Israel's Development Stems from the Cultural and Intellectual Strength of its People

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Israel is no “mercenary of the West in the heart of the Middle East” but an outpost of Western civilization in the midst of barbarians. Besieged on all sides within the short span of 60 years it became culturally, politically, economically, and scientifically the most developed nation of the region and deservedly proud of this great achievement. Moreover as a civilized outpost, Israel is at the forefront of the fight against the holy warriors of Islam, of Hamas and Hezbollah, the proxies of its most dangerous enemy Iran.

The author of the article might be rich in some of his psychological probing but has a very poor understanding of history. Great achievements are not the outcome of “victimhood” but they arise from the cultural, moral, and intellectual strength of a people. And Israel is a testament of that.

Don't Overplay the Fiddle of Legal Process When Civilization is Threatened with Burning

I'm republishing the following piece for the readers of this new blog.


By Con George-Kotzabasis

A brief reply to: This Time We Were Lucky. This Time…by William Rees-Mogg in The TimesOnline July 2, 2007


Luck is a scarce visitor in the affairs of mankind and in the Age of Terror one scarcely would expect it to come the second time around. Sir William argues in his article, in the aftermath of the failed attempts of the terrorists in London and Glasgow, that “the danger will become greater” and therefore we need new laws to protect ourselves. He also contends, that there are serious flaws in our culture that hinder us from fighting effectively against this external and internal foe.


As always Sir William pens his thoughts with wisdom and one would be a fool not to take them seriously. If the danger is going to be greater in the future, as he correctly points out, then the present “gaps” in our legal system must be closed. That means that the old regime of laws which are completely inadequate against religiously inspired terror must be overthrown and replaced with a new regime of laws that will apprehend and convict terrorists not on “solid evidence”, as he argues, which in the murky and shadowy world of terror is a will-o’-the-wisp search, but on reasonable suspicion.


Furthermore, our culture is flawed because of our mutual respect for other cultures, for our tolerance, generosity, care, and kindness that we continue to exercise ceaselessly in these most unkind of times generated by the atrocious actions of the terrorists. It’s therefore necessary that we harden some of the soft features of our culture that prevent us up till now to take on this great and long challenge posed by global terror. By a set of stronger measures and imaginative concepts that will have a chance quickly and decisively to subdue this portentous danger that arises from an irreconcilable and undeterred enemy, who having been bred in the madrassas and Mosques has been anointed with his suicidal fanaticism. Western governments therefore will have to counter-generate the moral fortitude that in the legislation of these new laws the latter will make the most “unkind of cuts”, that is, deny suspects of home-grown terror of a spate of legal processes that normally apply in peaceful times but should never apply in times of war.


This is more urgent than ever because of the logic of this war. If unarguably the latter is going to be a long war with a remorseless, immoral, evil enemy who is not open to negotiation or to political or economic rewards and whose goal is the accomplishment of his godly mission, one does not have to be a prophet to foresee that with the inevitable further development in technology and its easier accessibility by people, the holy warriors of Islam will soon be armed with weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, with nuclear ones. And boosted by their religious fervor will unhesitatingly use them against the infidels of the West. Hence, these jihadists in civilian clothes with their deadly belts around their bi-gender, and indeed, teenage midriffs, will open the door to Armageddon.


Politically and strategically it’s always prudent to defeat such an enemy, by using against him both overt and covert overwhelming force, while he is still weak and before he becomes stronger. The question however is, whether the political leaders of Western civilization will have the wisdom and mettle to use “uncivilized” means and methods to defeat such a mortal foe.

Shoot Messenger for Telling Lies about Truth

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A reply to: Don’t Shoot The Messenger For Revealing Uncomfortable Truths
By Julian Assange, The Australian December 08, 2010


Julian Assange opens his article with adulatory terms for the founder of The Australian and his sire, Keith Murdoch, by quoting “young Rupert Murdoch…’in the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win’.” And he seems to be proud to follow the steps of Murdoch even though the latter long ago has grown horns for many liberal media aficionados. He also proudly states that Wikileaks has “coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism,” (M.E.) which he defines as allowing you “to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on”, and thus by this method you can make a judgment about the veracity or falsity of the story. He further claims that he is not one of the crowd of anti-war as he believes that “Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and taxes on the line for these lies.” He is also justifiably concerned that he is being accused by US officials and others of treason “even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen,” and of a Republican bill before the Senate “seeking to have me declared a ‘transnational threat’.”


Under this ominous cloud of threats issuing from high echelons of the US government and politicians it is reasonable that Assange would be deeply worried about his safety and his inviolable right to exercise his freedom of speech. But it is totally unreasonable to have expected to be treated otherwise when he exposed secrets of governments in conditions of war. He seems to have had the courage to put in action his convictions without however having the courage to face the consequences of his action that could be seen even by blind Freddie, to use an Australian colloquialism.


Moreover, his riposte is inane and unimaginative to the State Department’s claim: “You will risk lives! National Security! You’ll endanger troops!” “Then they say there is nothing of importance in what Wikileaks publishes. It can’t be both. Which is it?” But it can be both. Imperil in verity national security and risk lives while at the same time diminishing the importance of the leaks for political reasons so politicians and government officials will not be accountable for their incompetence and their propensity to leak.


