The Danger of Imitation Defeating Creation

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Knowledge is more poiesis (creative imaginative thinking) than mimesis. Friedrich Nietzsche

Since the beginning of the Renaissance that emerged from the entrepreneurial, adventurous, and calculating spirit of the burgher and mercantile classes of the city-states of Southern and Northern Europe, all the great scientific discoveries and achievements sprang from an unprecedented uniquely fertile soil that was ploughed by the mental and indomitable spirit of an intellectual elite endowed with the cultural values of their unsurpassably rich Judeo-Greco-Roman heritage. Copernicus’ heliocentric system, Galileo’s “E pur si muove,” and Kepler’s elliptical orbits of the planets, were the invaluable harvest from that scientifically fecund soil. It was the bullish age of originality that no obscurantist cassock could possibly prevent from running toward its highest peaks; and the laws of Nature could not be suspended for the benefit of the Church, to paraphrase the sublime Edward Gibbon. It was this creative originality and fearless spirit of a few that since that time brought to the many throughout these centuries to our own, knowledge and enlightenment followed by a cascade of political freedoms and economic prosperity to the denizens of Western civilization. But while creative originality is the Cinderella of the scientific world no Cinderella is without her ugly sister, and in its case its ugly sibling is imitation.

In our contemporary times of the twenty-first century, all the scientific discoveries and innovations originating in the cradle of entrepreneurial capitalism in their imitating form are at the disposal of, and adopted and used by, a caste of Islamist fanatics whose sole and irreversible goal is the destruction of the West and its Great Satan America. Armed with the earthly scientific gadgets of Silicon Valley, and becoming ever more proficient in their use, the holy warriors of Mohammed are pursuing and implementing their heavenly agenda: The destruction of the infidel West and its replacement with the new Caliphate. And there is no paucity of recruits for this grand goal of the religious fanatics. In an incomparably  demographic outburst of growth the young teeming generation of Muslims under thirty, unable to find useful employment of their increasing social and technical talents in their poverty stricken countries whose natural wealth is sapped by their klepto-oligarchies, are full of envy and hate of their cognate young counterparts in the West who climb the ladder of their professional success to ever higher and higher heights, and who are profusely and meritoriously rewarded that opens to them the doors to an exuberant emulative consumption of goods and services that are beyond the reach of the Arab masses. For aeons Muslims having being educated and nourished by an incomparably proud culture and sanctimoniously blindly believing in a religion that is primus sans pares which vouchsafes only to its believers their entry to paradise, whilst the votaries of all other religions are to be cast into hell fire, have a propensity to see their regressive political, economic, and social status as an outcome of the political and economic dominance of the West, especially of the United States, which hampers and prevents their own development and growth. Hence for the leaders of fanatical Islam it’s not difficult within such a context to persuade vexed, acrimonious, and enraged young Arabs that all their ills issue from the rapacious exploitation of Western capitalism. By making a scapegoat of the infidel west they provide the motif to the disgruntled young Muslims to become terror-fodder for al-Qaeda and its sundry affiliates.

And once this ostensibly technically educated young along with those educated in the religious madrassas join the ranks of the jihadists they are trained to imitate all the military techniques and gadgets, i.e., computers and cell phones, and more ominously the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) including nuclear ones all originating from the cognitive fathomless streams and brain power of the ‘Silicons’ of the West. It’s this imitative adoption by the jihadists of the instruments of war that have been invented by western science that makes the holy warriors of Islam, who are hostis humani generis, most dangerous to civilized peoples, especially when these instruments are fanatically used by suicide bombers in pursuit of the seventy-two virgins. In the past asymmetrical power in conventional warfare was the ineluctable warranty that the weaker enemy would be subdued by the stronger. In our contemporary times this indubitable cannon that protected the strong and ensured their victory over a weak foe is reversed. Asymmetrical power used furtively, resolutely, and unconscionably can subdue a stronger power. The Islamist terrorists acting furtively and dressed in civilian clothes have become almost an invincible force. In the near future with the great potential of terrorists acquiring WMD and nuclear ones supplied by rogue states and attacking the metropolises of the West in a form of an encircling and in-depth concerted strategy,  they can paralyse and defeat even a superpower. No serious objective thinking can avoid from coming to this dire conclusion.

 

The Presidency of Idealistic Premises

This is why it’s of paramount importance that the leaders of the West and especially of the United States must deal with, and confront, this ominous and incendiary threat unequivocally with all the diplomatic and military means in their disposal and deploy them remorselessly and relentlessly against such implacable and irreconcilable enemy. As in the art of war a sagacious strategist once he recognizes and discerns an intransigent foe he destroys him while he is still weak and does not allow him to become stronger.

Moreover in the case of fanatical Islam the West and the U.S. will be facing in the near future a ‘bacteriological’ enemy of epidemiological proportions if it does not defeat decisively the avant-garde of terror, i.e., al-Qaeda and its various fanatical offshoots, such as al-Sabaab of Somalia, Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, and the AFPAK Taliban. For if the Obama administration injudiciously decides to wrap-up its military engagement with the Taliban in Afghanistan this will be seen by radical Islam as a definitive defeat of the United States whose corollary will be a monstrously huge increase in Islamist fanaticism and a massive rallying point of its votaries to continue remorselessly their fight against the infidel West and its Great Satan America. It’s in this pool of Islamist success in the field of battle that fanaticism will be nourished and spread like unchecked deleterious bacteria and its host, in the form of suicide bombers, will ultimately threaten the existence of Western civilization.

That is why the United States that is involved in a relentless implacable war with fanatical Islam cannot quit the field of battle until all quite is in the jihadist front of war, until the holy warriors of Islam are defeated decisively. The question however is whether the Obama presidency of idealistic premises, in its attempt to placate and appease its irreconcilable foes by the ‘miraculous’ prowess of diplomacy—which demonstrably both in the Middle East and with Iran has been a total failure– is qualified to deliver this victory in the field of battle.  The omens rather are that President Obama has neither the sagacity, nor mettle and resolution, or inclination, to win this war against the jihadists.

