Liberals' Deficit of a Sense of Reality

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Jane Mayer and the reviewer of her book Andrew Bacevich both of them have an unfathomable deficit of a sense of reality and are oblivious of the lessons of history. Like beatific angels they descend from “a fine cloud of solicitous idealism” to critique and accuse the Bush administration of American-made Gulags. Disregarding and forgetting that the normal and complacent days of America ended on 9/11. On this fateful day America was attacked by an invisible deadly enemy whose only transparency was that he was wearing civilian clothes. In such circumstances the Administration was in the morally unenviable position to apprehend people not on hard legal evidence but on suspicion and to hold them for a long period because of the possible great danger. In the darkness of this war against global terror the enlightened civilized processes of the Geneva Conventions and due process became totally obsolete, not by the nefarious practices of the government but by the dicta of reality and history. On the latter criteria, Mayer and Bacevich are irredeemable failures. To quote the great Austrian writer Robert Musil, “to the mind good and evil… are not sceptical, relative concepts, but terms of function, values that depend on the context (M.E.) they find themselves in.”


Further, desperate to make their case against the Administration they throw the latter into the pool of the politics of fear. They are deliberately not making the nuanced distinction between the words threat and fear. While one can threaten even the fearless it does not follow that the threatened reacts out of fear. He merely reacts to a plausible threat like any reasonable person would in the same circumstances. And this is exactly what Americans are doing in the aftermath of 9/11. To claim as Mayer and Bacevich do that the Bush administration deliberately let loose the winds of fear to batter Americans for their own nefarious ends, whatever the latter happen to be, is on their part intellectual legerdemain par excellence.

I rest on my oars: your turn now

Judge Goldstone Eyeless in Gaza: No Evidence of Human Rights Violations by Israel's Defence Force

By Con George-Kotzabasis


Professor Alan Dershowitz is to be commended for exposing a ‘solipsistic’ toady of the United Nations Human Rights Council who puts his personal vain glory above the truth, that no human rights violations were perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Force during the Gaza incursion whose goal was to stop the rain of rockets on Israel shot by Hamas. Judge Goldstone sacrificed veracity to his own vanity.

Bring The Afghan Tribal Chiefs Into The Loop Of The Poppy

By Con George-Kotzabasis

There is a great possibility of replicating the success of the Iraqi Surge in Afghanistan with the following economic-political-military strategy: To shift the estuary of the stream of revenue from narcotics from the Taliban’s and narco-lords’ mouths to the government mouth with the aim to feed the hungry mouths of the tribal chiefs of Afghanistan. That is, to nationalize the poppy industry and make the tribal chiefs of Afghanistan the direct equity holders of the income that accrues from the production of opium. Such a policy will create a powerful self-interest and lead to an Iraq like Tribal Chief’s awakening that will be more widespread and potent than the Iraqi one, since it will mobilize the whole country, through its tribal chiefs traditional political potency, against the Taliban and the narco-lords. Thus U.S. forces will not have to go to a wild goose chase of serendipity to get “their lucky break.” By bringing the tribal chiefs into the loop of the poppy, U.S. and Coalition strategy will place a noose around the neck of the Taliban and its al-Qaeda confederates.

This idea was floated by me in a paper of mine on October 2008

American Liberal Annoyed by Australian 'Snow Flakes' Falling on his Head

American says,

I have no idea about the substance and accuracy of the report itself. But I'm not sure I understand how the release of this news would be supposed to put a better face on the war. Doesn't the story instead create the impression that the war is a classic imperialist war, with US over in Afghanistan prospecting for mineral riches, when they are supposed to be hunting down terrorist "safe havens"?

Australian says


Kervick like an eager bambino susceptible to all thrilling excitements seen his hobbyhorse “classic imperialism” on the rugged mountains of Afghanistan rushes to ride it for a playful trot.


American says,


Kotzabasis, you didn't read my comment very carefully.


I will elaborate on the point I was making. Since the James Risen story was published, there has been a flurry of comment in response to the story. Much of that comment is skeptical about the timing and purpose of the release of information on which the story is based. The common theme of these sceptical comments is that this release is somehow designed to make the war in Afghanistan look better or more justified.


