BEAZLEY’S CONTENTION NO “GLOBAL JIHAD” IN IRAQ IS BRUISED LOGIC AND NO IMAGINATION

Con George-Kotzabasis


In the wake of Cheney’s visit and comments on the Australian alliance, the former leader of the Opposition argues in his piece in The Australian, Reports of the apocalypse have been greatly exaggerated, March 8, 2007, that “After all, there is plenty of room in the alliance for disagreement on actions and objectives”… and “Howard’s ‘constant refrain’ of redeployment of forces would be a victory for terrorists”, is completely wrong, as al Qaeda are not “at the cutting edge of global jihad” in Iraq. Furthermore, he amusingly contends, a “gradual redeployment and exit” from Iraq, “would be the choices made by the Iraqi people”, which presumably according to this artifact of Beazley would render the US led-coalition a cover that the withdrawal was not according to the volition of the latter but according the ‘wish’ of the Iraqi people. Finally he caps his contention with his incipient--must I say insipid--position that only in Afghanistan one can fight al Qaeda, hence attempting to justify his long held initial stand that the terrain of battle against cutting edge global jihad is Afghanistan and not Iraq and that is where Australian forces should be deployed.

Only someone cognitively maladjusted or militarily and strategically a dilettante would continue to adhere to the wrongness of his premise that currently Afghanistan and not Iraq is the front of global terror, and to shrug the reality that the latter by its nature cannot be “compartmentalized” geographically and is and will remain borderless. And what is rather amusing for a Rhodes scholar is that he cannot perceive the logical fallacy that while he accepts the obvious, that the war is a global war on terror, whose constant is that it has a fluid geographic location--as the Somalian Islamist attempt to take over the country and turn it into a launching pad of terrorism on the horn of Africa has shown lately--he nonetheless wants to fight it on a regional basis.

But let us deal with the points of his argument. He contends that within the alliance one could disagree on actions and objectives. While this is true on secondary issues of the alliance, it’s not true about primal issues such as war, when nations deploy the flower of their youth to fight it. It would be a debauchery of political responsibility to disagree with one’s allies on the primal and dangerous issues concerning them. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, “the greater the danger is, the greater is the need to reach agreement quickly and easily about what must be done; not misunderstanding in times of danger is what human beings simply cannot do without in their relations”. And indubitably, fanatic Islam poses the greatest danger to Western civilization in the twenty-first century.

The other point Beazley makes, is that Howard’s “refrain” of an early withdrawal and “redeployment of forces” from Iraq “would be a victory for the terrorist”, and would bring forth the “apocalypse” is “a greatly exaggerated” claim, according to Beazley. But this counter claim of the latter is based on the presupposition that al Qaeda is not the cutting edge of global jihad in Iraq. Even if this happens to be true--which is not--it would not prevent al Qaeda’s twin the Iranian jihad to replace it. The Islamist jihad is like the Hydra of Lerna, the many-headed monster whose slaying is a Herculean task and has to be chased all over the globe. Moreover, Beazley’s assertion that a gradual exit of the American-led coalition would be the choice of the Iraqi people in this decisive conflict between the former and the insurgents is vaudevillian farce. No great power, least of all a superpower, in such a conflict of historical meaning can leave its reputation and destiny to be determined by the volatile and fickle choice of any people. A great nation does not win a war or save its renown as an invincible power on the energy of the wind that moves the weathervane of the choices of the masses. Furthermore, Beazley is completely wrong about the real choice of the Iraqi people. The paramount choice of the latter, in the conflagrating circumstances of their everyday existence, is security. The majority of Iraqis, unlike Beazley, are aware that their security and future economic prosperity depends on the American presence in Iraq. And on the ability of US troops in conjunction with Iraqi forces to defeat the insurgency, while at the same time American know how and economic help is necessary to built the infrastructure of the country that will lead it to its future prosperity.

