Will Obama Pull Out Magnificent Soldiers from Campaign of Victory?

By Con George-Kotzabasis

In the annals of history and war no statesman or military leader ever pulled out his troops from a crucial military engagement at the threshold of its military victory. But in a reversal of these annals it will be written that in the twenty-first century the Commander-in- Chief of a great nation pledged to his people to do just that. Barack Obama will go down in history as the uniquely foolish and shameful commander who pulled out his troops from a stupendously critical operation against global terror while his magnificent soldiers were winning this war. Thus not only depriving his soldiers from returning from Iraq with the laurels of triumph on their heads, but, also, depriving America of the crown of victory. Moreover, this Christian convert inadvertently by this inexcusable political lapse and gargantuan error of judgment, will be passing this victory to his father’s religion, to Islam, to the extremists of Iraq and Iran and al Qaeda. This retreat of defeatism from Iraq will surpass the defeat of America in Vietnam in geometrical proportions whose enormous size can only be measured by a series of reflective mirrors. Such a defeat will strike a Jupiterian bolt to the reputation of America and its ability as the dominant power to continue playing a major and vital role in the geopolitics of the world and steering the latter, whenever it’s possible, to the calm waters of the harbor of peace.

If great events in history could be reversed, like a movie reel, and Obama was cast in the leading role as a malignant fairy able to reverse great past events in such a film, then the great Athenian statesman Themistocles would have withdrawn the Greek fleet from the battle of Salamis that defeated the Persian invasion of Greece; Alexander the great would have withdrawn his soldiers from the battle of Issus that defeated the Persian Empire; Hannibal would have withdrawn his soldiers and elephants from the battle of Cannae that defeated the Republic of Rome; Charles Martel would have withdrawn his forces from the battle of Poitiers that defeated the Saracen Muslims in their invasion of Europe; President Lincoln would have ordered, after the battle of Gettysburg, general Ulysses Grant to stop his attrition of  Robert Lee’s Confederate army that ended the civil war. In such a script, the savant of Harvard sitting behind the desk of the Oval Office would be writing his ignominious magnum opus to the everlasting humiliating dishonor of America.

But the ascendancy of Obama to the presidency is not only a great moral issue for America but also an immense political issue as it strikes an arrow into the heart of the hegemonic status of America as the supreme paramount power in world affairs, especially at a time when Western civilization is facing an existential challenge from the rise of radical Islam and its fanatical irreconcilable implacable cohorts of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. No challenge of such magnitude and prodigious danger was ever resolved by populist remedies and soaring rhetorical chicanery. The ‘wings’ of diplomacy that Obama chose to attach to his ‘body-politic’  and fly over the turbulent spots of the world with the aim of remedying them, are the wings of Icarus that by flying and coming close to these turbulent spots  of the sun will lead to his crash and drowning in his ‘oceanic diplomacy’. But the great tragedy is that this drowning is not merely personal but national, as it will ‘drown’ the power, reputation, and prestige of America as a great nation. Further, it will be a top of the bill gleeful spectacle for all the enemies, begrudgers, and critics of America to see the great eagle plunging and drowning in the waters of its own making.

It’s for all the above reasons that the November election will be a test match whether the hard ball of politics will be pitched by the weak hands of a florid flashy political amateur, by the populist spin-change of Obama, or by the firm hands of the principled experienced politician McCain who embodies Melville’s Captain Ahab’s spirit–which is the spirit of America–that would strike the sun if it insulted him, as McCaine did from his cell in Vietnam.

To be or not to be is the question for Americans who are proud of their nation as the beacon of liberty and the indefatigable resolute protector of the great achievements of Western civilization. Whether America will continue to be at the summit of its benign supremacy that is axial to world order or whether it will be pulled down from this summit by the rash vacuous rhetoric of a wannabe would be president to the peril of the United States and of the West at a time that the latter are threatened by the suicidal holy warriors of Islamofascism.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

World Affairs Guru Picks Up Liberal Bastinado To Beat U.S.A.

A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:
 
Mahbubani Responds: Western Intellectual and Moral Cowardice on Israel/Palestine is Stunning

Washington Note, May 29, 2008

Professor Kishore Mahbubani of the National University of Singapore argues, with his impeccable credentials as an expert in international affairs, of a dawning shift of economic and political power from the round-eyed transcontinental continents of the West to the slant-eyed continent of the East. And in the eyes of Mahbubani it seems that the U.S. after reaching the peak of power and dominance in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries will inevitably fall from the top branch of the tree of power (like Newton’s apple?) pulled by the gravitational force of Asia. Therefore “America should prepare well for a post-American world order”. 

