"LIES" ABOUT THE WAR THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL

Con George-Kotzabasis

A chirping sound and fury of a swarm of crickets from their grassy, weedless, "manicured estates" of politics, the media, academes, and bishoprics are endeavoring to muffle the sound of reason as to why America and its staunch and historically insightful allies went to war against Saddam Hussein.

The critics of the war in their impassioned fiery endeavor to impugn and discredit the Bush, Blair, and Howard governments, are far from being morally and intellectually hampered from using meretricious arguments to make their case against the war. The English essayist Chesterton observed, 'where is the best place to hide a leaf? His answer was ‘in a tree'. The opponents of the war observe, 'where is the best place to hide the truth? Their answer is ‘in a lie'. Hence, they fabricated the biggest lie of all, with the aim to conceal the truth about the war. After their lugubrious doomsday cries and forecasts about hundreds of thousands of casualties, of humanitarian disasters, floods of refugees, and bogged-down Vietnams, all of which failed to materialize, either in Afghanistan or Iraq, they now "pin-up" their arguments on the Americans' unsuccessful efforts to find weapons of mass destruction ( WMD ), and on the inability of its armed forces to win the peace in Iraq. As if these two goals could be accomplished in parallel with the ending of major combat operations, in a regime which brutally oppressed its own people for thirty years, and which practiced the concealment of its development of WMD in the form of an exact science. And which, despite its swift defeat in the war, it still has a paladin of sturdy supporters, whose lament of losing power is inevitably transformed into a vigorous opposition to the American-led coalition forces.

The peaceniks, desperate to find a straw to save themselves from intellectual drowning in this ocean of failed predictions and "displaced" conceptions, have now concocted this lie, that the American, British, and Australian administrations were mendacious to their peoples about the imminent threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the civilized world. In this forlorn effort to justify their position, brazenly and shamelessly distort David Kay's report to Congress about Hussein's WMD, by focusing on the present fact that no such weapons were found, and triumphantly deduce from this, that Hussein was not an imminent threat against the West. But in this ignominious exercise, they totally disregard the other crucial elements of his findings, that clearly substantiate, that the regime retained intact an infrastructure that could develop WMD at short notice.


The eminent columnist of the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, in his column of the ...Post on 10 October wrote, that Iraq maintained 'an infrastructure ( laboratories, equipment, trained scientists,detailed plans ) that could "break out" and ramp up production of [ WMD ] when needed... Just in Time... That David Kay found the infrastructure but as yet no finished product'. And again, as reported in the Washington Post on 7 October, David Kay had found strains of organism in a scientist's home that could be used to produce biological agents. He had also found documents for resuming uranium enrichment efforts for the development of nuclear weapons, and a clandestine network of laboratories that contained equipment for continuing chemical-biological weapons research, as well as SA-2 surface-to-air missiles which could be transformed into ballistic missiles with a range of 250 miles, exceeding the 150 miles range which Iraq was allowed to have by the U.N. .

This is the thundering truth about Hussein's secret program to activate the development of WMD, whenever his regime thought it would be safe to do so, that the critics of the war are vainly attempting to muffle and still. The ABC presenter of the 7.30 Report, Kerry O'Brien, in his interview of the U.S. Ambassador, Tom Schieffer, was picking selectively from the Kay report to make his flimsy case about the unnecessariness of the war in Iraq - who obsessively and indefatigably has been doing since even before the commencement of hostilities in Iraq - and leaving out the key elements of the report which verified without any doubt, that the Hussein regime had the capability to develop and produce WMD at a time of its own choosing.

It is inconceivable, that while Iran, Hussein's arch enemy and rival in the region, had plans to develop nuclear weapons, Hussein would not have known this, and had he known it, he would commit geopolitical hara-kiri, by choosing to go into "nuclear hibernation". That he would stop unilaterally and altruistically all his plans to develop the same weapons. Such an action on his part, would strategically have placed him in a most vulnerable position, and would have made him a hostage to his primary foe in the region. Moreover, such conduct would entail, the discarding and abandonment of all his ambitions and grandiose plans to be the new Saladin of the Arab world, which would be completely out of character. This kind of transubstantiation from a ruthlessly ambitious dictator to a votary of the Dalai Lama, would be the mother of all miracles.

This logic just does not click. Yet it is by this reasoning that the opponents of the war are constructing their case against it. As their core argument was and is, that Hussein was never an imminent threat against the West, and crown the "correctness" of their contention on the fact that no WMD have been found. But I dare say, that not before long, this crown will be a crown of thorns around their heads, and there will be no intellectual resurrection from the naivety that nailed them on the "believers" cross of the bloodthirsty dictator. That this sleight of hand artist was able to dupe and blindfold them in regards to the clandestine network of laboratories and scientists he had in place, and could produce WMD on his orders at the appointed time, will be to their eternal shame.

