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.

Swarm of Jellyfish Attempt to Break the Camel's Back of John Bolton

By Con George-Kotzabasis
A reply to: Do Arab & Muslim Lives Matter?
By Steve Clemons The Washington Note September 12, 2010


Only moral and intellectual weaklings would not accept that there is no “moral equivalence” between civilians killed by deliberate “malicious terrorist acts” and those killed by inadvertent “military action in self-defence.” Ambassador Bolton’s quote (“But it is a mistake to ascribe a moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts, the very purpose of which are to kill civilians, and the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths as a result of military action taken in self-defense.”) that Clemon dubs as a zinger and uses to make his case, is intellectually reprehensible and will haunt his conscience remorselessly to his grave. One can hardly infer from Bolton’s quote that he claims that innocent lives lost are not of equal value. It is Clemons that meretriciously and sans intellectual shame attributes such a position to Bolton.


Clemons proudly mentions his mentor Hans Baerwald on the issue of “stress.” But equally this stress applies to Clemons himself, who under the stress of intellectual debate shows his true character: Wantonly and perversely distorting the position of his opponent to make his easy point. Clearly, Clemons is too weak on the knees to hold up the heavy banner of Vergil’s tu ne cede malis.


The above emitted the following replies.


Nadine says,

Kotz, those who have imposed on themselves as a moral duty the refusal to acknowledge evil, will always yield to it, since they have convinced themselves that it does not exist.


I must read Berman's "Flight of the Intellectuals" (I've only read reviews so far); he seems to have an explanation of the thinking behind this.


DonS says, 


"One can hardly infer from Bolton’s quote that he claims that innocent lives lost are not of equal value. It is Clemons that meretriciously and sans intellectual shame attributes such a position to Bolton."


Kotz, you twist the simple meaning, as does Bolton. The deeper flaw is Bolton's attempt to insinuate the common Israeli linguistic trick, adhered to by the Bolton's (and, truth be told, the cowardly US enabler) that all military actions undertaken by Israel are in "self defense". Only fools and jingoists salute such stupidity. Similar in its way to those fools who justify the invasion of Iraq as self-defense -- after all 'they' attacked us first. Not innocent? those hundreds of thousands of Iraq civilians dead as a result of the US-unleashed whirlwind?


I don't subscribe to the ubiquitous '911' excuse for endless war, by the US or its Israeli mini.


But if you want to degrade yourself intellectually, not to mention morally, be my guest.


Kotzabasis says,


DonS


Clearly your vocation in the ‘market of argument’ is to be a peddler in non sequiturs. Why are you shifting the ground of the argument, is it because your pockets are empty of all coins of counter reasoning on the issue? The question as was initially put by Clemons’s use of the Bolton quote was not whether Israel’s and America’s wars were self-defensive or not but whether there was “moral equivalence” between the deliberate and non-deliberate killing of civilians. Clemons by cheating intellectually, by speciously transforming this argument of moral equivalence into an argument of devaluation of “Muslim and Arab lives” has made himself intellectually and morally persona non grata.


The great statesman Talleyrand, eloquently and boldly said the following in the face of Napoleon, when the latter deposed the legitimate heir Ferdinand II and placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, “Sire, un enfant de famille may gamble away his last farthing—the heritage of his ancestors—the dower of his mother—the portion of his sisters—and yet be courted and admired for his wit—be sought for his talents and distinction—but let him once be detected in cheating at the game, and he is lost—society is forever shut against him.” You likewise, partaking in this Napoleonesque cheating of Clemons “at the game,” have become your own “guest” as an intellectual and moral pariah.


DonS says,


Kotz; whatever.


As far as shifting ground, I guess my logical leaps were a bit too facile for you to follow. I often forget to show all my work. Make no mistake, Bolton's sole intent in the omitted sentence was to justify Israeli action in any and every way he could. I simply highlighted the historical rhetoric up which that assertion is based.


Bolton would always prefer we watch the monkey and pretend we don't see the organ grinder.