Being an effete ‘Carteresque’ president, he is more prone to settle for an “endgame” of the war in Afghanistan than winning it by increasing the number of troops by forty thousand as requested by his general on the ground Stanley Chrystal. One can presage therefore without letting one’s guard down that President Obama in his coming decision on Afghanistan will reject General McChrystal’s core recommendation by falsely declaiming that the U.S. cannot deploy its sons and daughters and treasury in foreign wars with no end in sight that are not essential and tangential to America’s long term interests. But this will be tragically the legacy of the weak President Obama: By enfeebling American power against irreconcilable enemies he will be putting America’s vital interests at the greatest of risks.

Irritating Reality Rattles Obama’s Supporters

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Obama, Clemons, the liberal intelligentsia and their crowd of senseless cohorts will be placed in history’s wax museum of perfidy for their betrayal of both General Petraeus and General McChrystal, who demonstrably with their savvy strategy of the Surge turned the losing war in Iraq into victory. If the Obama administration now rejects the McChrystal recommendations and turns to seek advise from other untested experts in the field of counterinsurgency, as Secretary Clinton hinted in her interview with Margaret Warner, and dumps the two glorious generals who demonstrably, repeat, saved America from a humiliating defeat in Mesopotamia and from the ominous and dire dangers that would have risen from such a defeat for the security of America and the West, then nothing will save the Obama administration from the obloquy of historians.

In this inconceivably daft proposition of the “intelligentry,” to use the term of the British historian, Robert Conquest, for a withdrawal from Afghanistan, it shows itself to be sans political-strategic nous and moral fortitude. And if Obama reneges from his “war of necessity” and ‘stabs’ in the back the commander on the ground, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, that Obama himself appointed, he will be betraying not only his most conspicuously successful generals, i.e., Petraeus and McChrystal, but also America’s security and vital interests. Ineluctably then Obama will justifiably be a one term president if he survives, as there will be a tragic possibility looming, due to his reneging of his initial strategy in Afghanistan, not to mention other political fiascos, that the trigger will be pulled by the finger of a second Oswald.

The above ignited the following comments on The Washington Note     

 Posted by PissedOffAmerican, Sep 22 2009, 3:56PM – Link

Why would anyone comment on the “points” contained in a post that seemed to advocate, or at least condone, the assassination of President Obama, Nadine?

Tell us again how no one is going hungry in Gaza, you ignorant wretch.

You know Kotz, if you’re going to talk about spirituality, you should probably do so from something other than the skull faced devil’s grin that your posts bring to mind.

You should wallow in your celebrity, Kotz, I don’t recall Steve ever editing a post before. It can be your newfound claim to fame; being so fuckin’ rabid that even the tolerance of Steve Clemons was taken to its outermost limit.

Kotzabasis says

 POA

It was not Steve Clemons who edited my post it was his temperament of the moment.

Posted by PissedOffAmerican, Sep 22 2009, 8:45PM – Link

“It was not Steve Clemons who edited my post it was his temperament of the moment“

Really? Lets put it to experiment;

Post something that stupidly satanic again, and lets see if he removes it.

Posted by kotzabasis, Sep 23 2009, 6:01AM – Link

POA

Clemons is a realist and he knows deep down in his heart that what I said “a tragic possibility looming,” i.e., assassination, is only too real. It was only in a moment of emotional detachment from reality that he edited my post as in it I neither “advocated” nor “condoned” an assassination, as you falsely stated with the intention to ‘demonize’ what I said. Clemons, however, is wise enough, unlike you, to keep and expend his emotions in the boudoir where they can be lustfully productive and not unwisely, like you, take them and squander them on the snow covered peaks of politics.

But I understand, you in your political infancy see all kinds of bogeymen attacking you and take cover under the blanket. So now you can add another bogeyman to your attackers, my “stupidly satanic” verse on reality since you are too cowardly to face that reality.

Reply to American Pessimist about the Gains of the Surge

By Con George-Kotzabasis–This was written on June, 2009

Andrew Lebovich continues pessimistically to ruminate on his doubts about the surge and on General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency plan. He states, “The strategic outcome of the surge cannot be determined now” as it depends on the establishment of a democratic Iraq “after our occupation…has ended.” And if the gains of the surge are so fragile and can be lost with a resurgence of al Qaeda how can one say that “Petraeus’s counterinsurgency plan is proven,” as is stated by McCain? He is also concerned about the “Sons of Iraq and other local militias’ being integrated “into the Iraqi security forces” and some of the corrupt practices of the Iraqi government.

Starting in reverse of his concerns, it’s decal like clear that he has not learned anything from the mistakes of the Bush administration when in toto disbanded the Iraq army instead of integrating it in the new army of the Interim government that would have forestalled the future insurgency. The Maliki government is integrating the Sons of Iraq and other militias and hence effectively disarming them instead of letting them hibernate until a possible next round of violence. Lebovich also is oblivious of the fact that corruption affects all governments that have not as yet found their point of stability and their members have a strong proclivity to get as much as they can from an assumed short term in office. However, with the stabilization of the government, as it seems to be happening now in Iraq, corruption can no longer be a stable staple feeding the mouths of corrupt officials.

As to the gains emanating from the surge, Lebovich apparently is unaware that one may have a perfect investment plan that will give one immense gains but if one “misinvests” or squanders these gains in boondoggle projects one is bound to lose them. This however does not impugn or diminish in any way the perfection of the original investment plan. And Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy falls in this category. The danger lies in squandering these gains, as McCain correctly says, before they reach their stated goal, i.e., a democratic Iraq.