This pending decline of the West and of America is not mainly based on economics that western bears compete with Asian tigers on the global market, but primarily on politics and on the art of political leadership. Although Mahbubani gracefully acknowledges and applauds “the liberal international order which has benefited humanity”, which was the creation of the West and the American hegemon, he claims that presently “Western geopolitical incompetence poses the biggest threats to our international order”. He pinpoints four areas where this incompetence is blatantly demonstrated. The blunders of the war in Iraq and its concatenation to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo bay, the Israel/Palestinian conflict,  the dialogue between the West and the Rest, and global warming. All the four issues of course are the same that the liberal intelligentsia is using to condemn and chastise the Bush administration. Hence Mahbubani by picking up the liberal bastinado to beat the U.S.A. shows himself to be vacuous of any originality in his analysis, since all he does is to replicate and regurgitate the animadversions of the international coterie of liberals who like Charon, are preparing to transport the Bush administration and its Republican successors to Hades. Lastly, he blames and rebukes the U.S. for lacking the will and astuteness in its exercise of global  “governing”  to avail itself the inherent “benign characteristics” of power. Thus implying that in its political engagement with the rest of the world the U.S. is far from being a benign superpower.

The imprescriptible rule in power politics is that there are no benign characteristics in the implementation of power but only pragmatic ones. This is especially so when a nation in its greatness, such as the U.S., is burdened with the historical responsibility to tilt the balance of the world toward peace and to be the supreme arbiter between other belligerent and warring nations. In such a complex context while it’s possible for the U.S. to be benign in its relations with other nations some of the time, it’s impossible of being so all the time. The mere scale of its responsibilities and of having so many balls in the air, forces it to make its judgments on pragmatic grounds and to the highest degree possible with the precision of a juggler that dexterously keeps all balls in the air without letting any of them crashing with each another. And in this magnitude of the scale of its operations it’s inevitable that the U.S. is bound to commit mistakes, especially in the “fog of war” as it has happened lately in Iraq. But the greatness of a nation lies not that it doesn’t make mistakes in its exercise of political, economic, and military power, but in its ability to promptly acknowledge and correct its mistakes, as the U.S. has presently done with the implementation of the new strategy in Iraq that has critically changed the course of the war and which is leading to an American victory.

It’s an easy call for Professor Mahbubani to make his strictures against America ex cathedra without being directly involved in the quotidian, complex, intricate affairs of the world as the U.S. is as the sole superpower. In such involvement there are no magic or scientific prescriptions that can remedy the maladies of the world. There are no precise scientific instruments that can neither timely diagnose the ills of the world nor provide the instant remedies that can cure them. This is the reason why often in world conflicts the “surgeon” is the major domo. Only his dexterous handling of the knife can prevent a situation from getting worse. The Serbian-Bosnian conflict was a clear example. Conversely, the lack of political resolve to use a surgical strike against the Hutu regime in Rwanda led to the genocide of the Tutsis, as it’s also presently happening in Darfur.  But while no surgery is infallible, surgical strikes are unavoidable when a nation confronts an irreconcilable implacable foe. Israel has demonstrated this both in its attack on Iraq’s nuclear plant and on Syria’s incipient one, lately. And an impending attack either by America or Israel on Iran’s nuclear plant might be the next one.

Mahbubani completely ignores this narrative of the complexity and intractability of global conflicts and the often insuperable difficulties that a nation that tries to resolve them finds itself in. To him it’s the incompetence of the U.S. leadership that cannot resolve these problems, and, indeed, due to this incompetence exacerbates them and threatens the stability of the international order. He accuses the West, and by implication the U.S., of “stunning intellectual and moral cowardice” on the Israeli Palestinian conflict and of standing aloof from the “collective punishment” (Me.) of the people of Gaza. Without giving a tad of consideration first that this collective punishment is a result of the intransigency and deadly bellicosity of Hamas, and secondly, in not acknowledging that next to the genocidal punishment of the people of Israel the collective punishment of the Palestinians, even if Israel was to be blamed for, is infinitesimal. Notwithstanding this great threat posed to Israel, Mahbubani claims only the plight of the Palestinian people is the “litmus test” for the West and America.

Further Mahbubani casting himself in the role of “Theodicy”, condemns America for its double standards, for its evilness of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Like a bronze statue impervious and unaffected by the ravages of the weather, Mahbubani is impervious to the ravages of war. He does not recognize that war being the greatest atrocities of all inevitably atrocities of all kinds follow its trail. Even most of its civilized and disciplined combatants will yield to the ugly rules of war—no war can be fought clinically–especially in this case fighting an invisible enemy clad in civilian and often in women’s clothes and who can be identified only at the instance of their terrorist actions. Moreover the religious fanaticism of this “apocalyptic” enemy who believes he follows the orders of his God makes him impervious to any reasonable persuasion that would extract from him information that could save thousands of lives. In such an existential struggle it’s inexorable that human rights and values are secondary and are replaced by human existential rights and values. There are no absolute human rights and the latter are always relative to a particular situation. In the sinking of the Titanic the human rights of men were secondary to the human rights of women and children. Throughout history the values and laws of mankind have a concrete existence and not an abstract one. Their abstract existence is for philosophers but not for philosopher-kings.