The problem with this line of sceptical argument is that the Risen report about minerals in Afghanistan, whether accurate or inaccurate, whether overblown or proportional, whether suspiciously timed or not, does nothing at all to make the war look any better. That's because the war is supposed by its defenders to be justified as an essential fight against dangerous jihadist terrorists, Taliban extremists and their enclaves in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any story line that clouds that message actually *undermines* the justifications for the war offered by the administration and its supporters. Surely the people who are telling us that we need to be in Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda and to combat the evil oppression of Taliban-style Islamic government do not want us thinking that the war is really driven by greed.


So my implicit point was not that the war actually *is* an imperialist war for booty, but rather that if there is any deliberate timing to the release of this information about the discovery of mineral riches in Afghanistan, then a better explanation for that release is that it is designed to *undermine* support for the war by making it look like the US's interest in fighting it is driven by a desire to exploit and profit from Afghanistan's mineral wealth.


On a separate point, your comments on this blog are about 95% concerned with the other commenters on the blog, and only about 5% concerned with the actual events and issues you claim. I think you should try harder to keep your personal characterizations to yourself and focus on issues.


Australian says,


Only for phantasmagorical ideologues of the Left could the war be anything other, post 9/11, than a war against “dangerous jihadist terrorists.” To imagine now with this ‘serendipitous’ discovery of minerals, if it’s true, that this could “undermine” the “support” and justification of the war could only be imagined by someone with a ‘cloudy’ mind., since only such a mind would come to the conclusion that this was just another “classic imperialist” venture.


The reason why I sometimes refuse to deal with the content of the commentators, including some of your own, is that they are a banal regurgitation of the intellectually and politically bankrupt dogmas of the pathological Left. And this engenders in me a frolicsome mood to deride directly the amateurish violinist who pretends to give a classical performance (Read political analysis) with discordant sounds and intellectually cacophonous notes. Now you know the secret about my playful mood sans ‘French letter’.


American says,


Kotz, you really are an ass. You do more than I ever could, by virtue of your own demeanor, to discredit everything you say. So I will have nothing more to do with you, and will let your disordered personality speak for itself. Feel free to fire at will with the insults.


Australian says,

My Dear Kervick, TO EACH HIS OWN. And your raising the white flag against my arguments, in your refusal to engage me, speaks volumes about your character and intellectual weight.

Legendary Stork Brought Unloved Child to White House

As a result of the mid-term elections in the United States that are a devastating blow to the presidency of Obama and which more likely than not will deprive him of a second term in office, I'm republishing the short article below that was written and published on May 2009, that predicted what would be the fate of Obama.



By Con George-Kotzabasis


A photo of Obama that tells it all about the latter’s ‘substance.’ Has anyone seen Obama’s photo in The Australian, April 29, 2009, when he was given the cap of the FBI at his visit in its headquarters? His expression is that of a toddler who has been given an ugly toy for a present. This photo will haunt Obama for the rest of his term.

The legendary stork has brought an unloved child in a basket to the American people. Abandoned as a toddler by his father, dumped as a child by his mother on his grandparents, he has been searching for love ever since. And finally he founded it in the initially warm embrace of the foster parenthood of the prattling classes, the politically disgruntled from the previous administration, and all the poor. And being laid in this ‘public’ bed of love and indulging its pleasures to the full Obama will eventually have to pay its high price. As to continue to be the recipient of this love, so existentially necessary for him, his agenda perforce has to be focused in satisfying these three groups simultaneously. That is why his grand social policies of universal health care, education, foreign policy, and climate change, are so important to him. But this is a task for one endowed with superior qualities and Obama has the ordinary qualities of a ‘community organiser’ dressed in ‘ivy clothes leaves.’ And in this inability to accomplish the great change that he promised to the American people the presently smitten with love public for Obama will turn against him and the latter will find himself bitten by the public adder on his path to political failure.

And the first signs of this failure are the dramatic events unfolding in the aftermath of the Iranian election which have turned his foreign policy and new diplomatic outreach to the foes of America and his hopes to placate them into shambles.

PS. In the mid-term elections the adder has bitten Obama.The question now is how long the victim will survive its poisonous bite.

