Defection of Gaddafi's Foreign Minister Presages the Collapse of the Regime

The following short piece that was written on April 1, 2011, predicted the present collapse of the Gaddafi regime.

NATO in Libya Fraught with Peril April 01, 2011

By Sean Kay The Washington Note

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis

Sean Kay’s NATO in Libya Fraught with Peril, is politically inept and has already been overcome by events. As we had predicted, the end result of a decisive military intervention by Western powers would be to bring the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. Now the degringolade of the regime is imminent. This is clearly foreshadowed by the defection of foreign minister Moussa Koussa, a close collaborator of Gaddafi and a former director of Libyan Intelligence to boot, that sets the example for other high officials of the regime to follow.

Who would be a better qualified person than a former director of Intelligence to read correctly the vibes and disposition of the Libyan people toward the regime, and more importantly, the latter’s inability to suppress the bouleversement against it, and hence induce Mr. Koussa, for these reasons, to abandon the doomed sinking ship of Gaddafi?

Posted by Kotzabasis at 3:12 AM 0 comments

Strength of Character is Shown in Critical Circumstances and Obama Fails the Test

Will the American electorate be susceptible to the false idealistic promptings of a confused weak leader?


A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to a Bush contrarian

Only the poverty of thought can make a statement such as the “poor republicans...through no fault of their own.” There is no virtue to be found in human beings not making mistakes. No one is infallible, especially in the multi-variable dimensions of war. The virtue lies in swiftly correcting these mistakes. And this is exactly what Bush did when he adopted and implemented the Surge turning a losing war into a potentially victorious one. This was the “major” and crucial policy that “was successfully implemented and carried out” with all the potential geopolitical developments that could flow into the region with the establishment of democracy in Iraq, and hence justifying fully the Bush Doctrine of democratizing the Middle East as a preventive cure for terrorism.

The liberal intelligentsia with their tongue stuck in the bitterness of being totally wrong with their gloomy prognostications about the outcome of the war, cannot and will not concede this ‘reversal of fortune’ for the Bush administration. But history, which has no taste either of bitterness or sweetness, will give the final verdict on Bush. And dare I say it will be a favourable one.

What Obama proposes to do is to deprive America of this tremendous strategic victory over the extremists of Islam by his pledge to pull out US forces from Iraq before the conditions for such a withdrawal are strategically ripe.

If you were an editor even in the most provincial newspaper and spelled out the obvious as news, you would not have held your position as editor for very long. Bigotry, irrational religious beliefs, and ignorance—like poverty—up to the present inflict even the best and most affluent societies. If educated prosperous America has this bane in its midst you can imagine other less educated and prosperous countries in what state they are in this area. To say however, that either McCain or Palin would select to govern for the irrational beliefs and ignorance of such minorities, is to show that one is completely politically naive and no one can take such person seriously.

And do you really believe that Obama has his “feet on the ground,” when he says that once America starts implementing its own values it will turn the present hate of the world for America into love, into a global loving circle of holding hands, including perhaps the fanatical jihadists?

Always bear in mind the great adage of Friedrich Nietzsche that the character of a person is revealed in critical circumstances, followed by my minuscule one that in hard times only the hard men/women prevail. Obama lacks the strength of character to lead a great nation in these most dangerous times. In the vocation of Statecraft according to his populist policies and faith in changing America he remains an infant and is the ultimate ‘mummy’s boy’. As the worst mummy’s boy is the one who had no mother. (His mother abandoned him when he was an infant to be brought up by his grandparents.) That is why he chose Biden for his vice president instead of the most savvy politically Hillary Clinton, because his wife Michelle didn’t want the latter. It’s Michelle that wears the pants, and if he wins, which I doubt, it will be the first ‘matriarchic’ presidency of the United States.