Lastly, Lebovich does not perceive that even the most successful of counterinsurgency strategies can only be effective in a different geopolitical milieu if they make the necessary improvisations and modalities in the new context of their implementation. And this elementary principle applies in Afghanistan.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now…

Obama’s “Knife-Throwing” Adviser Stabs General McChrystal’s Advise

All the great struggles of history have been won by superior will-power wresting victory in the teeth of odds or upon the narrowest of margins. Winston Churchill

By Con George-Kotzabasis

President Obama’s “knife-throwing” Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, as depicted by New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, has put the ‘Vietnam knife’ on the throat of an already scared president. It has been reported that he has been telling Obama that if he goes for victory in Afghanistan, he will become LBJ, the domestic visionary destroyed by a foreign war. While his Vice-President Biden to save him from President Johnson’s fate, recommends to him a cowardly decrease in effort, “the chimera of painless counterterrorism success,” to quote The Washington Post columnist, Charles Krauthammer. What is President Obama going to do standing between a knife and a chicken?

It’s quite clear that due to President Obama’s ambivalence toward the Afghan war he is delaying his response to Gen. McChrystal’s urgent call for a substantial increase in U.S. troops as the only way to defeat the Taliban. And  this delay does not only expose Obama’s indecisiveness but also opens a window to the contours of his thinking of how to handle the war and the rationale he will provide to Americans about the reversal from his previous original position.

 On August 17, the president standing before an assembly of veterans declared that Afghanistan was “a war of necessity,” that is, to prevent the Taliban from taking over the country and turning it into a safe haven for terrorists that could attack the American homeland. What has fundamentally changed on the military ground within the short span of two months that is making the conflict no longer “a war of necessity?” Is it possible for the president to cogently argue that al-Qaeda has been weakened to such an extent since August 17, when by his own declaration on that date had conceded that it was not, or that the Taliban has no strong connections with al-Qaeda, as some of his principle advisers are arguing, and if the Taliban were allowed to take over certain areas of Afghanistan it would not provide a safe haven to terrorists? And once they took over these areas Obama’s strategy would ‘contain’ them and would prevent them from taking over Kabul, which the president would not accede to under any circumstances? By what magic formula would Obama stop the fanatically imbued Taliban who would perceive such a back down by the Americans as a defeat of the latter as well as a lack of resolve to stay the course and defend Kabul from its future incursions? Has he forgotten what happened to the Swat Valley in Pakistan when the PakTaliban made an agreement with the perceived enfeebled government of President Zardari to impose Sharia jurisdiction in the area and once it were ensconced in the  Valley it begun making incursions in adjacent areas forcing the Pakistan government to rescind the agreement and to attack the PakTaliban militarily? So what guarantees will Obama have that compacts made by the Taliban will be kept and not be broken when all the evidence shows that all its agreements are temporary until the moment it feels strong enough to attack its enemy and subdue him? And how wise will the president’s new strategy be, as foreshadowed by a series of meetings of his close advisers, that by providing the Taliban with bases in the country and hence strengthening its hold upon these areas either by the willing or forced support of their residents, when the end result will be the absolute strengthening of the Taliban?

In the history of warfare there is no example of a political leader of implementing a strategy that deliberately and fatuously has empowered his resolute and determined enemy with new strength that in a future confrontation with him would make it more difficult to defeat. The iron law of war is to fight an irreconcilable and ruthless enemy whilst he is still weak and deprive him of all opportunities to become stronger. The Ivy Leave lawyer of Harvard, the superlative novice in the intricate affairs of war, is about to ignorantly disregard this iron law and its instructions written “in blood, iron, and sweat,” to quote Winston Churchill. At the great expense of many more American casualties and materiel in the future–if he would be willing to fight his foe and not withdraw with his tail between his legs–than if he continued to fight his enemy as now and defeat him. It’s by such reigning sentimentalism that President Obama will be attempting to decouple the American hegemon from its historic responsibility to defeat the Taliban and save both Afghanistan and Pakistan from the reign of barbarians that would threaten the U.S. homeland and, indeed, the West.

 

General McChrystal’s Recommendations to President Obama

 

General McChrystal, with the unflinching support of the victor of the Iraq war, veni, vidi, vici, General Petraeus, is recommending to his Commander-in-Chief an increase of American troops of the order of 40,000 to 60,000 that in his estimate would have a great chance of defeating the Taliban. He stated, “we must show resolve” and warned that “uncertainty disheartens our allies and emboldens our foes…failure to gain initiative and reverse insurgent momentum” within a year “risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.” Asked whether a limited counterterrorism effort would succeed—Vice-President Biden’s proposal– he said, “the short answer is: no.” To go any other way than counterinsurgency would lose the war, according to McChrystal. This assessment coming from a general who as commander of Special Forces in Iraq played a pivotal role in defeating the insurgency by spreading terror among the jihadists themselves by killing them and capturing them, and who according to his troops “is a one all general.” For these remarks of General McChrystal in the public domain The National Security Adviser of Obama, General James Jones, upbraided and chided him—what a difference makes “a one all general” from a one for all general–saying that he should convey his thoughts to the President through private channels while the latter is in the process of creating a new strategy for the Afghan war. A ‘new strategy? ’ President Obama on March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, announced: “Today I’m announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” The new strategy “marks the conclusion of a careful policy review.”

What is the reason for Obama to be elaborating an even newer strategy when his own picked commander on the ground McChrystal is implementing the president’s “comprehensive new strategy” as set up back on March 27? What has radically changed on the ground since this date other than a relative increase of U.S. casualties and difficulties arising from a resolute enemy forcing an irresolute and strategically weak president wriggling out of his original position and commitment that the war was a war of necessity that the U.S. must win?

It’s beyond any doubt that the president is reviewing his strategy not because the military conditions on the ground have changed within such a short span of time but because his mind has been changed by his close advisers not to persist in a war that the latter consider to be unwinnable. But such advise issuing from his political consigliore is contrary to the foremost expert advise on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism of General Petraeus and General McChrystal respectively. The politically minded Obama, however, is more in tangent with his political advisers than with his military commanders and more concerned to protect himself politically in the short term than to defeat an irreconcilable permanent enemy. Hence, by placing his own interests as primal to the vital interests of the country, he will be contriving disingenuous designs and arguments to convince the American people that his new strategy in Afghanistan is wiser than that of his generals. This is why he needs the time to concoct his deceitful strategy and not because there is a paucity of strategic options that prevent him from deciding.