Preemptive Attack both on the External and Internal Enemy

By Con George-Kotzabasis


The 'unanimous rejection and repudiation of terrorism... and commitment to work within the laws of Australia', by the Muslim leaders who attended the Meeting on 23 of August in Canberra, must now be used by the Howard government as a "jump-start", to a "summit" of hard, but not foolhardy, action, that would effectively protect Australia from those fundamentalist Muslims and their followers in our midst, who pose an ominous and a grave threat to the security of our country.

Notwithstanding the support of the six principles, drafted at the Meeting, by the Muslim leaders, the government must not "manure" and water any illusions that these leaders will be able to do anything 'effective' against those fundamentalist imams and deflect them from continuing to push their radical-fanatic agenda among their followers, albeit this time, cautiously and stealthily, so they can avoid from being seized by the arm of the law. Fanaticism has the spots of the leopard on its back. And as one cannot change the spots of the latter, it would be the "summit" of folly to believe that the Muslim "summiteers", by exercising reason and persuasion, could change the nature of fanaticism embodied in these imams. This much was conceded by the Prime Minister himself, who in his riposte to the journalists as to why he had not invited radical Muslims to the Meeting, said that it would be impossible to change the views of fanatics by persuasion. And the evidence is overwhelming that no amount of reasonable arguments can persuade these fanatics to change their views, as despite the flood of concrete evidence to the contrary, they still believe that Osama bin Laden was not behind the attack on 9/11. Even some moderate Muslims believe that bin Laden was not the culprit. And, like the fanatics, they believe in all kinds of Americano-Jewish "twin" conspiracies, such as for example, that the Jews had foreknowledge of the attack, and that was the reason why they had not turned up for work on the day of the attack on the twin towers.

It is on this principle alone, 'once a fanatic always a fanatic', that the government must now enact the no "legal niceties" foolproof no loopholes legislation that would prevent, effectively, fundamentalist imams and teachers in Islamic schools, from teaching their doctrine of hate against America and Western nations, and from propagating - by craftier and more devious means, instead of doing this openly and with tongue in cheek as they have done in the past - a holy war against those nations and their peoples, who are fighting global terror in Afghanistan and in Iraq. (And it is precisely for this reason-the fighting of global terror- that countries engaged in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have become targets of terrorists. And not as second rate and rationally shallow commentators, a la Kerry O'Brien and Tony Jones of the ABC, to mention only the most prominent ones in this country, who assert that these countries, and Australia in our case, have become terrorist targets because of their alliance with the U.S. and because of being co-occupiers with the latter in Iraq. These countries and America would not have been in Iraq, if the latter had not been an integral part of global terror, and especially now, when it has become the front-line of global terror. It is the ultimate contradiction on the one hand to agree, as most of these pundits do, that the countries of the free world have no other alternative but to fight global terror, which is a war sans borders and unlocalised, and then to refuse to fight it in the crucible of terror that Iraq has now morphed into.)

The government must realize, that only by legislating a "Sword of Damocles" over the heads of these dangerous fanatics that would deport them to the countries of their origin --if not jail them in this country for treason, if they happen to be Australian citizens--even by stripping them of their Australian citizenship, in the case that they are officially Australians. This can be done by retrospective legislation, in order to carry out their deportation, if they blatantly violated or violate the pledge they have made to their Australian citizenship. Thus, will it be able to protect Australia, to the highest degree possible, from home-grown terrorism.

In the enactment of this legislation protecting Australia, the Howard government must be consistent with the logical position of its foreign policy, as expounded by the Prime Minister himself. He made it crystal-clear, that if a country's terrorists in our region threatened the security of Australia by weapons of mass destruction, and the government of such a country was unwilling or impotent to prevent such an attack, then Australia would be forced to launch a pre-emptive raid to stop such an attack upon Australia. The Prime Minister cannot do less in regards to the internal enemy that also poses an imminent and lethal threat to the security of our country. The anti-terrorist legislation therefore, that the government is preparing to take, must also comprise the pre-emptive wherewithal, that would abort an attack on our country by home-grown terrorists. If the Prime Minister is willing and prepared to take the greater risk of invading and violating the borders of a sovereign nation to protect Australia, why then cannot he take the lesser risk, of uprooting and "destroying" the enemy within, which is the inalienable sovereign right of Australia, as it would be equally the right of any other nation in the same situation, to protect its people from an enemy attack?

