective of the terrorists. This seems to be less of a danger to Mr. North. And they assert that there is no certainty that these laws will be effective in preventing a terrorist attack in Australia.
(The quotes above are from Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 17 September 2005.)

This is no more than an ardent attempt by the civil libertarians to demolish the rationale and effectiveness of these laws by employing, as above, subterfuge, legal and philosophical abstractions and scarecrows to make their case. They are unwilling to use concrete historical evidence to make their argument (maybe because such evidence would have been detrimental to their claims) or reason, since the premise of their position is founded on the emotion of fear.

All democratic nations in times of war in the past had to pass legislation that enforced censorship and the detention of suspects propagating and promoting seditious action. And the laws issuing from such legislation had to be applied rigorously against any suspects who could organise themselves into a fifth column within a country at war. But the historically conclusive evidence is that in democratic societies as soon as the war ended, these laws ceased to apply and once again society returned to its former normal state. Undoubtedly, during the application of these laws, mistakes and indeed, abuses were made and some individuals apprehended or incarcerated were entirely innocent. But the scale of the operation and application of these injunctions were so great that it would have been impossible to execute them without making in some cases mistakes and errors of judgment. No human action on any gigantic scale, as for example in war, can ever be error-free. To expect that one could achieve one's goals on such a wide range without human fallibility playing an acting role, both in the mental and moral spheres, is to expect a play about the Fall of Man without any human actors, but only angelic ones, in it.

The human condition is a state of irremediable imperfection. But despite this grim fact, the evolution of human nature has not stopped at its amoebic stage. In the irreversible Darwinian process of the survival of the fittest, the human species had to continuously develop new and more perfect means for its survival. Although these means were far from perfect in a divine sense, they were good enough for its earthly existence. The anti-terrorist laws are in this category of 'good enough'.

Australia, being at war, has no other option but to take these less than perfect hard measures that have a high probability of protecting its citizens from a home-grown terrorist attack. However, the premise upon which any wise legislation or enactment of laws rest, is that these laws must be commensurate to the threat (s) that emanates from illegal action. For example, if there is a spate of housebreaking, parliament has to legislate the appropriate, but not too-harsh laws that could deter this criminal activity from occurring - by jailing the culprits for a short time. If on the other hand, like New York few years ago, when a spate of robberies and murders were occurring which posed a greater threat to the residents of a city than housebreaking, the government would have to pass harsher laws, if it seriously wanted to prevent these 'deadly muggings' from happening, such as those with the 'zero tolerance' passed by the former mayor of New York, Guiliani. Furthermore, because of haphazardness and uncertainty, which is the shadow of all human action, one can never be sure that any laws passed will be completely effective in deterring people from engaging in illegal activities. Nonetheless, despite this ineradicable element of chance that is implanted in all laws, no government can eschew or excuse itself from the responsibility of taking the appropriate punitive measures that have a high probability of being successful against criminal conduct. (A clear example of this were the zero tolerance laws that were enforced in New York. At the time there was a volcanic eruption of protests from civil libertarians that these laws were inhumane, unjust, and ignoble, and that they would be totally ineffective as a deterrent to crime. Their success however, in substantially diminishing crime within a short time, proved its critics to be totally wrong.)

This indeterminacy and unpredictability of all human laws, unlike the physical laws of gravity, in regards to their success against lawbreakers, is moreover augmented, to the highest degree when a government has to legislate laws against a 'consortium' of religious fanatics whose mode of operation has the speed and randomness of quicksilver and whose goal is the destruction of civilised society by the barbaric and ruthless use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear ones, against it. The legislators of these laws that could forestall such lethal terrorist attacks must be aware that all such attacks in the eyes of these fanatics are 'pushed' by the breath of Allah. Hence, the most impossible action(s) fantastically imagined, in the context of such apocalyptic fanaticism, becomes an alarming reality. Muslim fanatic terrorism, has no rational concrete political or social goals, despite its propagandistic pronouncements to the contrary, which are merely a fig-leaf of their real intentions, but only the eschatological goal of destroying decadent Western civilisation. In such circumstances, laws that could be effective against criminal activity would be totally ineffective against zealots who are guided solely by the laws of God.  Hence, one of the most fundamental elements of law, the deterring factor, is completely useless against these fanatics. And this is the reason why the government has to legislate a new generation of laws that would have a chance to be effective against god's outlaws.