But Obama is fully conscious that to go against his generals in times of war is far from easy. That is why he is delaying his decision as he weighs the pros and cons of rejecting the advise of his generals. But since his decision will be a decision of character, it’s more likely than not that the timorous president will be convinced by the knife-throwing Emanuel than by the judicious advise of McChrystal.          

Threesome Debate of American Norwegian and Australian what to Do about Somali Piracy

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Somali piracy needs speedy, decisive, and relentless action by the U.S. and its European allies. To wait for the ability of Somalis “to police their own territory” and Somali leaders “to take action against pirates,” to quote Secretary Clinton, involved in the only highly profitable enterprise in a poor country, is to fly in the face of reality. In the event that Somali leaders were willing to do so, their military capacity to achieve this would take years to consummate.

Further, an increase of U.S., European, and Asian vessels and a better coordination between them is totally inadequate to police such a huge “expanse of ocean” as Secretary Clinton herself remarks. To pursue such a policy as Secretary Clinton delineates in her speech is to pursue a chimera. What the U.S. and its allies must do is to attack by relentless means, i.e., by air and commando raids the Somali towns from which piracy stems, and at the same time placing the requisite armaments on merchant ships that will protect them from any approaching pirate vessels. No amount of “carrots” will dissuade the pirates to desist and stop them, repeat, from such lucrative business in such impoverished country. Only their decisive military defeat will persuade them to do so. 

 Dan Kervick says

I agree in part with C-G Kotzabasis’s assessment. We certainly can’t wait for the restoration of the ability (and inclination) of Somalis to police their own territory and to take action against pirates. Somalia is the most failed and dysfunctional of failed states. I also agree that the linchpin of the problem is that piracy in that part of the world is extremely lucrative. The piracy won’t end until piracy is made an ill bargain for the pirates.

But, given that assessment, I have a different view on the best means for addressing the problem, and the chances of success of a coordinated international response.

Yes, the area to be policed is very large. But this isn’t a matter of just sailing around hoping to encounter pirate ships, or hoping to be in the right place at the right time. I assume we have the ability to identify and track most of the ships belonging to these pirates, to share the needed information (though not the sources and methods) with merchant vessels, and to direct force where it is needed in a timely way, especially if we have a larger multinational force of ships in the area. I am also assuming that some of the tagging and tracking means available are clandestine, and are unlikely to be discussed in public.

I also suspect that the economic and other hurdles that need to be cleared so that merchant ships can better defend themselves can be cleared quickly with vigorous, multinational government involvement.

I am somewhat shocked that Kotzabasis would recommend air raids on the home towns of the Somali pirates. No honorable man would defend the intentional killing of the women and children of one’s adversaries as a means of deterring those adversaries. I thought C-G was more chivalrous than that.

Maybe it’s an old-fashioned American outlook based on too many cowboy movies, but I was brought up to believe there were certain acceptable and unacceptable ways of handling these kinds of problems with banditry. Arming and funding more people to ride shotgun on the stagecoach is certainly called for. And sending out posses to track and engage the bandits, and either apprehend or kill them, is also appropriate and in bounds. But sending people to shoot up the towns and encampments where the bandits’ families are located? Not OK.

Kotzabasis says

 Dan Kervick

Thanks for your intellectually amicable and positive response to my post. I’m however surprised that you so facilely assume that these raids will intentionally be killing women and children. The latter will be killed only if the pirates adopt the tactics of the terrorists and use women and children as human shields. So if there is no intentional killing my ‘honor’ and ‘chivalry’ are not besmirched.

Moreover, if you are prepared to put ’stagecoach shotguns’ and send “out posses to track and engage the bandits” then you have to go the whole hog. You cannot exterminate the scourge of piracy by half measures or by chivalric ones.

Posted by Paul Norheim, Apr 16 2009, 7:54PM – Link

A comment to the exchange between Kotzabasis and Dan
Kervick.

Kotzabasis says:

“I’m however surprised that you so facilely assume that these
raids will intentionally be killing women and children. The
latter will be killed only if the pirates adopt the tactics of the
terrorists and use women and children as human shields.”.

Of course no single innocent human being will be killed
intentionally by the Americans (that would be bad PR). But if you
attack by “relentless means, i.e., by air and commando raids the
Somali towns from which piracy stems”, much more innocent
civilians are likely to die than those killed by pirates.

This is an excellent illustration of a certain paradox, namely
between those “irregular” elements who target non-combatants
(or, in direct terrorist operations: civilians), and a regular army
targeting the enemy in ways that inevitably kill a lot of civilians,
not because they are targets, but because the regular army
decides to target the enemy by means that often, and inevitably,
kill more civilians than the irregular elements (pirates/terrorists)
do.

When you look at the tactics and outcome of some recent
events (like the Israeli attack in Gaza, and the Sri Lanka`n army
against the Tamil Tigers), it is indeed very difficult to
distinguish between “terrorists (who) use women and children
as human shields”, and states who send their armies to kill
indiscriminately. If you look at statistics regarding the
percentage of civilians killed in wars during the last hundred
years, you would come to the conclusion that the respect for
civilian lives seem to have diminished drastically – regardless of
terrorists, guerillas, or pirates. The regular armies and the
politicians behind them have their significant share in this
development.

There is no point in mentioning Dresden, Hiroshima, and
Nagasaki to prove that: Iraq is a fresh example.

How many innocent civilians did Saddam Hussein kill? And how
many innocent civilians did Clinton and Bush kill -
unintentionally?

To me it`s always been difficult to distinguish between terrorist
methods and Kotzabasis`”relentless means”. For poor, innocent
women and children, hit unintentionally, I would imagine that
this distinction would make no sense.