Australia is at war! It has committed its brave soldiers, its sons and daughters, to fight a treacherous fanatical enemy in Afghanistan and in Iraq who is engaged in global terror, and whose goal is no less than the establishment of a block of Islamo-fascist states in the region, that would ultimately threaten the existence of Western civilization. It would be the acme of folly, of historic dimensions, that while Australia is engaged with its allies in such an existential war, that its government would allow a more than possibly operational fifth column of treacherous fanatics in the meantime, to stab Australia in the back. Such a folly, if it were to happen, would be registered in the annals of history as unforgivable and as inexcusable. It would irremediably demean all the sacrifices that our soldiers had made in fighting this war, and it would put an inerasable stain of moral feebleness and political incompetence, upon the up- to- now admirable leadership of the government on the war on global terror.

The Prime Minister, being fully aware of the real stakes of this war against global terror, who, with historical insight, moral fortitude, and political acumen, decided to commit Australian troops to fight it, must not now be squeamish about the necessary force of the legislative measures that must be commensurate to the great threat that is posed by home-grown terrorism. The political leadership of the free world is now at the crossroads of leading from the front or leading from behind. If, as some leaders of the West, such as Chirac, Schroeder, and Beazley - not to leave out our own crop - have decided to lead from behind, pushed by the stream of populism, these leaders will be everlastingly condemned by history, for their intellectual dishonesty, and political opportunism. Those leaders, such as Bush, Blair and Howard, who have decided to lead from the front, against the stream of populism, will be for ever and ever renowned by future ages for their indomitable spirit, that saved Western civilization from these terrorist barbarians.


ECRASEZ L'INFAME DE TERORRISME

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.

Et Tu Brute Might Be the Fate of the Obamanesque Caesar of Big Government

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The November 2 mid-term elections have swiftly brought to the ears of the American Caesar of socialistic policies the ominous warning of the soothsayer, “Beware the Ides of March.” Not only within a short span of time a large part of the electorate have rejected the big government and interventionist policies of the pretender, who was cast as an Olympian President by the liberal prattling crowd of the east and west coasts and who himself ‘hubristicaly’ transformed his “community organiser” status , covered under ivy leaves, into the Olympian gods of Poseidon and Asclepius who would stop the rise of the oceans and heal the planet, but also a sizeable part of his own party and especially some of its leaders who have sat and supped on his ‘political banquets’ and have tasted the bitterness of his failure as president, are presently detaching themselves from his discredited presidency and are considering not to support his nomination as president in 2012.


As the misguided and unloved policies of Obama, such as the massive restructuring of health-care, cap-and-trade, and his 800 billion-plus stimulus that failed to reduce unemployment, have given rise to the hurricane winds that will continue to threaten the further uprooting and dislodging of many Democrats from their positions of power as well as the loss of the presidency in 2012. Thus under this threat it might be the ‘conspiracy’ of his own colleagues and friends, the Democrats, that may lead to his political assassination and bring to Obama’s lips in his last breathing, the words “et tu Brute.”

Multiculturalism: How a Pet Idea Became a Dinosaur

The following paper was first written and published in the IPA Review (Institute of Public Affairs) in 1996, Vol. 49/2. It's republished here as Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel applied to Multiculturalism the last rites to its demise: According to the Chancellor, Multiculturalism is kaput. "The approach to multiculturalism to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other has failed, utterly failed."



By Con George-Kotzabasis


Once upon a time an amateurish “astrologer” by the name Al Grasby, who happened also to be Minister of Immigration, discovered accidentally, in the Australian firmament of immigration a new star:the Star of Multiculturalism. Al was a man who had a lot of “pets”, “lay” ideas, but this one was going to be a whopper. Within a decade, it would become for wave upon wave of migrants who landed and settled in this country, their lodestar. It would provide guidance and solace for the travails they would endure in the initial stages of settlement, as well as give the celestial energy by which they would cultivate their cultures in their new homeland.