In the passing of such legislation however, one has to make a distinction between hardcore terrorists and would-be terrorists. The latter have not reached the point of no return of the fanatics. And either because of fear of what would happen to themselves or to their families, they could be constrained by laws, from entering the gates of hell of active terrorism. This is why the anti-terror laws must be composed of both a 'safe-haven' and a 'purgatory': a safe-haven for those Muslim fundamentalists that can be promptly rehabilitated, and a purgatory for those inveterate and pathological fanatics, whose 'rehabilitation' can only be accomplished, if ever, inside the gates of Infinite Paradise.

To the raw suspect recruits of would-be terrorists, the applied laws must have provisions that they are not going to be treated too harshly, thus leaving them an opening, a safe-haven, to rescue themselves from the relentless squeeze of the vice of the law that would apply to the hardcore fanatics, either as suspects of being active terrorists or as suspects who propagate and incite terrorism - as some of the fundamentalist imams and teachers in Islamic schools do among their followers. To these imams and mentors who actively or by intent engage in seditious activities and the incitement of a holy war against ourselves and our allies, who are also waging war on global terror, the purgatory of deportation, detention, and imprisonment should remorselessly apply. This is where the deterring factor of the law lies against these votaries of fanaticism -in the concrete rigorous harsh application of the laws against them and not in their abstract state as a threat.

This clear distinction of how to deal with the hardcore fanatics in contrast to their greenhorn recruits, has the great potential to sever the association of the latter from the former, and hence 'dry' the pool from which the fundamentalist mentors of a holy war against the West get their recruits.  And by 'deporting' and 'clinking' their perfidious activities the government will effectively disable them from continuing to be the incubators of terror in this country.

The government must not be constrained by any 'legal-niceties' or illusions in the enactment of the anti-terror laws. The latter must correspond to the great threat that external and home-grown terrorism pose to the country. And the curtain has fallen on all discussions, deliberations, and debates about the causes and ideological roots of terrorism. When someone is ready to stab you to death, you don't restrain his action by parleying with him about the causes that made him an assassin. This is the time for action. The government must take no heed of the animadversions and subterfuges of the civil libertarians. All their assertions are no more than a marivaudage, a sophisticated banter, about this grave and deadly serious issue. In its enactment of these anti-terror laws, it must be solely governed by its historical duty to ordain this imperative legislation to protect Australia.

Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS (Former Director Of SBS TELEVISION 1986-96 )

SEPTEMBER 23 2005

MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

E-mail: kotzabasis@bigpond.com or dinosaur3@bigpond.com

The antiterror laws:subterfuge no substitute for argument

2005-11-23T21:50:00.000-08:00

WHY TERROR IS SO TERRIFYING

2005-11-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

           WHY TERROR IS SO TERRIFYING   ( Guy Rundle )

                                                               Crikey: Friday, 18 November, 2005

A reply: ConGeorge-Kotzabasis             Crikey: Monday, 21 November, 2005

Guy Rundle’s tad reply to Gittins comical “statistical” explanation of terror, is a perfect example how can one defeat his argument by his own logic. While he is opening a new perspective that of fear, beyond morality and statistics, and “the cultural character of fear”, and making correctly the distinction between being killed by accident and of being murdered by someone, in his last paragraph he equates these two possibilities, by saying that “terrorism, like car crashes, are simply part of contemporary life”.  If Rundle thinks that the 9/11 terrorist attack was part of contemporary life, then he must be living in-cloud-cuckoo-land.

Furthermore, Rundle “de-escalates” from the premise of his logic, i.e., the “terrifying” aspect of terror and “the fear of being murdered that haunts people” (my emphasis), and according to him, this fear has “a cultural character”, he destroys this premise and therefore his argument, by saying, again in his last paragraph, “that such slightly elevated risk (by means of a “mushroom” device?) is worth taking”. Surely, if the risk is so “slight” it could neither terrify nor “haunt” the people.

Moreover, if fear has a “cultural character” it must be a deeply embedded trait, and therefore it can only be abated, more so in the case of terror, by severe measures that would provide some sense of security to the people. This will inevitably be at the cost of some modicum loss of freedom and to our accustomed way of living. Alas, all existence is a zero sum game!

THE FEAR GAME GAME OUR LATEST SENSATION

2005-11-20T19:48:00.000-08:00

                THE FEAR GAME OUR LATEST SENSATION

                 Ross Gittins       - The Age November 16 2005

A reply:  Con George-Kotzabasis

Ross Gittins with his piece in The Age has reached the dismal lows of his training as an economist. He digs, typically of his profession, and brings up statistics to make his “game” against the fear of terror. Like as if, the actions of fanatic terror could be gauged and explained by statistics.