Posted by Dan Kervick, Apr 16 2009, 9:49PM – Link

Kotzabasis,

I may have misinterpreted you. There are some people who have recently advocated the *intentional* targeting of the pirates’ towns and kin in order to teach the pirates a lesson. You instead seem to be advocating going after the pirates themselves, and regard whatever happens to the communities around them as collateral damage brought on by the pirates decision to live among other people.

I appreciate that when you talk about “exterminating the scourge of piracy”, you are only logically implying that it is the scourge that must be exterminated, not the people. I hope that’s all you mean. Because as for the people themselves, I think experience with banditry shows that it is by no means necessary to exterminate all the bandits – even if such a thing were possible – in order the deter them from banditry. It is only necessary to change the cost-benefit analysis with which they operate. When it becomes to hard to profit from banditry, and too risky, the banditry ends.

This isn’t a half-measure. It is just a question on of re-asserting the rule of law without inflicting more death and pain on our fellow human beings than is necessary.

Unlike the case with some terrorists perhaps, the pirates do not hide continually among civilian populations plotting their crimes. They frequently float around in boats on the open ocean. Thus, if they are to be targeted for attack, there is no excuse for not targeting them when they are out there on the high seas, away from innocent people. If one can kill or apprehend some transgressor in a way that doesn’t risk the lives of innocents, then one should do so. It is not relevant whether we can pin the “fault” for the innocent deaths on the wrongdoer. What is relevant is that we avoid causing absolutely unnecessary deaths, whom ever is to be assigned the ultimate fault for those deaths.

Let’s not build these bandits up into something more than they are. What is needed now is stepped-up global policing of international shipping lanes, and that calls for increased levels of economic, manpower and intelligence commitment. The pirates are not an army, and civilization isn’t crumbling. We just need to invest more resources than we have previously.

Posted by kotzabasis, Apr 17 2009, 1:18AM – Link

Dan Kervick

Of course you don’t have “to exterminate all the bandits,” and your “cost-benefit analysis” is a perfect measure that would end such banditry. But to reach that measure that would deter the pirates from practicing their deadly enterprise one cannot do it by “half-measures.” It would be a half-measure to draw the gun and not shoot at your enemy. However, your “rule of law” is not a half-measure but no measure at all. These are lawless people that no law will ever restrain their actions.

I’m afraid you are too well- intentioned and too replete with humane genes that disqualify you from being a pragmatic strategist in deadly conflicts. No war has ever being fought clinically without the spilling of innocent blood. The price of freedom and the continuation of a civilized society at times is quite high. Nothing of great value is costless. The question always is whether people have the sagacity, the will, and mettle to pay the price.

Paul Norheim

This is a ‘straitjacket’ detachment from reality Paul. An “excellent illustration” that totally destroys your fabricated “paradox” is Iraq that by indisputable statistics shows that more civilians were killed by “irregular elements” i.e., by terrorists, than by the regular army of the U.S. and its allies. And to infer, sarcastically, that Americans don’t kill intentionally because that would give them “bad PR,” is to denigrate shamefully U.S. armed personnel who have been trained not to kill civilians, unlike the terrorists who are trained to kill them deliberately. .

Posted by Dan Kervick, Apr 17 2009, 7:37AM – Link

“These are lawless people that no law will ever restrain their actions.”

You seem to be confusing enforcement of the rule of law with respect for the law, Kotzabasis. Obviously, these pirates have no motivation to obey the law simply because it is the law. They are not law-abiding people.

For such people, reassertion of the rule of law always requires the imposition of harsh, credible penalties. Some percentage might be deterred by the mere credible threat of these penalties. But others will only be prevented from violating the rules of the road on the high seas by the actual infliction of the penalties.

I didn’t say that we should draw the gun and not use it. I said that in this case it seems likely that whatever force needs to be applied can be applied away from land, and away from innocent people. Yes, sometimes innocent people are killed in justifiable actions. But we shouldn’t recklessly endanger innocent lives just to prove our “will” or “mettle”, not when we can bring the required force to bear without endangering those innocents.

While the pirates aren’t motivated by respect for international rules, they are, as you have pointed out, motivated by profit. As it becomes less and less likely for the pirates that they will profit from attempted acts of piracy, and more and more likely that they will lose their lives or liberty, their banditry will be brought to an end.

Posted by kotzabasis, Apr 17 2009, 9:45AM – Link

Dan Kervick

Lawless people are not concerned with what MIGHT HAPPEN to them if they break the law, but, as you correctly say, by the “actual infliction of the harsh penalties’ imposed upon them, and I would add in this case wherever they are, on sea or land. It would be strategically foolish and inutile to confine one’s tactical operations solely on the “high seas” as well as reveal one’s tactics to one’s enemy. Just a thought experiment. If one had credible intelligence of a high concentration of pirates on land that by hitting them one would have inflicted upon them a devastating blow from which they could never recover, it would be utterly doltish not to use such an opportunity that would shorten the war and overall casualties just because it could entail that some innocent people would be killed.

I used the “draw of the gun” figuratively, not that you said it, in response to your “stagecoach” post, that if you draw it you have to shoot your deadly foe wherever he is, even in a ‘crowded street.’

War has too many imponderables to compute them beforehand with algorithmic precision. McNamara’s “fog of war” is the constant condition. That is why people, and even professional soldiers, avoid it justifiably like the plague. But once one has decided to ‘unsheathe the sword’ then like the “feudal knights one has to make “literal mincemeat of one’s enemies, leaving the clergy to handle the morals,” to quote the great Austrian writer Robert Musil.

Posted by Dan Kervick, Apr 17 2009, 10:25AM – Link

“Just a thought experiment. If one had credible intelligence of a high concentration of pirates on land that by hitting them one would have inflicted upon them a devastating blow from which they could never recover, it would be utterly doltish not to use such an opportunity that would shorten the war and overall casualties just because it could entail that some innocent people would be killed.”