Hence, the wish of the majority of Iraqis to build their nation on a democratic basis--who in many instances during the election had risked their lives to elect the al Maliki government--that the Bush administration had sparked, makes the latter morally and politically responsible to the people of Iraq that their vote is not going to be squandered. This wish of Iraqis is demonstrated by the biggest poll ever conducted since the invasion by the Opinion Research Business, published in The Australian on March 19, 2007. The poll found out that Iraqis by 2/1 preferred the present regime of al Maliki than Saddam’s. Also, 73% of Iraqis believed that the country was not in a civil war, against 27% who believed the opposite. And many residents of Baghdad since the “surge” and the continuous presence of US and Iraqi troops in the cleared areas from insurgents, felt more secure.

All the above facts have gone over the head of the former Opposition leader. Nor does he recognize that in the fog of this global confrontation between the West and the Islamist fanatics, as in any war, perception and reality commingle and it’s impossible to tell which is which. Hence any premature US withdrawal from Iraq, whether it would have been instigated by the choice of the Iraqi people or by the political arrivistes and spineless opportunistic populists of the Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who are pushing their irresolute resolutions in both houses of Congress, will be perceived by most people of the world, and especially by the jihadists, as an irremediable and devastating defeat of the American hegemon. American prestige as an invincible superpower being in tatters will inflame the global jihadists to perpetrate in the near future their most extreme, and indeed, apocalyptic actions, against the US and the West.

Kim Beazley’s call for the withdrawal of the Australian troops from Iraq rests on bruised logic and lack of imagination, and cannot be taken seriously. John Howard, in contrast, by his steadfast stand on Iraq is admirable for his realism about the catastrophic consequences of an ill considerate, slapdash exit from Iraq, before the latter is ready to take full responsibility for its own security. The defeat of the insurgents is both a prerequisite for the stabilization of Iraq as well as for the irreversible enervation of the global holy warriors of fanatic Islam, that will lead slowly but surely to their inexorable rout.

HOW TO LEGITIMIZE THE INTERIM GOVERNMENT IN IRAQ
AND HOW TO TRAP TERRORISTS.

Con George-Kotzabasis

The following was written on August 23, 2003 and is an extract from my book, Unveiling The War Against Terror, published in Melbourne on May 9, 2004. It's republished here for the purpose of higlighting the serious errors committed by the Bush administration in the initial stages of the occupation of Iraq.



Paradoxically, it could be Iraq, allied with the American CoalitionForces, that would be instrumental to the defeat of global Islamist terror. By the capture or killing of a substantial number of Jihadistswho, at the end of the major combat operations against SaddamHussein, were able to infiltrate into Iraq, with the aim to fight and destroy the American infidel occupier, with the help of local remnants of Saddam's supporters and Islamist fundamentalists. It's for this reason of the utmost importance, that the Coalition Forces do not prevent the infiltration of terrorists into Iraq, from neighbor muslim countries, as the distinguished war historian John Keegan suggests in one of his recent articles, but, on the contrary, facilitate their entry into the country and trap them.

The set up of this trap will be accomplished by two imaginative strategic moves, as will be explained below, with which the American led-coalition in alliance with the future Interim Government of Iraq and its military forces, would achieve its three major political and military objectives. First, the formation of a legitimate democratic government in Iraq. Secondly, the substantial defeat of global terrorism. And thirdly, the quick withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq. Hence, the Bush administration at one fell swoop would succeed in keeping the promises it made to the American people and to the world at large, about the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq, and about the war against global terror.

The two-pronged stratagem will involve the following: The first one will entail the hastening of the formation of an Interim Government ( IG ) in Iraq by its present Governing Council. At its formation, the IG will make the following historical announcement to the Iraqi people. That the latter will be equity holders in the major wealth of the country, i.e., its oil production. Each Iraqi household will be a recipient of an annual dividend from the profits of oil. That this is not a promise for the future but a real offer, will be exemplified by the immediate payment of the dividend to each Iraqi household, whose amount will be assessed from the flow of oil profits issuing from future sales. This advanced payment will be funded either by a newly-established financial institution of the UN, or of the IMF or the World Bank.

The equity of the Iraqi people in the major resource of the countrywill effectively demonstrate the bona fides of the IG to Iraqis, and will immediately confer unassailable legitimacy to it. It will blot out all internal initial opposition to the IG as being a quisling governing body of the Americans, as well as take the wind off the sails of all the jaded "unembedded" commentators, who claim that the US invaded Iraq for its oil. In the same announcement, the IG will inform the Iraqi people of the formation of an elite National Guard, whose objective, among others, will be the safeguarding and protection of this national property of the people from any incendiary acts of sabotage against its producing facilities perpetrated by either external or internal enemies of Iraq.