Professor Mahbubani by picking the liberal bastinado to beat the U.S. shows himself to be just a follower and an aficionado of the dernier cri, the fads of the global liberal intelligentsia. And he cannot usurp least of all take up legitimately by the power of his intellect and imagination the position of a philosopher-king. He is just a pharisaic sophist superciliously weaving his thesis on the decline of the U.S.A. and its replacement by Asia.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now.

 

Scorpion of Racism Running with Raised Fangs to Sting Obama

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

Paul Krugman: It’s a Different Country

 Race has become less important in American politics, argues Krugman.

 Economist’s View, June 09,2008

In the normal circumstances of the last few years in America “racial division” may have “lost much of its sting”, to quote Krugman,  by burrowing itself in a hibernating state. But with the nomination of Obama as the Democratic candidate America is no longer in its benign state of normalcy–with the war in Iraq, with economic recession and rising unemployment–and racism will be rising from the slumbers of its hibernating habitat. As Nietzsche has said in another context, the true character of a person is revealed in critical circumstances. Likewise, the true character of a society is also exposed in critical circumstances. This is no longer the case that blacks are moving into a white neighborhood but of a black man moving into the White House. It’s this critical issue that will make the scorpion of racism to raise its fangs and sting Obama.

 My prediction is that the white backlash and its auxiliaries, the Latinos and the Asian-Americans, will squash Obama’s ambition to ensconce himself into the Oval Office. America at this stage is not ready to have a black president, especially of one who carries the arrogant public ostentatiousness and spiritual baggage of Jeremiah Wright.

Your opinion

“Diabetes” Bomb Just as Lethal as Nuclear Bomb

A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

Defusing the fear of terror

By Dan Gardner

The Age May 3, 2008

The Canadian journalist and author Dan Gardner amasses a truckload of statistics to make his case that the “fear of terror” cannot be grounded on reality. He uses accidentally caused fatalities such as people suffocated in bed, electrocuted, drowned in swimming pools, and killed by the police, all of them in bigger numbers than those killed by terrorists per annum, to “trump” the deliberate fatalities caused by terror. Further, in a farcical twist to boost his argument, Gardner provides statistics that show that by most accounts a nuclear detonation in an urban area would kill up to 100,000 people and says that this “death toll … is not much more than the number of Americans killed each year by diabetes”. He ends his article by saying that “in terms of numbers of lives lost, a nuclear terrorist attack would hardly be the apocalypse”.

Gardner completely disregards the distinction between fatalities caused by accident or by disease that are relative to the size of populations and their movements and can be scientifically measured and calculated, and of fatalities arising from the deliberate actions of terrorists that are absolute and are related only to the malice and fanaticism, which are immeasurable and unfathomable, of the holy warriors of Islam. Hence the only thing that obviates the surpassing of the numbers of people killed by accident by those killed by terrorists is the up till now inability of the latter to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and nuclear ones. Once however they acquire them they will use them with glee against the infidels of the West and the Great Satan America in an everlasting serial apocalyptic mode and hence fulfill the orders of their God.

Our author further claims that “building a nuclear device…presents Herculean challenges for terrorists and indeed even for states”. But this claim might be tenable only in the present state of technological development and the contemporaneous possibilities that run parallel to such development. But with the ever accelerating technology of our times new possibilities are unleashed at an exponential rate. What is a challenge today becomes a fulfilled goal tomorrow. And since Gardner correctly states that “probability is always important in dealing with risks”, a responsible government has to calculate the probability of how close the terrorist are to this “tomorrow”.

Western governments with historical insight, depth in sagacity, and unshakable resolution have to prevent by all means at their disposal the fanatical suicidal warriors of Islam to let fly a “confetti” of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear bombs over the metropolises of the civilized world. No “diabetic” bombs can even approach, least of all surpass, the magnitude of such confetti of destruction. But Dan Gardner

does not “know thy enemy”.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

 

Obama’s Oxymoronic Proposal to Parley with Sponsors of Terror

Hypocrisy On Hamas By James P. Rubin, former assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration

Washington Post, May 16, 2008

A brief reply by Con George-Kotzabasis

Two years is a long time in the life of terrorism! Rubin by giving us the answer of McCain to his question of two years ago that the latter was prepared to talk to Hamas and accuse him therefore with hypocrisy can only do so by disregarding this elementary fact. In these two years Hamas has not even shown a propensity to give the Palestinian people “security and a decent life and decent future” nor “democracy”, to quote Rubin (which incidentally was the rider of McCain’s answer.), and continues to engage unappeasably in violence and terror while it’s in government. In such conditions it would be oxymoronic now for any politician, such as Obama suggested and McCain denounced, to open the door of negotiations with a terrorist government while the door of the war on terror has not closed.

