Saturday, September 24, 2011

Presence of U.S.and Western Troops Underpins Survival of Afghans

By Con George-Kotzabasis --A short reply to an American Liberal


The better question is, in my opinion, how many Afghans want the U.S. out and how many of them want the Taliban back in? That is where the “real argument’ lies. The fact is that there is a substantial number of Afghans that can only survive by the presence of U.S. and Western troops at this particular political and military juncture of the country.

To consider that this “flexing of its muscles” by the United States is for “empire” and not an ‘aggressive’ pre-emptive attack against an irreconcilable deadly foe is to be stuck in the rut of conventional leftist unimaginative thinking.

The Iraq Surge was not quantitative but qualitative. It was completely a new strategy that used the means of war imaginatively and remorselessly against the insurgents as well as baiting the latter with monetary incentives to switch sides or disarm. In war one has to use all means at one’s disposal creatively to subdue an enemy. In the toppling of the Taliban on November 2001, the CIA saturated the Northern Alliance with caches of money, military equipment, and intelligence that defeated the Taliban within forty days without any American troops fighting on the ground.







Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Reply to Diehard Liberal Pacifist who is Against Intervention in Libya


I’m republishing this short piece that was written at the earliest stages of the “Intervention” by NATO and the U.S. in Libya, illustrating how wrong the Liberal-Pacifists were about the outcome of the intervention that led to the collapse of the Gaddafi dictatorship.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Distortion and lack of imagination are not a good way to make your case. On your first point, where in the world has there been even a blip of demonstrable opposition to the Coalition’s intervention in Libya? On your second point, only one bereft of a modicum of imagination cannot see that despite the fact that the “goal of the coalition” is not the “defeat of the dictator,” nonetheless the implementation of the no-fly zone by the Coalition nolens volens enervates the loyalist forces and invigorates the Opposition forces with the great potential to overthrow the dictator. On your third, isn’t a fact that Gaddafi and his military personnel fled the compound which was a command and military control centre just before it was hit by a tomahawk missile? And on your fourth and last point that Obama breached the constitution and should therefore be impeached, is a fiction and should be rejected as such. You deliberately and misleadingly leave out the sentence of the War Powers Act, 1973, which is relevant to the current military engagement of the U.S. in Libya. “The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president to notify (M.E.) Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days…without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war.” Only at the passing of 60 days, and if he did not seek an authorized extension for the military deployment would Obama be in breach of the War Powers Act. It seems therefore to me that your ditty about Obama breaching the constitution and should be impeached, is out of tune with the reality of the situation.

You have said to me before that you are some sort of a musician playing the mandolin. It amuses me therefore to see why you switch your talent from ditties to war and strategy that are beyond the depth of a mandolin player.

Further, you will find out at your cost that the land of Australia is not only the land of the kangaroos but also the land of the boomerang that just struck you.



Monday, September 5, 2011

Which Record is Worse Market Failure or State Failure?

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Those who so lackadaisically, ignorantly, and one-sidedly, like the liberal ‘questions’, dismiss the efficiency and effectiveness of the “free market” that since its origins and rise has increased by leaps and bounds the standard of living of the masses, according to the Indian economist Amartya Sen, should consider the following: if someone objectively and impartially contrasted historically “market failure” with “state failure” the latter would outweigh the former by tons. A recent egregious example of state failure is President Obama’s spending of a trillion dollars to create jobs. Not to mention the historical example of the failure of the Soviet Union, with its inherently command dirigiste policies, which economists of the stature of Ludwig von Mises had predicted all along.