Furthermore he conceitedly claims that the seeds of the leaks brought a rich harvest of accomplished goals that lay in the original plan of Wikileaks. He states that in its “four-year publishing history…we have changed governments (M.E.) but not a single person…has been harmed.” But if this is one of the goals achieved it is vague in regard to the kind and quality of the “changed governments.” Does he refer to changes in the internal operations of governments that are more transparent to their publics or does he refer to changes in the political colouring of governments? One can assume from the implication of his proud claim he means a change in the substance of governments for the better by their change of colour. But whichever of the two changes he refers to the empirical evidence clearly shows that on both counts his statement is false. Governments have neither become more open to their publics nor have they become better shepherds to their flock in the last four years. Was the transition from the Bush to the Obama administration a substantial change to a better government? When President Obama has rescinded most of his electoral campaign promises and continues a war in Afghanistan, which according to Assange is based on lies, intensifying the drone attacks in Pakistan against al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives that started under the Bush administration, and commenced new clandestine operations against global jihadist terrorists in Somalia, and Yemen, and when in the short time of two years a majority of Americans have turned against their initially beloved Obama, who was going to change America for the better, as the mid-term elections last November have shown?


But while Wikileaks’s failure in these two areas of transparency and betterment of governments is resounding, and therefore his statement is a manifest lie, Assange partially achieved his anarchistic goal of his doctrine of the “corruption of governments’’ by creating mistrust between the top officials of governments and hence enervating the system of inter-communications and sharing of intelligence between them. As he argued in a paper of his few years ago the only way to put a stop to the corruption of governments was to disrupt their communications and to create distrust among its officials that the content and information of their intelligence and advice passed to their political masters would not be secure from public scrutiny. Thus Wikileaks threw a spanner into the mechanism of governments whose secrecy in some matters of paramount importance are the sine qua non of good governance and global security, especially in our contemporary times when Western civilization is under a menacing permanent attack by fanatical Islam. And one must be reminded that one of the major reasons why the perpetrators of 9/11 were not identified and apprehended in time was this lack of sharing intelligence between Federal agencies, which subsequently the Bush administration corrected by setting up The Department of Homeland Security under Tom Ridge.


Thus Assange by achieving his anarchistic nefarious goal has placed countries and their peoples that are under attack by Islamist suicide bombers at great risk whose numbers of casualties would astronomically surpass the numbers that Americans killed “in the past few months, “with Australian government connivance,” if such an attack was carried out by means of biological or nuclear weapons. (Talking about Wikileaks not harming a single person.)


As to his coinage of “scientific journalism” it is empty of substance. Science is not hostage to subjective values and does not pick its evidence by means of ideological fantasies. For example, the content of Assange’s argument about the war in Iraq is not based on reality but on fantasy. To accuse Bush of lying about Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and espouse the Leftist slogan “Bush Lied, People Died,” when all the leaders of the major countries, including President Chirac, Chancellor Schroeder, Premier Zhu Rongji of China, and presidents Putin, and Mubarak of Egypt, also believed that the Iraq dictator had WMD, is intellectually dishonourable and the most dishonest accusation against the former president. Were Chirac, Schroeder, Putin, Zhu Rongji, also lying when they were saying that Saddam had in his possession WMD? Indeed, were they involved in a conspiracy with Bush against Saddam Hussein when all four were explicitly against the war? And as Bush says in his book Decision Points, “The charge was illogical. If I wanted to mislead the country into war, why would I pick an allegation that was certain to be disproven publicly shortly after we invaded the country?” That Assange is peddling this utterly false accusation in defiance of the above facts clearly reveals his ideological bias that completely incapacitates him to make an objective assessment of the issue according to his lauded standards of “scientific journalism.” Intellectually disarmed by the lures of ideology he throws his anarchistic bomb on all the principles of science. If he had used his own scientific methodology as to the evidence extant prior to the decision of President Bush to invade Iraq he would have found that the war was not based on lies but on false intelligence. As a thought experiment, had he published in early 2000 the documents of all the major intelligence agencies of the world as to whether or not Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction they would have shown that all believed that he had them. Thus if the public had “read a news story” about Saddam’s WMD and then clicked “to see the original document” it was based on, they would be able to judge as to the truthfulness of the story.


Legally of course, Assange cannot be charged with treason, as such a charge applies to citizens of nations. But Assange by using the global instrument of the internet has by his own choice become a global citizen. The secret documents that he has splashed on the internet do not merely affect or threaten a particular nation but a number of nations that are pivotal to the security of the globe at a time when this security is imperilled by resolute irreconcilable enemies. Assange therefore by revealing this secrecy to the foes of Western civilization nolens volens is conniving with these implacable enemies of the West and hence committing ‘global treason’. The fact, moreover, that he is a messenger of a most dangerous lie, i.e., that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or potentially with Iran, are not quintessentially related to the continuous existential threat that global terror and rogue states pose to Western civilization, rightfully qualifies him to be ‘shot’ for telling lies about the truth.