Strategically, politically, and morally, it would not only be dull-witted but also close to treachery for any government that has committed its armed forces to fight global terror at the same time to even hint that it is willing to start negotiations with rogue governments that back and continue to be inflexible in their support and sponsorship of terror.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

CAN HUMAN GREENHOUSE EMISSIONS NEGATE THE ECO-BALANCING FORCE OF NATURE?

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

A Cool Look at Professor Aitkin’s Global Warming Scepticism By Dr. Geoff Davies

On Line Opinion, May 16, 2008

 It would be impertinently impetuous and stupid for a layperson like me to argue with an expert in the field as Dr. Davies is. I am however a skeptic. It might well be scientifically true that human “greenhouse emissions are the cause of the present warming”. But in my opinion the crucial scientific question is whether these negative human actions have the power to trump the positive natural forces of the Universe that determine the intra and inter relations of the planets and the sun in their state of equilibrium. It’s this axiomatic question that the supporters of climate change, like Davies, must answer first.

There has been ample evidence that in Roman and medieval times the earth was warmer. Davies himself admits that there have been “fluctuations in the amount of heat received from the sun (due to the slow gyrations of the earth in its orbit around the sun”). It seems however that natural forces triggered their own “stabilizers” of cooling periods and the earth once again found its viable natural balance and avoided catastrophe or extinction. Further, Nigel Lawson, the former editor of the Spectator and Chancellor of the Exchequer, poses the up till now unassailable question that has not been answered by the climate “gloomies”.: “Is it really plausible that there is an ideal average world temperature…from which a small departure in either direction would spell disaster?

When one chooses to go on the warpath one must be confident about his position and clear and undeviating about one’s goals. Dr Davies seems like a defeated “combatant” to have abandoned the field of battle and its original goal. It seems that he finds it difficult to prove his case and therefore his goal no longer is to demonstrate that greenhouse emissions cause global warming but to argue, by shifting his position and aims, that by stopping the “over-exploitation of the earth”, reducing “energy use and greenhouse emissions”, all of which are easily achievable according to him, the end result will be “to improve our lives”, save money, and “allow our grandchildren’s grandchildren to inherit a rich and fulfilling world.”

 With this new position Dr Davies has dropped the scepter of science from his hand and replaced it with the staff of the Greek seer Tiresias, predicting generations ahead the fulfilled life of “grandchildren” But forgetting that the threats to a happy future for mankind might not only arise from the over exploitation of the earth but also from the mutual deadly belligerence of men their religious dogmas and ideologies.

But wait for his zinger: “If we are causing global warming” by “a change in our lifestyle… for reasons other than global warming…it would mitigate that problem too. If not, no harm done” Hence, there is a great chance that by the Walpolean fairy of serendipity anthropogenic global warming will evaporate. But without for a moment daring to dispute the power of fairies, I continue to rest on the oars of my skepticism that global warming will bring in its wake disaster by escaping the countering equilibrating natural forces of the universe.

Your opinion…

A reply by Dr. Davies and a counter reply by Kotzabasis

 

 In my challenge of 17 May my intention was to broaden the view to see if there might be some common ground. Evidently Kotzabasis wasn’t capable of comprehending that.I’ll broaden it even a little more. If you don’t believe we can endlessly increase our use of Earth’s resources, the implication is that at some time we will have to change the way our economies work, and also stop the increase in population. If you also agree the Earth is showing many signs of over-exploitation (I include global warming, though you may not), then it suggests the time is now. Then, why would you spend so much energy arguing against “AGW”? Why not argue for (or work for) the change we must make?

Clive Hamilton on New Matilda says a better description of many objectors is “contrarian”. Do you just like to object and be contrary? If so, deal with your personal problem instead of spraying it around on everyone else.

If you think we CAN endlessly increase our use of Earth’s resources, I can only refer you to basic physics, starting with conservation of mass. (Note: I said “endlessly increase our use of resources”. I didn’t say “indefinitely improve the quality of our lives”. We can use fewer resources more cleverly than we do now and still live well.)

If you don’t see the Earth showing any signs of stress, I suggest there are none so blind as those who will not see.

I refer everyone to Clive’s article:

 

 

http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/05/19/death-rattles-climate-change-skeptics
He does a better job than me of giving a fair portrait of science, climate scientists and IPCC, and contrasting them with the shonky denialists, who of course always claim there’s a conspiracy to prevent them from publishing.

 

 

 

Posted by Geoff Davies, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 10:35:52 AM

 

Dr. Davies

It was evident even to blind Fredie that you broadened your view since you felt you were “narrow” in your arguments to make your case on the original issue of global warming. It’s rather amusing to hear a scientist say that by broadening his view he was seeking to find “some common ground”. Scientists, as you know better than me, are not interested in seeking a common ground but in seeking the truth. And once they are confident that they are close to finding it they don’t deviate from their path. But you did! Without consciously realizing that by doing so you were weakening your original position.I can assure you I am no Hamiltonian “contrarian”. If you had read my first post you would have seen that. You just gave me the strong impression with your “broadening” post that you were no longer arguing like a scientist but like a seer or more precisely like an ideologue. And your current post with its “common ground” substantiates this impression.