No one had suspected that this discovery of our amateur astrologer was from its beginnings a Fata Morgana and that before the end of the second decade of its chequered existence it would be a falling star. The idea that lay behind the discovery was magnanimous and filled to the brim with the ideals of humanity and the spirit of tolerance. But, like all ideas with such pe(t)digree it was impregnated with the seeds of its own destruction at its conception. This, however, was unbeknown even to its eminent founding fathers, who had spent, with such profligacy, prodigious amounts of corporeal and spiritual energy to give it wings. And it must have been a dolorous and painful experience for them to see that all that their huge efforts had led to was the tragedy of Icarus. But it would not be the first time in history that frivolity in the form of a pet idea would have had such an ending.


It would be stating the obvious to describe Australia as a country whose people are of an exotic provenance. However, to transform a descriptive term into a socio-cultural value, with which migrants would nurture and uphold their cultures in this country for the long duration, as well as transmit them to their progeny, would be an exercise in intellectual alchemy. To have believed that Australia, uniquely, could become a multicultural society was quixotic.


According to its founders, multiculturalism would not only encourage the cultivation and secure the continuation of this rich diversity of cultures, but it would also contribute to the creation of a uniquely tolerant society. In both of these two admirable aims, multiculturalism would be found to be wanting. The achievement of these grandiose aims was based on the premise that Australia somehow was chosen, by some sort of divine predestination, to break itself from the vise of history.


Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki, one of the intellectual founders of multiculturalism, who since has abandoned it, asks the historically germane question regarding the concept of “Many Cultures One Australia”, as proposed by the Centenary of Federation Advisory Committee for the year 2000:“…can it represent a victory over the divisive atavism which has cursed the human experience for so long?” In other words, was it ever conceptually plausible that multiculturalism, or any of its variations, would exorcise this “curse” of history and function as equal before the cascading force of the culture of modern capitalism?


No lesser figure than Karl Marx, whom some of the protagonists of multiculturalism would be proud to consider as their mentor, predicted that the elemental force of capitalism and its culture would sweep away, on a vast scale, the dead weight of traditions and cultures that riveted their peoples to the obfuscation, ignorance, and bigotry of a hoary past. How could anyone be oblivious of the fact that the Darwinian natural selection process of the biological world also applies, with some modifications, in the cultural world, by means very often, of a ruthless competition of cultures, whose crown of victory ineluctably passes to the head of the stronger culture and to the one that is most suitable to the needs and aspirations of people living in a particular society? How could anyone with a modicum of knowledge of human history, disregard the “sanguine” fact that most wars were, whatever their other causes, at the same time wars of different cultures and religious beliefs? Even when there happened to be wars of the same culture, it was a conflict between different interpretation of beliefs, as the Thirty Year War between Protestants and Catholics in the seventeenth century illustrated. In view of the above, one must have had the “courage” of ignorance, to have considered and proposed the possibility of a multicultural Australia.


As to its laudatory goals of tolerance between different cultures and their flourishing within the strongly-established mainstream of Anglo-Saxon culture, to what extent are these goals feasible? There is no doubt that Australia has an exemplary record in its tolerance of different cultures. The strong sense of egalitarianism introduced into Australia by the early colonists, an array of judicious governmental and educational policies, and the experience of an expanding tourism in and out of Australia have combined to imbue Australians, despite some pockets of bigoted obscurantism, with a strong sense of respect and acceptance of foreign cultures.


ETHNIC CONFLICTS WITHIN AUSTRALIA


But whilst the host culture can be genial and tolerant, one cannot say the same for the “metic” cultures. The tolerance of cultures, like the characters of persons, are tested and adjudged in critical and difficult circumstances. Conflicts and historical hatreds between Arabs and Jews, between Greeks and Serbo-Macedonians, between Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats, between Turks and Kurds, have been transplanted into this country. The extent to which these conflicts can mobilize these hostile communities against each other and induce them to lobby governments in support of their countries, furnishes a striking example that multiculturalism and its ideals are a mirage.


What is more disturbing, however, is that governments, for electoral reasons, can become hostages to the “blackmailing” demands of certain ethnic communities, who have the advantage of numbers. Hence, governments in Australia can become unofficial allies of certain countries which are embroiled in hostilities, or even in war, through the pressure resident communities can exercise upon them. The reality, therefore, is that leading organizations of ethnic communities, whose countries back home are engaged in hostilities or war, can become surrogate diplomatic corps, negotiating and acting on behalf of the interests of their own countries with Australian governments.