This sort of scenario paints an unrealistic picture of the pirates as some kind of “pirate army” that is best countered by attrition of their numbers until they surrender. I don’t think it works that way. The pirates are fishermen, who have taken to using their fishing trawlers to mount pirate attacks. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden has become a lucrative profession, and people will continue to pursue that profession as long as it remains lucrative. There is no fixed supply of pirates, just as there is no fixed supply of investment bankers. There is no pirate army to defeat.

We can’t bomb all the fishermen in Somalia, nor would that make sense. There is simply no need for this kind of overkill. The pirates attacked a US-flagged ship earlier this month, and that mistake resulted in an extended nuisance, the rescue of the captain, a week of media pants-wetting, three dead pirates and one captured pirate. This outcome is going to have a deterrent effect, and the pirates were dealt with out on the water. With stepped up resources and commitment, we can turn this piracy business into a non-viable enterprise.

Posted by kotzabasis, Apr 18 2009, 12:22AM – Link

It was a thought experiment and you missed its point.

You are digressing into ’softer areas’ from your previous posts and I’ve nothing to add. Piracy now has become to you an ‘economic’ issue and merely an “extended nuisance” and an entertaining vaudevillian play, “media-pants wetting.”

Join the debate

 

 

 

 

Obama Passes Test for Political Inexperience and Weakness

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Obama is like someone who has inherited great wealth (read political power) only to squander it in senseless profligate excesses. He appeased the Russians, as I predicted he would, with the withdrawal of the missiles installation from Czechoslovakia and Poland at the expense of close allies; he tried to browbeat Israel with his no settlement pronunciamento to no avail, as he and his close advisers, including Clinton, astonishingly misread the position of the majority of Israelis on the issue and paying the high price of increasing Palestinian expectations and inadvertently making it a condition for its leadership, that never existed before, for direct talks with Israel; he tried in his Cairo speech to reach a rapprochement with Muslims by praising with intellectual blindness the great achievements of Islam prior to the Renaissance while sweeping under the carpet the great failure of Islam with unprecedented wealth in its hands in our era, without receiving any conciliatory gestures from those who were so gloriously exalted; and presently he is opening negotiations with the illegitimate government of Iran with no explicit and clear restrictions on its nuclear program at the expense of the democratic forces of the country with their great potential to oust the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime, if the Obama administration had taken the prudent stand of not accepting its legitimacy and isolating it from the international community.

In short, Obama, the tyro in foreign affairs and the weakling that I said he was a year ago, is squandering America’s power and prestige in his doltish idiotic diplomacy and he is transforming, slowly but surely, the strength of America into weakness at a time when only the power of the U.S. wisely expended can protect Western civilization from the suicidal and deadly sallies of irreconcilable implacable enemies. Who was it in the Bush administration who said that “weakness is provocative?” Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.      

Periclean Athens and American Exceptionalism

A discussion between a Norwegian and an Australian

America’s Credibility Problem Persists Despite Obama’s Popularity

By Ben Katcher, Washington Note. September 10, 2009

Posted by Paul Norheim, Sep 11 2009, 12:53AM – Link

WIGWAG: “As for Paul’s comment about American exceptionalism, I have a sneaking suspicion that American exceptionalism is actually rather unexceptional. Haven’t all empires or superpowers thought they were exceptional during the period of their ascendancy?”

PAUL: Yes. And some of us have been astonished, reading about, say the Russians under the Tzar in the 18`th and 19`th century, arguing that Moscow was the “Third Rome” (Konstantinopolis being the second) etc, and seeing America expressing similar concepts in the “enlightened” 20`th and 21`th century. These are irrational historical concepts, just like those surrounding the byzantine emperors and the mystical source of their power (they represented God): or like the common perception of the power of the Ethiopian Emperor, the Lion of Judah, descendant of King Solomo etc. – Haile Selassie – while I grew up in Africa.

I`ve always wondered why this kind of superstition still has such strong influence on the minds of the elites in the most technologically advanced society with the best universities. It`s an atavism that the progressive commenter WigWag has no problem accepting. I find it astonishing.

WIGWAG: “While their power doesn’t suggest moral superiority (which they always think it does) doesn’t their ability to influence world affairs well beyond the ability of most other nations actually make them by definition rather exceptional?”

PAUL: Exceptional in the sense of being among the handful of superpowers in the history of mankind, yes, that`s a fact. But the concept of exceptionalism is at it`s core a moral concept, related to a divine/historic mission that goes far beyond simply being powerful. To illustrate the irrationality, the lunatic tendency of this perception, an analogy would be if WigWag, Kervick, POA, Kotzabasis or Paul Norheim suddenly realized that they had been appointed to fulfill a very special historical mission on this planet by God.

In the 21. century I regard this as a lunatic concept.

Kotzabasis says

Paul Norheim

Was it “atavism” when Periclean Athens in its exceptionalism was calling all other people other than Greeks barbarians? You are creating, if not reinventing human nature, fictitious ‘rational’ historical concepts whose only existence is in your wet dreams. Is it “irrational” for anyone who excels in some human attribute, e.g., beauty, intellect, etc., to consider oneself as being exceptional among the mass and to exhibit and display this “exceptionalism” in those areas where one is primus domo? And doesn’t this reaction also apply to human groups and nations?

A miniature illustration of the above is Dan Kervick. Anyone who is not biased against, or envious of, the man, would admit that he excels in constructing beautiful, and grammatically perfect sentences in a beautifully written prose. And one also notices that he is always imbued with the predilection to exhibit this excellence by writing serial comments on the same subject and thus also displaying the nuanced ‘multiversality’ of his thought, although, often, by ‘gearing’ himself on overdrive on the highways of cognition and imagination he moves from the ‘sublime’ to the absurd in his arguments and turns himself into a fool. Do you think Paul, that Kervick does all this out of some “kind of superstition” or “lunatic tendency?”

Paul, it’s obvious from your posts that you are a treasury chest of literary knowledge. But no amount of literary knowledge will save you from the bankruptcy of your political thought. 