He must have been temporarily impaired by a bout of aphasia when he wrote his article. Statistics are good in studying and comparing the normal and ordinary conduct of human or animal behavior, not the abnormal skewed behavior of either of the latter. Millenarian fanatic terror and the fear it produces upon its victims, does not fall under the category of normal behavior. Nor is it a “passing” sensation, as he claims. It’s an everlasting feeling that will not go away until its threat is considerably diminished, if not eradicated.

Moreover, one cannot quantify - as apparently Gittins attempts to do - the extent and volume of the threat by any scientific means, and least of all by statistics. The extent of the danger of global terror can only be measured by students of history who have distilled their knowledge from the sublime pages of Herodotus, the great Edward Gibbon, and Samuel Huntington, not to mention others for the lack of space, and by the power of imagination, attributes that are obviously missing from Gittins. Doesn’t he perceive or realize, that the present terrorist “mole-hill” threat could give birth to a mountain full of “mushrooms”?  Doesn’t he perceive the exponential increase in casualties by a possible nuclear attack, once these zealots possessed nuclear weapons, which they would use with glee against the decadent West? Doesn’t he realize, that this is an existential struggle for Western civilization?  And finally, does he seriously believe, that the Bush administration went to war, with all the uncertainties wars are replete with, and the great loss of lives and resources, for the purpose of saving a lesser number of American lives than those falling off  from a ladder?

In the annals of Australian journalism, Ross Gittins’article will be forever pilloried for its analytical flippancy and intellectual banality.

President Bushs declaration of 'mission accomplished'

2005-11-16T18:08:00.000-08:00

                    HOW TO DEFEAT THE INSURGENCY IN IRAQ

President Bush's declaration of 'mission accomplished', at the defeat of Saddam's military power on April 2003, must be haunting the Pentagon's military strategists like a specter. How was it that such a devastating defeat of the dictator’s forces went so awry, and spawned, within such a short time, a deadly insurgency against the Coalition forces and against the people of Iraq?

The American victory over Saddam was brilliant in its execution and historical in its meaning, not only for the future political and economic development of Iraq, and of the region in general, but also, for its potential of sealing the fate of global terrorism, by beginning its death throes on the soil of Iraq. However, notwithstanding this military victory over a brutal regime -  which was  beyond any doubt an accomplice of  the many acts of terror that had occurred over a number of years -  by the Bush administration, the latter committed a number of serious political and strategic errors, that now threaten to take the wind off the sails of this victory. One of these mistakes, was to disband Saddam's military forces in toto, instead of "cleansing" the Saddamites from its ranks, and replacing them with military commanders who would be friendly to the Americans as    as occupying power.

The fearful nature of the dictatorial regime, would not allow any of its high ranking military personnel to have had or to have developed such a standing among their troops,  that would have threatened the overthrow of the dictator. Therefore, neither by the anointment of Saddam Hussein, nor by the personal merit or talent of any military commander, was there any potential leader standing in the wings. Hence, the positioning of new military commanders in the non-disbanded armed forces of Iraq by the U.S. occupying power, would not have risked the possibility that a "strong man"  could rise from the ashes of the Saddam phoenix. Moreover, the Americans as a result of their awesome technological and military power, and the respect this power emanated within the armed forces of Iraq, would be in full control, and would supervise initially, all movements on the military and political milieux of the country. It would have also made unnecessary all the subsequent efforts and expenditure, both of life and matériel, that the Bush administration is now employing in the military training of Iraqis, so they would be able to stand on their own feet and carry the main responsibility of suppressing the insurgency, as the Americans would have already had in place the newly-commandeered Iraqi army to perform this task, if the insurgency happened to emerge - which was most unlikely, and at the least, not have issued forth on such a wide scale -  in the wake of the defeat of the dictator.

Another mistake occurred when the insurgency unfolded. The Americans, instead of ruthlessly using an iron fist to nip it in the bud, and hence prevent it from spreading to many other parts of the country, gave in to the concerns and anxieties of the then Governing Council - which did not have any strategic thinkers amongst it - and adopted their admonitory councel to begin a parley with the insurgents of Fallujah and of Najaf. This diplomatic overture of the Americans however, had disastrous consequences, as it gave the impression to the insurgents that the Americans were doing so out of weakness, hence rallying a rush of recruits into their ranks, both from the Baathists and the foreign Jihadists. One would have thought that the Bush administration had learnt the lessons of the withdrawal from Beirut and Somalia, by presidents Reagan and Clinton respectively -that the worst thing one can do politically, is to show weakness before a fanatic enemy.  The U.S. response should have been to crash with awesome and overwhelming force the insurgency at its inception. This would have been a telling example to would-be insurgents about their fate and would have prevented their rush headlong into the gardens of infinite paradise.