I don’t disagree with you that we “CAN endlessly increase our use of Eath’s resources” without endangering our future well being or that the earth does not show “signs” of “stress”. But I thought we were specifically talking about the “stress” of global warming and not the earth’s overall exploitation by man in his foolishness not to use the earth’s resources with Occam’s razor.

Con George-Kotzabasis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pride of Superiority Hidden Behind Hijab

 By Con George-Kotzabasis

All veils in Muslim culture cover the “sexual abandon” and profligacy that womanhood embodies, and the temptation to man can only be stifled by not being able, at least temporarily, to see it. But in our modern times with the exodus of many Muslims from their own countries into the sexually promiscuous West the headscarf has a second life with a new meaning. It has become a sexually pure sublimated projection for Muslim women for their real oppression. In contrast to the apparently promiscuous women of the West, Muslim women can feel proud of their sexual “purity” and display it by wearing the hijab. Thus, being slaves in their own households they feel to be “queens” in the domain of the Western world.

Further, it’s a projection of their real inferiority, that has been rendered to them by the Words of Allah inscribed in the Koran, for an idealistic dud superiority. While Muslim men chase heavenly virgins since the earthly ones are evanescent, Muslim women pretend to keep intact their earthly vulnerable virginity by wearing the hijab.The pride of being sexually pure has an invaluable price, even if at the end, because of the nature of women provided they are not sexually mutilated, has to be paid with a “promiscuous coin”.

This is Shakira Hussein’s irresolvable problem as a “Muslim secular feminist” as she claims to be. But the solution is very simple: Cast away this sublimation by throwing out the hijab and be a free woman.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

Democrats Search for Political Solution in Iraq a Search in Abyss of Defeat

The following article that was written few months ago illustrates how wrong the critics of the war in Iraq have been.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The Democrats after seductively saying “I do” to the war bride of President Bush in their nuptial bliss for her four years ago, are wishing now that their bliss has been transmogrified into the difficulties and ugliness of war to dump and replace the old ugly hag of war with the beautiful “maiden” named “political solution”. Now that the war is showing its true changeless nature and its ugly features, the “teddy boy” Democrats, too timorous and panic-stricken to face its monstrous mien are scrambling before it and running to hide under the maiden’s bed sheets. Having lost once their hearts and minds to the goddess of war Minerva, presently they are losing their hearts and minds to retreat and ignominious defeat since they consider that a military solution in Iraq is impossible. Hence their current vehement opposition to President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq.

Politically buoyed by the unpopularity of the war and the massive opposition to it by Americans, that led the Democrats to capture both houses of Congress in the November elections, they have chosen to turn themselves into populist leaders, in these dangerous times that have been forged by the fire and ashes of September 11, and hence they have become turncoats to their historical, political, and moral responsibilities to the future of America. Instead of leading from the front they are leading from the “tail”, pushed by the populist wind.

While President Bush is seizing the chances of winning the war by their “forelock”, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, with his quantified and qualified Surge, i.e., new rules of engagement, the devastating use of the means of war against the insurgents, and tackling the “forays” of Iran and Syria in Iraq, the Democrats are deflating their surge of honor and political and strategic nous into the fizzling balloon of populism. The fierce indomitable adventurous spirit of Moby-Dick’s captain Ahab, who would “strike the sun if it insulted him”, that is the spirit of America, is transformed by the Democrats and the besotted with defeatism “speakeasy” media, into a romantic misadventure. Their romance with a political solution in Iraq is no more than a political misadventure at the expense of the vital interests of America and its people.

America is at War

America in the aftermath of September 11 is not involved in a skirmish with the holy warriors of Islam, but in a global war against them. The attack on the twin towers in New York by the suicidal fanatic recruits of Islam, has however redefined the meaning of war. The decisive existential battles of the West against the fundamentalists of Islam are not to be fought behind Maginot Lines and by panzer divisions against clear-cut enemy lines whose combatants are easily identified, but among civilian populations where the terrorists live, are nurtured and hide and are indistinguishable from, and from where they launch their cowardly stealthy murderous attacks against civilians and on the military forces that try to protect them.

Moreover, these suicide bombers with belts of death around their bi-gender waists clad in civilian clothes, are “identified” mostly only after perpetrating their murderous actions and not before. Also, this foreground of the terrorists has a concomitant lethal background of fifth columnists that reside as citizens and blend with their more moderate co-religionists in the countries that are waging war against global terror. Lastly, the overt supplying of arms and finance by rogue states, such as Iran and Syria, and covertly by the so called cultural fronts of other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, is a crucial element in fuelling the deadly actions of the global jihadists as well as “oiling” the world-wide Wahhabi Madrassas and Mosques that are the breeding grounds and cradles of Muslim Saudi “bastard” fanaticism. Taking also in consideration that in the near future these war-martyrs of Islam would be possibly armed with weapons of mass destruction, and, indeed, with nuclear weapons, which they would unhesitatingly use against the infidels of the West, since in their warped minds this is decreed by their Allah, this would be the ultimate greatest danger to the survival of Western civilization.