Posted by larry birnbaum, Sep 16 2010, 7:19PM - Link



I see I've nothing, really, to add to kotzabasis's remarks above.
There are lots of reality-based objections Clemons could make to
Bolton's world-view. This one is so obviously specious that it
leaves no alternative but to see him as not just a partisan -- there
is such a thing as an honest partisan -- but a shill.


The world is seriously fucked up and lots of ill-meaning idiots gain
genuine authority. But "policy intellectuals" never gain respect and
authority this way.

Liberals Continue to Jab Cheney

By Con George-Kotzabasis

 It's amusing to see all the passionate and incorrigible haters of Cheney to have a jab at him even "posthumously" Out of Office. Emily Bazelon on Slate Magazine speaks for all these haters but the context with 'revenge' belies what she says about Cheney. The latter did not say at anytime that the documents on torture should be 'declassified,' but once they were, they should not have been declassified selectively without also revealing the positive aspects of the harsh interrogations.


The Bush-Cheney administration prudently--knowing thy enemy--unlike the imprudent Obama who apparently lacks rudimentary knowledge of the kind of enemy America is fighting, were unwilling to disclose to their Islamist enemies some of the methods by which the key holy warriors held as enemy combatants were "spilling the beans."


Halliburton says


Since the memos thus far released were all part of FoIA filings, it was not up to the administration to release them. Based on the Obama administration's own FoIA policies, the memos had to be released. I might point out that Cheney's own FoIA request is selective, listing only two documents, and then only some of the pages from those documents.


The "disclosing of interrogation methods" meme is claptrap. All of the methods the Bush administration sought to use are centuries old; SERE-derived methods are duplicates of torture used by the Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War. There's nothing new to disclose.


Kotzabasis says


Certainly you are right that the memos according to President Obama’s FoIA policies had to be released since in January 21, 2009 he loosened Bush’s Executive order of November 2001 pursuant to national interests by repealing some provisions of the order. Cheney’s selectivity is consistent in this respect with the political acumen of the previous administration in being determined not to reveal to the enemy—even out of office-- unlike Obama in office, its secret procedures in this matter.


As for the “disclosing of interrogation methods,” the sting of the “claptrap” is in you. To say, as you do, that these “methods...are centuries old...duplicates of torture used by the Chinese and North Koreans,” says more about the fertility of your imagination than of the complexity of the situation. Is it conceivable to you that Pentagon and CIA Intelligence confronting a unique enemy such as suicidal fanatical warriors would be using the same techniques and methods of the past without innovating new ones? But I suppose your intellectually barren answer would be “there is nothing new to disclose.”


Halliburton says


It's certain that Cheney wants to keep portions of the reports he wants released secret, but I don't have your faith in his judgment. After all, we are talking about the man who helped create the 1976 "Team B" report on the capabilities of the USSR, which was wrong on every detail, notably the nuclear-powered laser beam weapons the Soviets were supposedly building. Cheney also thought it a good idea to undercut Gorbachev in 1989, and Brent Scowcroft and James Baker squelched him. I'd be more likely to believe that Cheney doesn't want portions of those reports released because they might undercut his assertions.


My "infertile imagination" seeks exceptional proof in the case of exceptional claims. Nothing about Al Qaeda and its fellow travelers is unique in history. Your claim that the CIA has some "new" methods of torture - "enhanced interrogation" if you wish - is an exceptional one, and would require exceptional proof. Only disclosure would provide that. It's far more likely, however, that your imagination is overheated.


kotzabasis says


I don’t want to go back to the past, mistakes can be made and only the Pope is infallible. And just as someone can be ‘serially’ correct in the past he is not bound to be correct all the time in the future. The same logic applies in inverse to Cheney.


But your belief is misplaced as already the portions of the reports released have “undercut” The Bush administration’s “assertions.” Cheney therefore is more concerned to prove that the “enhanced interrogation” did work in preventing the jihadists launching further attacks and releasing those memos that provide this evidence while ‘clinically’ isolating them from the overall intelligence that would be invaluable to the jihadists.