A further error, and perhaps this was the most serious in concrete terms, was that the Americans had failed to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people who would have unshakably supported their plans for the political and economic development of the country, and whose spinoff would be to deny the insurgents any popular support. The Americans had an "oily" trump card in their hand, which by playing it artfully and strategically would have trumped the insurgency in its own game, as is shown below. They should have persuaded either the first, preferably, or second Interim Government of Iraq, to make the historic announcement, that the Iraqi people would be the major equity holders in the profits of oil and to convince the people of Iraq that this was not a promise for the future, but a present tangible offer. Each Iraqi household would have received an advance payment - calculated on the prospective profits of oil of the financial year in consideration - which would be financed either by the World Bank or by the International Monetary Fund. (These proposals, including the hastening of the formation of the first Interim Government and the creation of an elite National Guard, were made by me to the Bush administration, and were sent to President Bush and to the U.S. Ambassador in Australia on August 2003, and to my great surprise and chagrin, the axis of my proposals, i.e., that the equity of oil should be given to the Iraqi people, as a strategic gesture, beyond any other, including humane considerations, was not taken up by the Administration.)

In spite of these "stormy" errors, the American commanders on the ground have not lost the initiative or the power to re-direct the winds of victory onto the sails of their warring yacht. The defeat of the insurgents, however, will entail a new strategy on two fronts. First, on the political front, the American advisors to the drafters of the new constitution should persuade immediately its constituent factions, the Shiites, the Kurds, and the Sunnis, to make an amendment to the constitution which would ratify that the Iraqi people, indiscriminate of sect, will be the major equity holders of the oil wealth of the country.* This will have three momentous political outcomes. First, it will unify an overwhelming majority of the people of the above sects to vote in favor of the constitution in the referendum on the 15 of October. Secondly, it will serve as a palliative to the concerns of the Sunnis, that federalism will weaken the central power of the government - since it will be the central government that will distribute the profits issuing from oil - which they believe would put them at a disadvantage in regards to their share from the revenue of oil, and hence, will deal a blow to their threat that they will oppose the constitution in the referendum, since a substantial majority of their followers will have a primary, irreversible interest to vote in its favor. And thirdly, and just as importantly, the overwhelming support of the constitution by the Iraqi people on the day of the referendum, will sound the bell-toll of the isolation of the insurgents from the people, thus denying them popular support. And this will inevitably ease their military defeat by the  American - coalition forces. This amendment to the constitution, itself, will accomplish in one stroke the 'oil-spot' strategy of Andrew Krepinevich, by swiftly spreading the benefits of security and economic opportunity to the country as a whole.

Secondly, on the military front, the American commanders on the ground must put their main efforts not in killing the insurgents by ordnance only, but by "starving'' them to death. That is, by depriving them of weapons, ammunition, and explosives, with whose wherewithal they are able to continue their lethal campaign. Hence, the focus of this new strategy will be in "killing" quickly the insurgency itself, and not only the individual insurgents - as the supply of the latter, unlike possibly that of armaments, seems to be far from scarce. This will involve new technologies, or even extant ones, that will enable them to detect the vehicles that carry weapons and munitions, as well as detecting the caches of armaments that are hidden in houses and in the ground. With this new strategy the U.S. forces will no longer have the difficult task of finding a needle in a haystack, that is, the insurgents, who appear and disappear among the populace, but in finding and destroying the insurgent's haystack of armaments, which will be an easier task, once the detecting technology is in place. And once this is accomplished on a great scale, it will break, and deplete of armaments, the supply lines of the insurgents,  and thus break the back of the insurgency as its terrorists will no longer have in adequate amounts the armaments and munitions to continue their urban warfare.

The American commanders must also be apprised of the sanctuaries that the insurgents have in countries bordering Iraq, such as Syria, Iran, and Jordan, which not only serve as camps of retreat for the insurgents, whenever they are hotly pursued by the U.S. forces, but also serve as conduits for foreign Jihadists to enter Iraq. Furthermore, these countries, especially Syria and Iran, supply the insurgents, whether by the cognizance of their own governments or not, with arms and explosives, and apparently a lot of this matériel is stored in these countries close to the borders of Iraq. The U.S. commanders on the ground must not be hindered, either by political considerations or repercussions, from taking the necessary action that will destroy these sanctuaries and stores of munitions. One must be reminded, that wars are won not by political repercussions, but by sagacious, resolute and ruthless military action. This is the price that statesmen must pay.

This new strategy applied on the political and military fronts, has the great potential to defeat the insurgency quickly and decisively. The moves of its success depend on the precision and skill of the moves on a chessboard by a master player. The American masters of this justified war, especially its brave commanders and soldiers on the ground, deserve no less than this resounding defeat of these hordes of barbarians. And in turning the pages of history, they will be everlastingly glorified for their coruscating victory.