As for the word 'imminent', that also is a spurious invention of the opponents of the war. Neither Bush nor Blair, nor any other senior member of their administrations, ever said that Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to the free world. What President Bush said, was that Hussein's development and possession of WMD and his links with terrorism, posed a grave and gathering danger against the civilized world. In a world of global terror however, this future gathering danger is not years ahead but too near at hand not to consider it as imminent. Indeed, in a world of unleashed fanatic terror, all the actions that the latter could launch are imminent. The terrorists pose a continuous threat to the world, therefore it would be the culmination of foolishness on the part of those who are been targeted, not to take these threats as imminent. The rogue states too, which directly and indirectly support terrorists, are themselves deeply enmeshed in this web of imminence. On a scale of a continuum of threats, what is imminent? What can happen in one day, in one week, in one month, in one year, to paraphrase the Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld? It is this hard question, that the critics of the war are avoiding from answering, as a result of their intellectual flabbiness and lack of moral and political integrity.

Statesmen who face a great portentous danger, as presently posed by an 'emerging nexus between terrorist networks, terrorist states, and weapons of mass destruction', to quote Secretary Rumsfeld, will not await for the elusive perfect intelligence, perfect information, before they take decisive and unrelenting action against a formidable and deadly foe. In the realm of human affairs uncertainty is the absolute sovereign. It is in this context of uncertainty that political leaders, prudently and intrepidly, but not foolhardily, have to make their determining and momentous decisions.

In the case of the war against Iraq, the Bush and Blair governments had to decide on the sort of action they would take on the basis (a) of the information they had received from their intelligence agencies, whose assessments were based on the calculus of probability, not on certainty (the latter being unattainable) that Iraq possessed WMD, and had plans in place to develop nuclear weapons, and that Hussein would not be squeamish in using them, either directly against his enemies, as he had done in his war against Iran and on his own people, or through proxies, i.e., terrorists. And (b) on Hussein's demonstration of his geopolitical ambitions for the region and the ruthless means he would use to achieve them, and the links he had with global terror.

No wise and responsible political leadership, in such critical conditions, would tarry its crucial decisions, until the interminable debates of the experts, as to whether, in the present case, the aluminium tubes were for uranium enrichment or for rocket construction,- and if they were to be used for rockets, the latter could be carrying WMD - had reached majority or unanimous agreement as to their use. ( Even such an agreement could never be foolproof and could only be tested in the real conditions to which it would be applicable. Moreover, as experts in intelligence can make mistakes in their appraisals, so too experts in other fields are not immune from making mistakes.)

This is the resounding truth why Bush, Blair, and Howard, decided to go to war in Iraq. And the latter is not only pivotal to the future defeat of global terror ( if one is serious in defeating global terror, one also has to fight its state sponsors. It is a war on two fronts. ), but also, in its strategic goal to prevent the "apocalyptic" coupling of terror and rogue states.

The ominous and deadly challenge of fanatic terrorism\ demands leaders of Gulliverian stature, not Lilliputians. The imposing lesson of history is, that in hard times, such as our own, it is the "hard men" that prevail. The flaccid and indecisive leaders, who wait for the will-o'-the-wisp of perfect intelligence and information, before they commit themselves to decisive action, are cast aside and thrown among the debris of history.


The above is an extract from my book titled, Unveiling The War Against Terror written on October 30, 2003

A retort to Dr Peter McMahon's "Global Neo-imperial Fantasies Come Unstuck".

Published On Line Opinion, Australia, 1/11/2005

Con George-Kotzabasis


The utopia builders, a la McMahon, have set up their boutiques in the global market to sell their soddy product. After the collapse of the historically misplaced Communist utopia, with its Gulag Archipelagos and its Killing Fields, the Left's sorcerers apprentices are now concocting their new mantric utopia of "global governance'', to take the place of the displaced one.

Two fundamental contradictions haunt your argument, and ultimately bury the phantoms of the Neo-cons and of neo-imperialism that you raised in your piece. You state that "in the 1970's a new global system was emerging". Your phantoms however, the Neo-cons, were only in power in 2000. By this time the system was already robust and on its course. The Neo-cons were not fabricating a new version of it, as you claim, but were merely its new "managers". And in the aftermath of 9/11, they were also trying to protect it. That was the reason why they went to war, not oil.
The second fundamental flaw in your argument is, that while you claim that "human experiences are too diverse to bend to the logic of one homogeneous society... Or one global market", your panacea for the ills of "global neo-imperialism" is "global-scale governance". At the same time you concede that such "governance"will have "to bend to the logic of...One global market". But how will you put in place such governance upon such "diverse" non-homogeneous societies? Didn't the recent failure of the EU to unite in reference to the amendments of its constitution, which is, moreover, culturally homogeneous, teach you anything?