It’s all the above factors that have redefined the meaning of war and its combatants. The war that is waged by the jihadists against America, the sole superpower, and the “infidel” West, is the most “economical” war that one could ever fight, i.e., with box cutters and Saudi “subsidized” tickets on air flights. The “wealth” of fanaticism needs only to be armed with the poorest of war means to subdue and slay the wealthiest military power on earth, America. The holy warriors, making the most of their shadowy existence, have only to be armed economically with the most nondescript but lethal weapons, to bring about havoc, fear, and immeasurable destruction among civilians in the major cities of the West. Their arming with weapons of mass destruction and nuclear ones will bring the Islamist Armageddon in the metropolises of Western civilization.

This is the tragic reality that the latter will be facing especially because many of its political elites, academia, and media are afflicted by a poverty of thought, imagination, and historical sense, that is making them deaf to the reverberating hoofing sound that is send forth by the galloping Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with their unsheathed scimitars aiming to behead Western civilization. In America itself, the indigence of cognitive power among many of its politicians and cultural and media elites makes the country powerless, despite its military supremacy, to confront this great danger that would engulf and drown America itself in this Mohammedan made deluge.

The Democrats, especially, lacking Churchillian mettle and wisdom, are morphing themselves into political eunuchs, impotent to mobilize the American people behind a winning military and political strategy, presently attempted by general David Petraeus in Iraq, that will deal a decisive mortal blow to this irreconcilable and tenacious enemy and thus defeat the infamy of global Islamist terror sooner than later. They are totally unaware of the elementary lesson of history that instructs that when one confronts an irreconcilable remorseless enemy, whom no diplomatic demarche, no matter how refined and clever, will ever induce him to negotiate, as is the case of the jihadist and his divinely ordained grievances, it is wise to destroy him while he is still weak and before he becomes stronger.

Hence, the Democrats’ search for a political solution, without the backing and relentless use of military power, is not only most unwise, but also a mortal political sin. The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the leader of the Senate Harry Reid, will be immortalized by being quartered in Dante’s Inferno for their political sins.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

The Art of Politics and War is to Know thy Enemy

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

The Holocaust Declaration by Charles Krauthammer

Washington Post, April 11, 2008

The art of politics and war is to “know thy enemy”. And once the enemy is revealed to be irreconcilable and unappeasable, in this case Iran , because of his apocalyptic and chiliastic nature as an irrational actor and therefore most dangerous, one has to destroy such an enemy before he becomes stronger. If preemption is not going to fall into a state of desuetude and finish up as a comical term losing all its seriousness, it must be used against the “centrifugist” regime of Ahmadinejad relentlessly and efficiently. It’s necessary therefore and timely that the Bush administration makes an open and unambiguous threat to Iran that if the latter does not immediately cease its nuclear program the U.S. will be targeting by an unspecified force de frappe the triangular leadership of Iran, i.e., the mullahs, the high officials of the government, and the higher echelons of the army, in a surprise attack. Only such a clear threat against Iran’s leadership may create a shifting of positions among the latter, and, indeed, a “palace revolt” against the Ahmadinejad regime. And if there are signs that this will not happen, then the U.S. will have no other option but to attack Iran.

Krauthammer’s proposal of the “Holocaust Declaration”, I’m afraid is impolitic. As in America and many other countries in the world many of their peoples still breath the poisonous vapors of anti-semitism, and hence, the “Declaration” will be seen by many as a Jewish stratagem and therefore politically will not become a rallying point.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

LABOR IS OUTSOURCING THE SOVEREIGNTY OF AUSTRALIA

The following paper was written on May 2000. It’s republished here to remind readers that the detachment of the Labor Party from the political “sins” of its past is still to come, as it continues to relish them by increasing them. It’s clear that a Rudd government would sign up to the UN declaration on indigenous rights whose article 3 gives aborigines the right to  freely determine their political status, and article 4 the right to autonomy or self government, thus championing indigenous separatism that would lead to the fracturing of the unity and strength of one nation, without bettering the political, economic, and social status of aborigines with their separation from the nation. Once again Labor under the populist leadership of Kevin Rudd, who by this definition will be too feckless to deal with the critical issues of the economy and security of the country in these dangerous times, will embrace all the external remedies and shibboleths that issue from the politically incompetent and morally corrupt UN and apply them to the internal affairs of the nation that with mathematical precision are bound to be so destructive to it.  