THE CONSTITUTION OF IRAQ (Voted by the Iraqi people on October 15, 2005)

Article 108: Oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all regions and provinces.

Article 109: The revenues [of oil] will be distributed fairly in a manner compatible with the demographical distribution all over the country

Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS (Former Director of SBS Television 1986-96 )

SEPTEMBER 8 2005

MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL

2005-11-15T00:37:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK TIMES   EDITORIAL:

“PREVENTIVE WAR A FAILED DOCTRINE”

_ September 12, 2004

A reply:  Con George-Kotzabasis

It’s infinitely depressing that the leading newspaper in the world is taking such leaderless position on world terror.
Your editorial, “Preventive War a Failed Doctrine” wins the sweepstakes of one running away from the “draft” of leadership.      Ironically the ending of your editorial, “…in the dangerous times ahead”, also ends and stabs your argument to death. And it pellucidly reveals the stolidity and unimaginativeness of your contention. America will not be there to face the dangerous decades ahead, as it would have been already destroyed. Because of its pusillanimity not to have launched a preemptive attack against its mortal enemies, the terrorists and their state sponsors.

This is a reply to Stephen Mayne's attack on Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun on the crikey site

2005-11-14T00:18:00.000-08:00

This is a reply to Stephen Mayne’s attack on Andrew Bolt of  The Herald Sun on the Crikey site on 10/11/2005

Your commentator Stephen Mayne, in his eagerness to “touché” Andrew Bolt, unwontedly exposed his intellectual shallowness and pronounced infantilism, in the affairs of politics and war.

It’s astonishing, to say the least, that Mayne, who so successfully delves in the intricacies and abstruseness of the stock market, and who can sell a “crikey” for the price of a gold mine – all these achievements issuing from his scientific reasoning, in which it’s obvious he has been trained in – uses the “reasoning” of a fanatic to make his argument against Bolt. It’s clear, that Mayne is completely ignorant of the psychology of fanatic reasoning, that is, in the fictional world where it has originated and nurtured, it will contrive all kinds of fiction to justify its behavior and actions. And he is also unaware, that fanatic reasoning will distrust and doubt even the most reasonable argument. For example, if Mayne was convinced on solid reasonable grounds that the attack on The World Trade Center was the work of al-Qaeda, the fanatic reasoning of the imam of Melbourne will pop-up to deny it  and instead assert  that the attack was the deed of the “twin” conspiracy of the Jews and the Americans.

Australia is a target of terrorists, unlike New Zealand, because it wages war, along with its allies, against a borderless global terror. “Yesterday” in Afghanistan, today in Iraq, tomorrow, who knows, in Somalia, in Sudan? If Mayne is consistent with his implied logic, the only chance – a chance however with highly diminishing returns – that Australia would not be a target, would be to withdraw itself from the war, and hence cause a fissure with the American alliance. But how long this “immunity” from attack would last, when the goal of al-Qaeda and its affiliates is the destruction of the decadent West? According to Mohammed al- Magdisi, the spiritual mentor of al-Zarqawi, in his address to a group of Jihadists said the following: “Do you think that we care about anything more than destroying and ending these bad and rotten regimes [ of the West ] ?  ( The Australian, November,11 2005 )

Mayne would well to concentrate his well reasoned efforts in the affairs of the stock market and in advising his clients how to augment the value of their stocks, where he excels, and not to delve on the issues of war and politics, where he is out of his depth.

                Con GEORGE-KOTZABASIS

A rHow Lawful is the Logic of this Non-Threat?

2005-11-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

                 A retort to professor of strategic studies, Hugh White’s article:

                  “How Awful is this Threat”?   ( The Age  3/10/2005 )

                   “How Lawful is the Logic of this Non-Threat”?

Professor Hugh White’s piece is an historical and logical non sequitur. IRA terrorism , had a concrete political goal, the establishment of an independent Ireland, not the destruction of the UK. The Islamo-fascist fundamentalists, have an eschatological goal, the establishment of a Talibanized Caliphate and the destruction of Western civilization.

He claims, with amazing intellectual levity, and total lack of imagination, that “even nuclear terrorism”does not pose “a threat  to the existence of our society”. It seems, that he is unaware that success breeds success. Once these fanatics succeed in attacking any part of the West with nuclear weapons, they will continue to do this until Judgment Day.

Only one who lives in-cloud-cuckoo-land could believe that this would not threaten the “existence of our society”.

                      Beware of our strategic keepers.

THE "TREASON" OF THE MEDIA

2005-11-11T22:07:00.000-08:00