The Americans will have nothing to fear from the formation of the National Guard. As the latter will be mainly enlisted from former members of the Republican Guard, who were nurtured on secular principles, and whose loyalty to Saddam, arose only from the fact of their elite status given to them by the latter. Moreover, the members of this elite overwhelmingly have enormous respect of American military power, and of the personnel manning that power. Therefore, as an elite corps, they will be proud to serve as equals with their American counterparts, in defense of Iraq's national interests.

The second prong of the stratagem will be a proclamation made by the IG to the Iraqi people ( And this act will sound the clap of the trap that will catch the Jihadist terrorists en masse. The proclamation will be made in the following terms: That any one who harbors, aids, and supports Iraqi and foreign guerrillas will be considered to be an enemy of the State and of the Iraqi people. And will be dealt with the ultimate punishment, as that to be meted out to the terrorist guerrillas. At the same time, the IG will issue an order, not only to the National Guard and the adjunct security forces of the country, but, also, to its Coalition allies in Iraq, to commence a relentless punitive campaign against the guerrillas and those who harbor and support them, and pluck them out of the soil of Iraq, root and branch. This order of the IG will bestow legality to the actions of the American led-coalition already taken against urban guerrillas, as they will be seen by Iraqis to have the imprimatur of their Government. Furthermore, that the American Command Centre and its ground forces will be abiding to, and executing, this order of the Iraqi Government, will have a tremendous psychological impact upon the Iraqi people. Because of the primary status that pride has in Arab culture, this will be a proud moment for all Iraqis.

This order of the IG, will accomplish two strategic tasks. First, it will make a strong impression on the Iraqi people, that the American led-coalition are not an occupier of their country, but a defender of their interests. Secondly, and more importantly, the fear that will instil on people in Iraq who aid and support guerrillas ( this time fear will be on the side of a good cause, unlike Saddam's fear ), that they will be treated as traitors and hence punished accordingly, will induce them to stop sheltering the guerrillas and abandon them. Once the terrorists are abandoned, by their current and would-be supporters, they will be consigned to the "furies" of their fate. As they will be forced to operate "in no man's land" , where they would be easily captured or killed by the National Guard and the Coalition forces.

This trap sprang on the Jihadist terrorists will be a devastating blow on global terrorism. It will demoralize active and would-be terrorists on such an immence scale with the outcome of drying up the well from which fundmentalist mullahs get their deadly recruits. And providing these mullahs are severely dealt with by the Coalition against global terror, wherever they happen to be, in the East or in the West, the black veil of death will enshroud the heads of terror. The Bush administration's total war against global terror, not only will be justified, but it will also be a glorious total victory against it, morally, politically, and historically.

The above is an extract from my book Unveiling The War Against Terror written on August 23, 2003. My proposal was sent to the WhiteHouse on the same date.


PS As events showed, the Americans implemented at the beginning of 2004 two of the above proposals--although not quick enough and not in the form I suggested in regards to the second, i.e., the formation of an elite National Guard--(a) the establishment of the Interim Government and (b) the arming of Iraqis. But to my surprise and chagrin, they did not implement the core of my plan, i.e., to make Iraqis the owners of oil (They did this too late, under Article 108 of the Constitution of Iraq, voted by Iraqis in 2005, "Oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all regions", without however making them direct equity holders and paying them dividends in advance, as I had suggested), that in my opinion if they had done so (a) would have prevented the insurgency and (b) would have captured or killed the foreign jihadists.

THE MUFTI OF LAKEMBA IS A GREAT THREAT TO AUSTRALIA

Con George-Kotzabasis

The following article was written on March 8, 2004, and it's an extract from my book Unveiling The War Against Terror published in Melbourne on May 9, 2004. It's republished here in the wake of both the Mufti's indefatigable support of Iran in its refusal to abide to the demands of the International Community in regard to its nuclear program, and of the statement of his present loyal supporter and spokesman, Keysar Trad, made on the ABC on April 10, 2007. Mr. Trad let the cat out of the bag! To the question of the interviewer from the ABC whether al Hilaly should resign from his position, Trad replied that the Mufti 'still had support' in the Muslim community. This essentially means, as my article argues, that the radical fundamentalist views of the Mufti are reflected and have support among many Muslims in Australia. Furthermore, this is strongly corroborated by the hesitancy and the dilly-dallying of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils to sack the Mufti from his position. Afraid and concerned that such an action would trigger a backlash against it from the community.