Posted by Paul Norheim, Sep 11 2009, 10:07AM – Link

Kotz,

I`m glad, and a bit surprised, seeing that you share my admiration for Dan Kervicks prose. I think you are confusing excellence with exceptionalism – the latter being an ideology with irrational, superstitious sources.

Frank Gaffney expressed exceptionalism in his discussion with Steve, linked to above:

“Those of us who believe that there is something unique, something special, something extraordinary… I dare say exceptional about America, recognise that that it is so in at least substantial measure because of our constitution. (…)and to impute into that organization (the UN) some higher moral stature and authority than we have as a result of our… I think God given constitution…is… I think a serious mistake.”

———————————-
“our… I think God given constitution…” Now, this goes beyond “excellence”, this is superstition, this is exceptionalism as an ideology, expressed in it`s purest form. As I commented then:

Gaffney`s statements imply that America is not only on a historic, but also moral, even metaphysical mission, initiated when God gave the constitution to America and the world through the founding fathers. On a fundamental level, the constitution was not the act of the founding fathers, created through their judgement, their analytical and political skills, their experience, and their studies of different states, laws, and governments through history. The constitution was an act of God.”

I regard this as an example of 21. century atavism. However, if Frank Gaffney actually didn’t believe what he said, then perhaps it was just some neocon junk intended for domestic consume, among the superstitious masses.

Kotzabasis says

You are not only a bad political ‘thinker’ but also a very, very bad logician. The definition of exceptional in the Oxford Dictionary is “unusually good,” “outstanding.” The definition of excellence in the same dictionary is “extremely good,” “outstanding.” Are you going also to re-write the Oxford Dictionary as you are attempting to re-write history? I repeat, was Greece in its Golden Age, under the great statesmanship of Pericles, expressing its exceptionalism that was rooted in its brilliant philosophy and in its democratic ethos and culture-among despotisms and satrapies-a form of superstition?

Posted by Paul Norheim, Sep 11 2009, 9:40PM – Link

“Was it “atavism” when Periclean Athens in its exceptionalism was calling all other people other than Greeks barbarians?”

Do I admire the particular fact that they called all other people “barbars”? No. However, I hesitate to use labels as atavism or superstition on ancient cultures.

Since the Enlightenment was such an important source for the American
constitution, and since we now live in the 21. century, I find it more appropriate to use such labels on people like Frank Gaffney.

“During the George W. Bush administration, the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context. Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein certain political interests, and Americans subscribing to the political theory of neoconservativism, among others, view the United States as being “above” or an “exception” to the law, specifically the Law of Nations. (This phenomenon might be called a priori exceptionalism or “neoexceptionalism,” since it is less concerned with justifying American uniqueness than with asserting its immunity to international law.)”

It doesn`t seem outlandish of me to regard Frank Gaffney as one of those “proponents” supporting this interpretation, does it? And since I talked about Gaffney in the discussion with Steve Clemons that I linked to, that was roughly the definition of exceptionalism that I thought about when I used the word above.

 Kotzabasis says

Initially the core of your argument was the “mystique of the superpower” (America) that has been transformed into a “dangerous sense of EXCEPTIONALISM (M.E.) among the American people and its leaders.” Now that you have become conscious of the shallowness and fragility of your inchoate argument you have shifted the point of its reference to certain individuals, like Gaffney, and your terms of “atavism” and “superstition” apply only to them. And further, so you can have another bugbear in support of your revised contention, you quote Wikipedia that refers to exceptionalism not as “American uniqueness than with asserting its IMMUNITY (M.E.) to international law.” No wonder that with the three-tiered reference compass of confusion in your hand you cannot find the cognitive path to your argument.

Nadine is right! In your total inability to argue the core of your case you are crafting “straw men.” In other words, you are becoming intellectually unhinged.

 Paul Norheim says

 If I wished to change or clarify one thing, it is this: I didn`t say – as you claimed – that “the “mystique of the superpower” (America) that has been TRANSFORMED into a “dangerous sense of EXCEPTIONALISM”. I said:

“But also America itself has often been a victim of this mystique. It GENERATES arrogance. It generates hubris. It generates unrealistic expectations, and a dangerous sense of exceptionalism among the American people and its leaders.”

If I had written it now, I would have preferred to say that the “mystique” ENHANCES (and not “generates”) a dangerous sense of exceptionalism.

———————————————————
But I have a suspicion that you are not so interested in clarity as you pretend.

The biggest mystery to me is this: Why are you, Kotzabasis, dedicating 90% of your post to attacking Steve Clemons, Dan Kervick and myself? Why do you invest almost all your energy at TWN attacking, insulting, and ridiculing us in particular? Why do you spend practically all your time here claiming that we are weak, comical, don quijotic, intellectually and politically bankrupt? Why invest all this time on us, if you really
think so? Couldn`t you chose someone more worthy of being your opponents?

Is it so boring to be retired in Australia?

 Kotzabasis says

 Because all three of you in your political and intellectual weakness and lack of depth are strengthening the dangerous fantasies of soft power and policing methods as an antidote to the dangerous realities emanating from apocalyptic fanaticism that are hovering over the head of Western civilization and threatening it with ‘decapitation’. Of course such an existential threat you and Kervick, if not Clemons, would diagnose as paranoia. But anyone who has studied history, without being a prisoner of it, might come to the conclusion that the art, the vocation of a statesman is to identify promptly an irreconcilable implacable enemy and destroy him before he becomes stronger.

Already the soft power fantasy as embodied in the new foreign policy of Obama is irreversibly failing. In the diplomatic overture to Iran, in resolving the Middle East conflict, and in clinching a concord cordial with Russia, of which Obama was so confident that he would have the support of the latter on the issue of Iran. Now we have Putin and his foreign minister Lavrov declaring that they would veto any resolution in the Security Council that would impose new sanctions on Iran.

Clemons, Kervick, and you, with your characteristic geopolitical and strategic myopia and romanticism could not foresee the failure of this new foreign policy of Obama based on ‘loving- holding hands’ and soft power that is unravelling now before everyone’s eyes.