It’s obvious therefore, that a nation under the umbrella of a multicultural society cannot be protected from the thunderbolts cast by the atavistic wrath that some nations have against each other. The idea of a multicultural society, from the day of its inception, was child’s play, building castles in the sand. It was an idea that should be stillborn. But, due to a mushrooming crop of ethnic communities and councils along with their leaders’ adeptness to coax and seduce politicians and governments, who felt that in return for their political favours they would be rewarded with the ethnic vote, it continued to flourish. Thus it was that ethnic community leaders were able to ensconce themselves within the precincts of political power. As a result of governments’ willingness, especially that of Labour, to adopt and implement many of the schemes of the supporters of multiculturalism, a swarm of drones and mediocrities, both from the ethnic and Anglo-Saxon communities, invaded and captured ministerial and departmental positions, which were cast as the incubators from which would rise the policies of multiculturalism.


The Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA), in the Prime Minister’s office under the Hawke government, was the hatchery par excellence. Thus came into existence the teeming breed of the “professional ethnic”. To solidify the hold they had upon governments, they needed to have the “august” voices of academia speaking in favour of their multicultural proposals. And for those multiculturalists who entered the universities and upon whom some benign force allotted them professorial chairs, Plato’s proviso for his academia that no person without knowledge of mathematics should enter here, did not apply. It was not surprising, therefore, that nothing profound emerged from those noisy, creaking wobbly chairs. Moreover, few academics– with some exceptions, like the courageous professor Blainey–would dare to “pluck the wings” off this flock of intellectual usurpers. Even today, despite the abandonment of the concept of multiculturalism by such eminent persons as professor Zubrzycki and Justice Gobbo, cackles about multiculturalism still can be heard in, and out of, the rooms of academia.


THE FOUR PRINCIPLES OF MULTICULTURALISM


The Gordian knot of multiculturalism was tied by its four principles, as outlined by the Australian Council of Population and Ethnic Affairs: “Essential for a successful multicultural society were social cohesion; respect for cultural identity and awareness of Australian’s cultural diversity; equal opportunity and access for all Australians; and equal responsibility for, commitment to, and participation in Australian Society.” The achievement of each of these principles however, depends on the acceptance of the social, economic, political, and philosophical values of Australian society, i.e. the cultural values of an advanced technological democratic society. But many of the cultures of our ethnically diverse population do not espouse these values. Therefore, if those four basic principles were to be realized, these cultures would have to debunk a great chunk of their own values and adopt the values of Australian society. Ironically, the realization of these four basic principles would not lead to a multicultural society, but to a society of one dominant culture, which fits the requirements of a modern society, with moderate variations, however, in its original cultural milieu. As through a syncretic process, the home grown culture will absorb the best that other cultures have to offer, but like a river with many currents, it will be the mainstream, the stronger current that will determine the meandering course of its direction. It’s certainly correct to believe that the diversity of cultures enriches the experience and enlightens the minds of people. But it’s erroneous to believe that you can build a society or a nation on a medley of cultures.


Al Grasby’s pet idea was destined to have a transitory, but nonetheless, a grotesque existence, for it was written in its star that it would share the fate of the dinosaur.


The article was first written and published in the IPA Review (Institute Of Public Affairs) Vol. 49/2 1996

Limits of Imagination Transformed into Limits of Power

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Steve Clemons and Ben Katcher are using the ‘shamanistic’ art, the art of a conjurer, to turn the limits of imagination into “the limits of American power.” The “aborted attempt” of the Obama administration to “persuade the Israelis to enact a “settlement freeze”, has nothing to do with US power limits but with lack of imagination and political insight on the part of Obama and the State Department not to foresee the political implausibility of trying to impose such a doltish demand on the Netanyahu government. It’s a dismal failure of policy and not a limit of American power as Clemons and Levy in their conjurers’ role aver.


As for Daniel Levy’s ”asymmetries of power,” WigWag’s post is instructive and unassailable in its historical logic. All defeated nations in wars were due to asymmetries of power.

Turning Points will not Come unless Persevering on the Point

I'm republishing this article that reveals how wrong Liberals were about the outcome of the war in Iraq.