Con George-Kotzabasis

There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present time. Edward Gibbon

A curse is haunting the Labor party, the curse of Paul Keating’s ‘Banana Republic’. Whereas for the latter, however, the Banana…was merely a slippery future economic threat under the feet of the country, for Kim Beazley, the banana republic is virtually a political reality. It’s for this reason therefore, that he is implicitly calling, and more explicitly supporting, the individual and institutional cries for the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) to intervene and redress the plague of inequities and injustices that has inflicted the country, as a result of an unjust and uncaring government. The lack of compassion by the coalition government on two issues, (a) its unwillingness to utter the word “sorry” to the aborigines of this land, and (b) its “stand-aloofness” in regards to mandatory sentencing, its reluctance to intervene directly and abrogate a state law that jails children for apparently minor offences.

It’s ludicrous to believe that the word sorry has some magic quality that could sanitize or make less bloody any injustices or atrocities of any scale that have been perpetrated by institutions and governments in the past against aborigines. Within such a context the word sorry would be a crude joke, as it’s not a matter of someone stepping over the toes of another and apologizing for this. No human apology can exculpate criminal actions committed against humanity. This is “God’s bailiwick”. (One can only wonder that associate professor Robert Manne, a brawny votary of the “sorry” campaign accepts, with apparent philosophic equanimity, the apology of the German government for the gassing of the Jews.) The demand for such an apology arises from pious, soft thinking. Furthermore, the official expression of such an apology, could lead to “wealth by inadvertence” for some groups and professions in a society that inchoately moves more and more toward a litigious state, at the vast expense of the taxpayer.

Also, on mandatory sentencing, Labor’s accusation that the government is heartless and inhumane in its refusal to abrogate laws that are targeting aboriginal children, is political theatrics and is not serious. The abrogation of these laws by the federal government would be an infringement of states’ rights and would add another plank to the coffin of these rights, which Labor during its tenure in office had been carpentering, furthering thus the advance of the centralization of power in Canberra. The coalition government therefore, has acted prudently in refusing a casting role in Labor’s “play”. But to Labor, it’s this remissness of government on these two issues that shames and censures Australia in the eyes of the world and irretrievably damages its international reputation.

The Federal Opposition, like so many Mr. Feelgoods, is self-appointing itself as the conscience of the nation. Heavily burdened by this conscience, it can only alleviate it by invoking the External Affairs Power in the internal affairs of the nation. But like most politicians, it has a further and more valuable interest in this exercise that goes beyond its moral ken. By tarnishing the government as inhumane and unjust it hopes to put it beyond the pale in the electorate’s eyes and hence augment its own political stocks in the coming election. Its libido dominandi, its surge for power is so virile that it hardly baulks at the prospect of prostituting the sovereignty of the nation and its inalienable right to determine the laws of the land.

As the intervention of the United Nations HRC in the internal affairs of the country would be no less than the defloration of the nation’s sovereignty, as it would inexorably have a corrosive effect on the legislative power of government. The latter would be looking over its shoulder for Big Brother every time it passed a bill in parliament in regards to its domestic affairs, which might not be in accord with the letter and spirit of international conventions and treaties that Australian governments had signed in the past. Moreover, such intervention would be adding insult to injury in respect to the nation’s mores, as it would imply that Australia is a “crooked nail” on moral and human issues, like a truly banana republic, and would need the vise of the HRC to straighten it and hence making it fit to enter the family of civilized nations. Therefore Australia is not fit from its own record and reputation on human rights to have its place among civilized societies and needs an “usher”, the HRC, to find its seat among these societies. 

Labor’s Mental Blindness

It’s mind-boggling that Labor is so myopic and cannot see that the invocation of the External Affairs Power would open a Pandora’s box. It would place parliament under a  “spooky” surveillance, as all legislation in relation to human rights laws will have to be written under the shadow of the HRC. In other words, the legislative power of  government will be held to ransom. It would also open the floodgates of litigation and provide a gluttonous banquet to lawyers and their clientele as the menu of human rights would be in the hands of all interest groups and individuals who have an inordinate appetite to be seen as trailblazers of social and political change, like Senator Bob Brown, or who more prosaically would settle for a substantial financial payment. Moreover, it would spur a promiscuity of legal activism among judges from the lower courts to the High Court, and would widen the windows of opportunity for active “progressive” judges to throw their flat earth judicial stones from their glass-house existence-like that avatar of “creative” activism Justice Kirby of the High Court of Australia. Such creative activism by the judiciary however would be the usurpation of the legislative power of government. Hence, it would strike a sledgehammer blow to the cornerstone upon which the separation of powers rests.

Two cases of the High Court illustrate this whittling down of the constitution by the judiciary. In the Commonwealth v. Tasmania (1983), the Commonwealth prohibited the construction of a dam by the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission under the provisions of the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act (1975). (Chief Justice Gibbs, with his characteristic wisdom, dissented against the majority decision 4-3 maintaining some basal distinction between external and internal affairs to ensure the integrity of the Constitution’s federal division of authority.) Also, in the Koowarta v. Tasmanian Dam (1983) the laws upheld treaty obligations. That triumvirate of goody-goodies Justices Mason, Murphy, and Dean, all considered that the External Affairs Power extended beyond obligations and embraced benefits and rights. 