Political ‘Hornless’ Bulls Stampede against True Facts

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A short reply to: Hot Topic: Israel’s Nukes and Iran’s Nukes

By Steve Clemons Washington Note September 04, 2009  

Indeed, the cognitively and morally ‘hornless’ bulls of The Washington Note (TWN) are in a stampede attacking the red cloth of true facts that Nadine unfurled before their mind’s eyes. But who can assail Nadine’s indisputable facts and formidable logic encapsulated in the first two paragraphs of her first post in this thread?

The westerly civilized Israelis have never threatened with their nuclear arsenal anyone to “wipe” them “off-the-map.” It’s the fanatic millenarians of Iran who have done so! To consider Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons as an equal threat to the acquisition of the same weapons by Iran is to break the barriers of reason. To Israel these weapons are for its strategic defence to be used as a last resort. To Iran they are for its strategic offence not only to destroy Israel but also for its strategic aim to become the dominant power in the region.

And it’s amusing to see presumably serious people, like Dan Kervick, countervailing the Iranian threat with a ‘call’ to Israel to be ‘polite’ and not to have “impertinent expectations” and “utter lack of dignity,” as a non-signatory to the non-proliferation treaty, toward those nations who have signed the treaty and not  tell them “how to conduct their business.”

President Obama is confronting this threat by setting-up diplomatic-love-ins, while at least one political ‘plenipotentiary’ of TWN is expecting ‘polite conduct’ from a nation whose existence is under threat. This is laughable and monumental political infantilism, depicted from another context by king Lear’s uttering, “Nothing comes out of nothing.”

 

Frolicsome Realists of Washington Note Attack Wolfowitz

We’re All Realists Now

By Paul Wolfowitz, Foreign Policy August 24, 2009

Failing to Note the difference When the US Power Tank is Full or Near Empty

By Steve Clemons Foreign Policy August 27, 2009

 A reply by Con George –Kotzabasis

Don Quixote with the ever present Sancho Panza at his heels was attacking windmills with his lance. Don Clemons not with the ever present Sancho Panza at his heels, Dan Kervick—but in critical moments you can count that real pals will show up—is attacking the impregnable cogitative fortress of Wolfowitz with a toy tank whilst Sancho Kervick is riding his intellectual hard working donkey at galloping speed to refill Clemons “near empty” tank so they can demolish the modestly crafted and cogent realistic argument of their bete noire Wolfowitz. It’s in the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza that the ‘slayers’ of the Wolf are made.

The realist Clemons, Oops, the “hybrid realist,” refuses, even at this late stage, to acknowledge that it was this far from near empty tank that defeated the insurgency in Iraq and that under the strong, resilient, and imaginative leadership of General Petraeus won the war in Mesopotamia. And by defeating Al-Qaeda in Iraq America became stronger not weaker as Clemons argues in his piece. But it will become weaker if as a result of the staggering foolishness of Obama in withdrawing US forces from the urban areas of Iraq prematurely that has led to a resurgence of bombings, which if they continue to increase could reverse the relative security of Iraq post-surge and its great potential to build democracy in the country and become a lodestar for the whole region, as both generals Petraeus and Odierno had warned the Obama administration. And for such a dire outcome the total responsibility will fall upon the “hybrid realists” or “policy realists” that according to Clemons rule the roost in Washington, and of course ultimately upon President Obama.

For a realist, of whatever ‘variability’, to argue in the aftermath of 9/11 that the war in Iraq was a Wilsonian idealistic intervention to impose American values and democracy on the country shows how out of his depth Clemons is from any kind of realism. Wolfowitz clearly states that the purpose of the war in Iraq was not to “impose” democracy by force but to “remove a threat to national and international security.” And as he says one can criticize the rights and wrongs of the war without diverting from, and changing, its purpose. Moreover on the issue of Quaddafi’s decision to give up his WMD programs Clemons contradicts his pivotal contention that America’s intervention in Iraq weakened its geopolitical power. For if that was the case and the perception why should Quaddafi need the “assurances” of a weakened America that “he could remain in power” as a trade-off for giving up his nuclear program, as Clemons states? Once again Wolfowitz is right on this point. Quaddafi relinquished his WMD programs because of ‘feared American will,” to quote Wolfowitz, because of America’s projection of power, of ‘can do’ might that spectacularly defeated both the Taliban and the elite forces of Saddam within few weeks and refuted all the prognostications of many pundits and so called realists who contended that the US could not defeat Saddam and would suffer the same fate as the Soviets in Afghanistan.  It was also this display of US will and power that induced Iran to a ‘silent’ cooperation with the United States in the suppression of the Taliban when the US invaded Afghanistan.

Dan Kervick also is out of his depth in realpolitik with his moralizing piece. He states that “we should forbear from intervening because of odious (M.E.) behaviour to us.” States don’t intervene in the internal affairs of other states because of their odious conduct, that is, on moral grounds, but only when their explicit intentions and actions threaten the vital interests of another state. And both the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq was not due to odious behaviour but to the potential and real threat these two rogue states posed to the US and the West in general.

Moreover, international laws in themselves and checks and balances cannot be the balm for the internal and external conflicts of nations, as Kervick argues, in an anarchic world without some dominant power backing these laws and checks and balances with an implicit force and its explicit use when necessary. And in our era this invidious burden and responsibility ineluctably falls on the shoulders of the United States. “Liberty and civil peace” do not fall like manna from the sky and protected by nebulous gods. They emanate from great benign states that are not squeamish to use force whenever this is necessary for their protection. Voila Amerique.           

Cat among Pigeons in The Washington Note

By Con George-Kotzabasis

It’s good and encouraging in seeing a politically realist downy bird from the right like Jim Pinkerton, former senior staffer of the Bush I administration, invited as a guest by Steve Clemons to perch on the intellectually dry branches of the Washington Note. But Clemons must be in a mischievous frolicsome mood, as he deliberately places a cat among the pigeons of the TWN.