The jury is still out on Iraqi democracy


Steven Clemons -The Australian December 20, 2005

A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis (Former Director of SBS TV 1986-96)


Steven Clemons argues by implication that the Iraqi election was neither a milestone nor a turning point, as “there is still a lot of treacherous ground to cover”. He mocks Kristol and Kagan for writing in the Weekly Standard that the Iraqi election was “an eruption of democracy in the heart of the Arab world”, and Kaplan for stating in the New Republic, that the election “really was a milestone”. And he strikes with the last arrow of his mockery President Bush for declaring that the election “was a landmark in the history of liberty”. But being a professional he does not burn all his boats just in case the history making of the “neo-conservatives” and its Executive in the Oval Office turns out to be right and the arrows of his mockery change into boomerangs. He states, that “Kristol, Kagan, and Kaplan-as well as Bush-may still prove to be correct”, albeit he still holds their position to be “more sentimental than logical-not to mention self-serving”.


But let us respond to the crux of his argument that “beneath this big number [of voters] are some unpleasant realities”. The religious leaders of the country issued a fatwa instructing their followers that it was their “religious duty to vote”. This was to him “soft coercion rather than a strong buy-in to democratic process”. The importance lies however, that “this big number” of voters followed the directions of their leaders who were themselves convinced of the value of the democratic process and who had embraced it so ardently. In a country such as Iraq, whose people had lived for so long under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes and who had never experienced the benefits of democratic freedom, only their leaders could usher them into a democratic system of government. Kemal Ataturk is the ne plus ultra example of leading his people to embrace modernity after four centuries of Sultanate despotism. Clemons completely disregards, indeed, misses, this historic fact, in his endeavor, so heedlessly and so hastily, to understate the advent of democracy in Iraq. As the most important feature is not in the “buy-in” of democracy by the people, but the successful “sell-in” of democracy to all the religious and secular factions of Iraq by their respective leaders. It is in this “U turn” of the leaders of Iraq toward democracy in their bid to secure power and in their rejection of violence and the barrel of the gun as a means of achieving power, that augurs well for a democratic future in Iraq.


Clemons also argues, that the high turn out of Sunnis at the elections was prompted as a result that many of them were tortured and murdered by the present Shi’ite dominated government, hence the continuation of the latter would further endanger the Sunnis. He concludes, therefore, that it was fear that caused the Sunnis to participate in such great numbers in the elections, and not only “hope and belief in democracy”. But the Shi’ite dominance was installed with the first Interim Government that was elected last January. Why then the Sunnis who were tortured and murdered surely before last October did not participate in the constitutional elections held on this month?


He furthermore states, ‘that most Iraqis…don’t believe that politics is the best…’solution’ to their problems. They feel that violence remains the more pragmatic way to achieve justice and to protect one’s interests”. To say this in the face of all polls that show that security is the greatest concern of most Iraqis and which can only be achieved by the elimination of violence exposes Clemons as being unhinged from reality. Unless of course he believes the proclivity of the majority of Iraqis for violence has the latent aim of the restoration of a new Saddam who would provide this security.


Such a hidden desire by Iraqis for a new despot however is counter factual and goes against the grain of all the probable scenarios that could unfold in Iraq. The rise of a strongman in Iraq could only happen if the Americans withdrew from the country prematurely with the likelihood that their early departure before Iraq was stabilized could spark a civil war.


Finally, in a burst of risible absurdity, he downgrades the “mountain” of neo-conservative strategy, i.e., the spread of democracy, into a “mouse” of political score pointing, by saying with a serious mien, that “framing an election as a success to score political points will only blur the US ability to see what is really unfolding in Iraq”. But if it was not a success could he say that it was a failure? Or would he choose some sort of a hybrid between success and failure, such as Richard Haass’ “ballotocracy”?


Turning points in history are not instant made nor are they made by a spectacular event. They are made in a long hard building process. The turning point in Iraq will come as the policymakers of the Bush administration stay unflappably and with tenacity on their original strategic point of spawning democracy in the Middle East. Iraq is the pivotal point of this strategy that will turn the world of the terrorists and their state sponsors on their own heads. By defeating the insurgency in Iraq it will defeat also by proxy all other rogue states, as Libya has shown, as well as expedite the defeat of global terror. All the indications are that the Americans are going to stay on the point of their victory.

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.