That this raid of the judiciary, not to mention others, on the Constitution, leaves Federal Labor under the leadership of Kim Beazley insouciant and unconcerned speaks volumes of its poverty of thought, its lack of foresight, and political dilettantism. Of course Labor may deceive itself and believe that it will have a safeguard against the intrusions of the judiciary in laying the latter on a Procrustean bed. It can always cut to size its appointees to the courts of the land (this equally applies to the Coalition) as it has done in the past , to fit its own agendas. Judges, however, like all others appointed to high positions by government, whilst they might owe their positions to the latter, they own their reputations and amour proper. This fact alone does not bear good news for governments that judges will toe the line.
 

Academics Toe the Line of Labor

What is startling, if not alarming, however, is that this poverty of thought finds solace and support among some academics. But on second thought it may not be so surprising. As what else could one expect from the mass production lines of most universities than the entry into its teaching faculties, especially in sociology and law, of a stream of intellectual usurpers who are more proud of displaying their radicalism than the rigor of their mind?

Professor of international law at the Australian National University, Hillary Charlesworth, in an article in the Australian subtitled “The Victory of States’ Rights over Human Rights has Impoverished our Social and Political Culture”, remarks, that the UN’s legal opinion is, “that Australia’s mandatory sentencing laws violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child”. On the pivot of this opinion she mounts (molehills?) her own argument that because “Australia has freely agreed to abide by the principles set out in the relevant human rights treaties” we are bound legally and morally to accede to them. Furthermore, she continues, “under the human rights treaties, it’s the Federal Government that bears the international responsibility to ensure that all Australian laws ( this is no diminutive, this is “matronly-sized” outsourcing of Australia’s sovereignty) conform to our treaty obligations…Internal political or constitutional arrangements can be no excuse for failure to live up to its treaty commitments”. Capping her argument, she claims that even in the event that mandatory sentencing is popular, “public policy cannot be driven by political popularity alone or on purely utilitarian grounds”. 

No sensitive and sensible person can defend mandatory sentencing—except perhaps if she/he is a victim of the particular offence—especially if it applies to children. It’s obviously a “desperate” legislative action by the Western Australian Government and the Northern Territory to protect mainly household residents from a spree of serial burglaries and break-ins that previous laws were unable to stop or abate. An impartial objective evaluation of this situation however, sans academic metaphysical nonsense, would consider not only children’s rights but the rights of the victims as well. More importantly, a deeper probing of the matter, would consider children’s rights in the continuum of their life, and the repercussions of the social conduct and behavior and the successes and failures of juvenile life upon adulthood. It’s essential therefore to make children not only conscious of their rights but also of their responsibilities and duties. Indeed, to shield them from self-punishing failure in later life, it’s necessary to make them aware that punishment is the price one has to pay for unsocial, law-breaking actions.

The bone of contention therefore should be, and is, what kind of effective punishment should apply to these minor crimes committed by juveniles that would prevent major ones committed in their adulthood. Academics therefore who passionately emphasize and advocate the rights of children would have been more fecund in their deliberations if they were just as passionate in their search and discovery of programs and laws applying to children, laws that not only would protect victims from the crimes of children, but more crucially protecting children from failure in their adult life. As even petty crime committed by minors, especially when it takes a serial form and is inadequately punished, ensures with certainty the “success of failure” in later life.

Professor Charlesworth with enviable Olympian athlete’s ease jumps over the hurdles of these issues. Neither the erosion of the Constitution, nor the plight of the victims, or the double jeopardy that children would be placed in by their serial petty crime nor the punishment in the present and the more severe serial self-punishment that hovers over their future, concerns her. All these things seem to be peripheral, indeed, satellites to her fixed universal position. But to respond to the basal argument of her article, that the government should adopt international laws and implement them in our internal affairs, one cannot do better the great German jurist philosopher Friedrich Savigny. “The legal institutions of a nation are part of its individual life…and of the whole of its historically determined situation. They fit as does the skin of the human body. And to replace them by a rationally excogitated code is like tearing off a body’s skin in order to replace it with a synthetic product”. He denounced theories of rationalism which deduced legal theories from general and universal principles, irrespective of past history and national peculiarities. This illustrates tellingly why some professors of jurisprudence in this country are dusted off and drop from the shoulders of giants.

But let us return back to the leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley. The definition of a strong and farsighted political leader is an “animal” that protects its own territory from the incursions of foreign assailants. Beazley as leader of the Opposition and as potential Prime Minister (God forbid) does not fit this definition. Instead of  vigorously protecting and making unassailable our sovereignty from the incursions of foreign bodies, in this case from the United Nations HRC, he prostrates himself before it and willingly and wantonly out sources the sovereignty of our nation to alien bodies.   

I rest on my oars: Your turn now