I rest on my oars: your turn now

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.

Unveilling the War against Global Terror

The following paper was written on October 2001. It is republished here for the readers of this new blog.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

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

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

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

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

What, however, is most disturbing for the West, is that the distorted interpretations of the Koran by the fundamentalist mullahs, motivate a sizeable part of the young to throng behind their fanatic leaders’ calls for a Jihad, in almost all Muslim countries, as well as some Muslims of the diaspora who reside in the West. For if the will of Allah allows killers of innocent people to enter the kingdom of God, then killing of the innocent would be an act of salvation and guarantee for their mass murderers that they would enter infinite paradise. If there are, as it is obvious, some Muslims who cannot see through these distorted interpretations of the Koran, then Western nations have no other option but to respond to the battle-cry of their leaders, and fight them to the end. No civilised human rights laws should protect this murderous mass of fanatics who are determined to bury civilised life. No United Nations human rights shield should protect these terrorists, as well as those who harbour and promote them. When the heart of Western civilisation is the target of these extremists, then the top priority for the west should be their elimination. The only maxim that should apply to terrorist criminals, is that those who live by the laws of the jungle should also be prepared to die by the laws of the jungle. But this is a maxim of the brave. ….

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

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

The first signs are, that this ‘war’ against terrorism will be unlike any other wars. The battlelines will be three-dimensional. They will involve ‘blitzkriegs’ on the economic, diplomatic and military terrain. But in the diplomatic field it will be the end of diplomacy as we know it. The United States will play hard ball diplomacy on an international scale, and its “mission will determine its coalition”, in the words of its Defence Secretary Rumsfeld. Its foreign policy will be prudently flexible, but it will not allow itself to be beguiled and misguided by the siren songs of that tower of Babel, the United Nations, to open another welter and ‘banter’ on the table of negotiations.There cannot be a crossing, a meeting of minds, with such ruthless, fanatical opponents. The scourge of terrorism will not and cannot be resolved on the table of prolonged negotiations, but on the battlefield, especially when the time-bomb of biological and nuclear devices is ticking-on.The US military retaliation must be massive and swift. The times are not for timorous leaders, military sceptics, and indecisive Hamlets. President Bush, having an intelligent, decisive administration, shows all the signs that he will tackle this problem, unlike his predecessor, complacent, Hamletinesque Clinton, by grappling the bull of terrorism by its horns. But, he will not be a reckless matador. This is illustrated by the fact, that despite the carnage of New York and Washington and the immense provocation – it was the first time in its history that the US mainland had become a target - this attack was on the Bush Administration, yet the latter did not respond with a knee-jerk reaction, but with prudence, stoicism, and deliberation. It took almost a month before it responded militarily against this challenge of the terrorists. And before it started firing its missiles on Afghanistan, it forged a notable coalition, encompassing Europe and Asia, of which China and Russia are the most important, against terrorism, as a necessary, if not indispensable weapon in its fight against these fanatics.

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

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

The war against the Taliban and bin Laden must be fought with all the US armaments, excluding biological and nuclear weapons. The teary comments of parts of the media on civilian casualties, have a misplaced perspective, and weaken the support that the coalition must have among its people to defeat this mortal enemy. No modern warfare can occur without civilian casualties, especially in the case of these fanatics who often use civilians as a shield. The fact is however, that more civilians are killed by these dictatorial regimes than are killed when these regimes are struck from outside. Saddam Hussein massacred more civilians than the US bombing during the Gulf War. The Taliban and the Northern Alliance have slaughtered more civilians in their fratricidal war against each other, than the US bombing will ever do. In Rwanda, the Hutu regime massacred 800,000 Tutsi civilians in its tribal war against the latter. Where are the tears of the media for the above historical facts?

To accuse the US, that it deliberately targets civilians, is a gross fabrication and distortion of the truth. If its war planners had such an unjust and feeble-minded policy which targeted civilians, then such a policy would jeopardise its moral standing against terrorists, as well as lose in one sweep the support it has from the coalition, that it so wisely and diligently has put in place. The US has to retaliate with all its might against this global threat of terrorism. It should give no intellectual quarter to the sceptics and pessimists of academia, who claim that the war against terrorism cannot be won. Professor Fred Halliday, in an article published in The Weekly Guardian on October 27, claims that “eradicating terrorists does not eradicate their cause”. And a war against terrorism is “war against an enemy.of whom action can have no predictable end”. The most effective way to eradicate their cause is to put an end to the perceived invincibility and successes of the terrorists. Even fanatics, once they are deprived of their ‘invincibility’ by being defeated decisively in their operations, will lose their confidence that God is with them, and will abandon their cause. As to the second contention of Professor Halliday, one can only reply that action against an enemy can never have a predictable end. But because of the unpredictability of war, one does not reel from fighting a mortal enemy who is threatening one’s survival. No one among the North Vietnamese leadership, could predict or even conceive that they could win the war against the United States, but unimaginative, intellectually nipple-fed professors, are always predictable.

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

I rest on my oars. Your turn now.

This paper was written on October 15, 2001, and published in the English supplement of ‘Neos Kosmos’, in November 19, 2001