Your opinion

American Liberals Dyed-in-the-Wool Isolationists

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The American liberal Steve Clemons by supporting Pape’s and Feldman’s arguments seems to be, despite his grandiose geopolitical concepts and propositions, either a dyed-in-the-wool isolationist or has strategically a geopolitical ‘split personality’. Is he suggesting that in a dangerously turbulent world America should desist from having Napoleonic points d’appui or withdraw them just because they are subjects of ‘irritation’ and objection to their deadly enemies, such as Osama bin Laden?


Critics of US bases overseas do not realize or are oblivious of the fact that these bases are placed by professional strategists, and not by papier mache strategists like themselves, in specific countries for the purpose of being most militarily effective against their enemies.


Posted by nadine, Oct 06 2010, 7:08PM - Link


Kotz, lots of people have the naive mindset that people only hate the US because we did bad stuff to them (they conveniently overlook the actions of other countries).


The idea that other nations have enmity to the US due to their ideology or perceived self-interest does not occur to them. Therefore when they see that some action of ours has irritated someone, even a self-declared enemy like Osama bin Laden, they conclude we must be doing something wrong!


Hey guys: here is a lesson from street smarts kindergarten: if your enemy hates a move you just made, maybe that move is good for you and bad for him!

The "Treason" of the Media

The following paper was written and published on June 2005. It's republished on this new blog hoping its readers will find it to be of some interest.


By Con George-Kotzabasis


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


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


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


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


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


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


It is in this moral and spiritual realm that the Western media could have reached the peak of its achievement. Regrettably however, instead of concentrating its immense power of persuasion to forge and mould the spiritual strength of its readers and viewers, it chose to betray, both to itself and to its audience, its vocational noblesse oblige. It chose to select and pick the most negative, indeed, the most gruesome aspects of the war in Iraq, such as the civilian casualties, the prolonged and apparently irrepressible and undefeatable insurgency, the abuse and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib


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


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

General McChrystal and Obama's Contradictory Strategy

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Drew, you seem to place formality above entelechy, the vital element of war. Throughout history an ethic, no matter how laudable and worthy, in critical circumstances is degraded to a lower status if it is not made totally inutile. Winning the war is the primal goal and that can only be achieved by professionals, not by ‘drone’ like Bidens. You also seem to forget, that it was precisely this unconditional devotion to “conditional civilian control” that lost the war in Vietnam. My position is, so you won’t misunderstand me, certainly a general has to abide the commands of the executive branch, but no general worth his salt who has the ultimate responsibility of deploying his troops to win a war, a responsibility that has been given to him by his Commander-in-Chief, is obliged to execute commands that are contradictory in winning the war without expressing his deep concerns critically about the incongruence of the war plan that was designed by the Executive. One cannot increase the Surge by thirty thousand more troops and at the same time announce a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in two years time. This is the fundamental contradiction of Obama’s doltish strategy in Afghanistan. No one but a modern Tiresias could predict that the war against the Taliban would be won in two years or that the Karzai forces would be able to handle the insurgency by their own steam. Obama set the scene for a strategy that for the next two years American blood and valuable resources would be spend not for the goal of victory, but for the purpose of a withdrawal. This is the quintessence of McChrystal’s criticism of the Obama administration although he did not explicitly express it in these words.


Moreover, McChrystal could no more “undermine the executive branch” that was already undermined by itself. Also your accusation of McChrystal of being incompetent and of losing the respect of his troops by commanding them to patrol without cartridges in their guns, except maybe in some rare circumstances, is incredulous and is closer to phantasy than reality. McChrystal and Petraeus were the sagacious heroic victors of the war in Iraq. That one of the architects of this unprecedented victory, that even the wise Kissinger considered it to be unattainable, would lose the respect of his soldiers is pure phantasy. Further, that a most competent commander of the elite Special Forces, a “killing machine,” would put his soldiers at risk is beyond belief. I am curious to know the evidence from which you deduced this transformation of a deadly ‘seal’, who all his life has been trained for the tasks of the infernal world, into an unarmed Gandhian votary.