Your remedy of "global-scale governance", is intellectually unhinged and cannot be taken seriously. All you accomplish with your piece is to replace the "phantoms" of the Neo-cons with your greater phantom of universal governance. By such intellectual credentials, Plato would never allow you to enter his Academy.

UNVEILING THE WAR AGAINST GLOBAL TERROR
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.


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

REALIST FOREIGN POLICY: US ISOLATIONISM CURE AGAINST TERROR

George Kotzabasis



Chuck Pena, a realist in foreign policy argues, in his piece in the Washington Note, June 16, 06, as a result of the “debacle” of the US invasion of Iraq, ‘that US interventionism is a root cause of anti-American resentment in the Muslim world-which breeds hatred and becomes a stepping stone to violence, including terrorism.’ He suggests, therefore, that the US ‘stop meddling in the internal affairs of countries…except when they directly threaten US national security interests’, lessen its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and cease supporting authoritarian regimes, such as the Saudi Arabian and that of Egypt. He strongly believes, that such a new course in America’s foreign policy can ‘cure the disease’ of terror. Hence, the withdrawal of the US from the hotspots of the world, such as the Middle East, is the prudent course to take and avoid, according to him, the disastrous intervention in Iraq from happening again.

This is no less than a new version of the US isolationism of the past. And this is isolationism with a vengeance. As such a policy will be taken by the only superpower in the world. And historically will be unprecedented. As no great, powerful nation in the past withdrew from the turbulent spots in the world, for the purpose of avoiding the resentment of those nations that were the fomenters of this turbulence, especially when the latter threatened the order upon which its power rested. Such a policy is completely unrealistic, especially when it’s recommended to be adopted by the sole superpower, which is the major force that keeps the world’s order, and deals a severe blow to the realist credentials of Chuck Pena.

But it’s obvious that pessimism is the paternity of this new version of isolationism. In the face of US casualties and reverses in Iraq, in the aftermath of its victory against the Saddam regime, some foreign policy realists have lost their grip on history as well as their strength to stand firm against these reverses. In all human enterprises mistakes and reverses are part of the process, and this is especially so in war. To believe that one can engage in warfare without committing errors and without the risk of suffering reverses is the belief of armchair strategists who presumably can plan their wars with the precision of Laplace’s demon leaving nothing to chance. Alas, such absolute knowledge that can foresee every reaction of an enemy to one’s action and hence plan victory against an enemy with algorithmic precision, has not been bequeathed by providence to man. But despite this weakness of man, some people have been endowed by nature to be strong in the face of all errors and reverses and to have the ability to turn them around. This is the endowment of great commanders, and this is the difficult task they have in the Iraqi war today. To cut and run, as a result of these tactical reverses that the Americans are going through, would be the greatest error that would surpass all other errors, as well as being a stupendous strategic reversal, of the US war against global terror.

Wars cannot be waged nor can they be won with pessimists a la Chuck Pena. It’s the vocation of optimists to win wars. And there are auspicious signs--beyond the dramatic selectivity of most of the media to pick the most gruesome events in Iraq, i.e., the daily terrorist killings of civilians and the frequent killings of US troops which are the two aspects of the war that have maximum impact upon the public--that with the formation of a government of national unity, the strengthening of its security forces, the amnesty announced by Prime Minister al Maliki, and the elimination of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi, that the insurgents will become not only more isolated from, but also more hated than feared by, the Iraqi people. This will lead to the demoralization of the insurgents and the loss of their élan to continue fighting.

Moreover, and this is the most important feature of the insurgency, the fact that the main target of the insurgents are not their counter-combatants but civilians, exposes their military weakness, their increasing inability to kill, the by now, better trained Iraqi security forces, in armed combat. And the narrowing of the sieve, through which car bombs can penetrate into populated areas, will further disable the insurgents to continue to commit their atrocious attacks against civilians.

In the chronicle of insurgencies, no insurgency that was unable to fight its enemy in battle and resorted only in targeting and killing civilians was successful in destabilizing and eventually overthrowing the established regime. This fighting inability of the Iraqi insurgency is accentuated further, by having to confront the prowess of the occupying forces. And although it can inflict more than moderate casualties upon the occupying power and upon Iraqi security forces by the stealthily moving car bombs and laying road bombs, it cannot win the war by stealth. Furthermore, its increasing isolation from the people will deprive it of any logistical support that is getting from the latter, as well as the cover behind which it can hide. Hence, the insurgents will become cherry picking targets of the American-led forces.

In such militarily disadvantageous milieu the insurgents cannot survive for long. It’s this optimistic scenario that is unfolding from ‘the fog of war’ in Iraq, that the pessimists, like Chuck Pena, are unable to see. The Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq, and more generally for the region, has a high probability of being successful. And its success will destroy all the unrealistic propositions of the pessimistic realists, that America, the sole superpower, should withdraw from the hotspots of the world and insert itself into a cocoon of neo-isolationism.


The article was written on June 29, 2006