All the professionals in matters of war in contrast to laypersons consider al Qaeda to be a UNIQUE enemy. Of course there have been fanatics and their “fellow travelers” in all ages. But just give one example from ‘your own’ history where the mortal foes of a nation were operating within it clad in civilian clothes and in the carapace of cutting-edge technology and armed with the most modern deadly weapons, including potentially with nuclear ones, and crashing airbuses into the sky scrapers of a metropolis. If you cannot provide such an example of an enemy then you too must logically come to the conclusion that the holy warriors of Islam are verily unique foes.


In view of this incontrovertible fact do you consider an “exceptional claim” that needs “exceptional proof” that the intelligence services of a superpower such as America confronting such a ‘supernally’ dangerous enemy in times of asymmetrical warfare would not have developed new interrogation methods that would be appropriate in extracting vital information from their captives saving thousands of lives? It would take lukewarm imagination to have come to this deduction.

Street Walking Honourable Profession for Haters of Israel

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A stinging humorous short reply to: Disturbing: Israeli Youth Help Raze Entire Bedouin Village
The Washington Note July 31, 2010

As I’ve said before, Clemons on the issue of Israel has become an agent provocateur in his ‘day-light’ job. But not being fully gratified with this occupation he has found a new one, a moon-lighting job as a political street walker, willing to be ‘sheathed’ by the first ‘flashing’ sword of any random passer-by at any price, as long as it is at the expense of Israel.

And it is interesting to see all the ‘red light’ professionals with their Arab clientele in this thread, coming out in support of Clemons up to the ‘hilt of the sheath’.

Brzezinski's Romantic Diplomatic "Surge" to Extricate America from its Iraqi Woes

Í'm republishing this short article that shows how wrong, even the serious critics of the war were about the outcome of the war in Iraq.


…Brzezinski Calls Iraq War a Historic, Strategic, and Moral Calamity…
Washington Note—January 31, 2007

A brief response—Con George-Kotzabasis


Zbigniew Brzezinski is a proud American-Pole. But he is also, as an avatar of his rich historical Polish heritage, the quintessential romantic. His suggestion that the US initiate a diplomatic demarche with other powers, such as the EU, Russia, and China that have interests in the Middle East region, as the only way that America can extricate itself from its Iraqi debacle, is painted with the brush of a hugely talented romantic artist. One is reminded of the heroic cavalry charge of Polish officers against the panzer divisions of the Wehrmacht, at the beginning of the Second World War.

Likewise, Brzezinski is leading a diplomatic cavalry charge against the Islamist fanatics that can only end in placing America on the hill of Calvary. For a diplomatic “surge”, as he proposes, without the United States first solidifying its dominance on the field of battle, and hence negotiating from a position of weakness with these irreconcilable and implacable foes, will render to the global jihadists and their state sponsors, such as Iran, a tremendous victory over the US that will instantly threaten the vital geopolitical interests of the latter, if not bring the US to stare into the abyss of its self-inflicted extinction as the dominant superpower.

This is the “hemlockean” strategic remedy that our romantic Brzezinski proposes, a presumed votary of realpolitik, to the American political elite as an escape from the woes of the Iraqi war.

No More Free Suntans in Sunny Greece

By Con George-Kotzabasis

As Drew correctly states none of the classical liberal economists, Smith, Mises, Hayek, and I would add in this brilliant constellation Mill, Bawerk, and Schumpeter, ever argued that the free market was perfect and “market failure” was inconceivable. On the contrary they argued that the three cardinal principles of the free market were imperfect knowledge, uncertainty, and risk. How could any rational and economically literate person accuse the classical liberal economists of contending that the free market were free from market failure, when their whole argument was premised on the above three principles? Moreover, they did argue, that market failure could be cured mainly by the ‘elixir’ of the free market, and not by unqualified and ubiquitous government intervention.

It is the critics of the free market that engendered the ‘straw man’ of the perfect market so they could knock it down easily without any effort of critical thinking, which of course they lacked, and replace it with the socialist planning nostrums or, a la Kervick, with the hybrid panacea of the “mixed economy,” whose avatar was and is modern Europe, and which presently is at the threshold of economic bankruptcy. The sun is still shining in sunny Greece, but there are no more free suntans for its denizens.

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

Nipple-fed Liberals Hate and Lambast General Petraeus

By Con George-Kotzabasis

It’s the “leg-breaking soldiers in fatigues,” to quote Dan Kervick who denigrates them, that are indefatigably and with great sacrifices defending liberal values and the democratic and entrepreneurial mores of Western societies from the mortal danger that rises from the barbaric atavism of fanatical Islam. But it is not surprising that the ideologues of the serially bankrupt left, like Kervick, would lambast great Americans, like General Petraeus, with their vitriolic sarcasm. It’s obvious that Kervick as a hubristic member of the gang of General “Betraeus” is divinely apportioning from his Olympian abode his moral legless strictures upon great successful Americans who stand on, and leap with, strong legs. And it’s clear that Kervick with his intellectually and morally rickety feet cannot stand and ‘fight’ on the superb motto of Virgil, “Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito”. But what other could one expect from nipple-fed liberals?

The above emitted the following comments on The Washington Note

Posted by Dan Kervick, Mar 07 2010, 6:44AM – Link

“…defending liberal values and the democratic and entrepreneurial mores of Western societies from the mortal danger that rises from the barbaric atavism of fanatical Islam.” Mortal danger … right. You might as well say that the English language faces a mortal danger from Portuguese. Your sense of proportion and connection with the real world are seriously impaired.

From my own seat here in America, I don’t see many fanatical Muslims about. What I do see is a danger to liberal values rising from the diseased fears of the neurotically terrified. My concern is not with David Petraeus, who is just doing a job the civilian government gave to him, but with the poisonous weakness of the cowardly right, who seem ready to hand over their most valuable possessions to soldiers like Petraeus, if the latter promise to protect the relatively insignificant hides of the former.

Posted by kotzabasis, Mar 07 2010, 5:23PM – Link
Kervick

The reason that you don’t see the great danger “to liberal values,” and indeed to civilization as we know it, issuing from the few “fanatical Muslims” that you see is due to your lack of imagination. This is an asymmetrical conflict or war in the context of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and nuclear ones and one doesn’t have to see a myriad of fanatical Muslims to perceive the mortal danger to these values. And do you consider within this context, that the professionals of HUMINT(Human Intelligence), not amateurs and dilettantes like you, who warn that in the near future there is a high probability that these few fanatical Muslims will be armed with WMD and nuclear ones are disconnected from the “real world” and “are seriously impaired” by “the diseased fears of the neurotically terrified,” to quote you? Who in this case is “seriously impaired” in one’s sense of reality? And in your continued inveterate sickly sarcasm you degrade and make a vaudevillian mockery of this stupendous danger by turning it into a protection of the “hides” of the rich.

Hizb ut Tahrir: Hatchery of Islamist Radicalism

The following short article was published on January 30, 2007, and was sent to the Australian Government on the same date. It's republished here as the government now considers the banning of Hizb ut Tahrir.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Hizb ut Tahrir’s spokesman Washim Doureihi’s claim that his party’s goal "was not to change the nature of Australia," is either blatant dissembling, taqqiyya--characteristic of Muslims--or historically ignorant. The establishment of a caliphate in the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, which is the goal of Hizb ut Tahrir, with a population of more than five hundred millions, would not merely "change the nature of Australia," but would irrevocably obliterate Australia and New Zealand as the outposts of Western civilization in the region.

However, the statement of John Howard, as reported in The Age, on January 30, 07, should be of some concern to Australians. He stated that "people…should be able to say ridiculous things in democracy without that language constituting violence and extreme incitement to violence." This judgment of the PM is based on rational criteria. The trouble is that all the actions of the terrorists are based on a patent of irrationality, and indeed, their whole movement of jihad has a ridiculous base, i.e., religious fanaticism. And it’s by propagating these ridiculous things that their propagandists, such as Dr. Ismail Yusanto, chairman of the Indonesian arm of Hizb ut Tahrir, who was the main speaker at the conference last weekend, are getting their deadly recruits of terror. That is why political leaders who have committed their military forces to fight global terror, have to take these "ridiculous things" with seriousness. They cannot allow a hatchery of Islamic radicalism to function in the midst of their countries as a fifth column of global terrorism.