This concatenation of events clearly reveal, that there is an ominous substantial number of radical Muslims lurking in our midst. Which shots to pieces the argument that one should encourage moderate Muslims to oust the radicals and take over their positions. In this so called confrontation of the radicals and the moderates, the latter have lost the battle even before they fired their first shot. Of course the probability is that al Hilaly will be ultimately replaced, but by another "wolfish" radical in sheep's clothes.

It's therefore incumbent upon the government, indeed, of any government of whatever political hue, to win this battle against the radical Islamists in our midst. Since it's beyond the ability or inclination of moderate Muslims to deliver this victory.

The praise with which Mufti Sheik Al- Hilaly, the religious leader of Australian Muslims, anointed suicide bombers and the terrorists of Hezbollah, and his reference to September 11 as 'God's work against oppressors', in his sermon at the Lebanon mosque, should be of great concern to all Australians, from whatever cultural background, and should be raising the hackles of the government. This is in despite of the denials and the renunciatory statements of his spokesman Keysar Trad, with his by now repeated refrain, that the comments of the Sheik had been taken 'out of context', which Mr. Trad uses as an escape hatch for the inflammatory statements of the Mufti, and as a means to cozen and deceive the Australian public. However, Australians should not allow themselves to be tricked by this mouthful of deceptions belched forth by his spokesman, and should vehemently reject them as another attempt by Mr.Trad to fool them.

Keysar Trad's conduct and behaviour reminds one of the typical cunning of a vendor in a bazaar, who uses guile and lies to sell his shoddy products to the public. And one would be foolish not to assume, that both the Sheik and his spokesman have a bountiful storage of guile and lies, by which they will attempt to cover up their treacherous actions and statements, and hence, hoodwink the Australian public. Moreover, it is well known that most Arabs trade on lies in all spheres of life. Especially in the present circumstances, when radical Islam considers itself to be engaged in a deadly holy war against the infidels of the West and of Israel, the telling of lies is part of its holy armour. Radical Islam can seek and find justification for this in the sacred writings of Mohammed, where he states that in war Muslims are not banned from telling lies.

Certainly, the telling of lies is not an exclusive trait of a particular people. In certain circumstances all people will tell lies. But usually in human conflicts of all kinds, mendacity is the "armour" and "shield" of the weak, not of the strong, as the former have no ample means at their disposal, like the latter, either for offence or defence, and therefore resort as a result of this lack of means to disingenuousness and guilefulness against their opponents. Undoubtedly, radical Islam in its implacable confrontation with the West, and more precisely with the U.S.A., is the weaker foe in contrast to its opponent. It would therefore be prudent to take all the denials of the Mufti and his spokesman, with more than a grain of salt. However, no veneer of lies can hide and conceal the real beliefs and intentions of the Mufti. Sheik Al-Hilaly's, "Sermon of Lebanon" represents and embodies these real beliefs and intentions in the most transparent and limpid way. His incendiary and inflammatory statements and his direct inciting of the youth of Islam to be heroes and martyrs in its cause, which according to the Mufti is advancing everywhere, reveals lucidly that he is a man of war and not of peace. Moreover, his comments to this congregation of believers that they should not be surprised if in the near future Islamic ideology would pervade into Western countries, and indeed, that one would even hear 'Állah is great from the top of the White House', shows that the Mufti is no mere defender of Islam, but an aggressor, who really believes that the goal of radical militant Islam, his cause, is the subjugation and domination of the West.

Furthermore, his sermon also reveals a grim aspect of the Muslim Community in our country. The existence, among the majority of moderate Muslims, of an aberrant dangerous fundamentalist breed of "snakes" that are lurking in the "grassy lawns" of Australia, and that he has rivals within the country who are even more radical and militant than himself. His sermon therefore, from far off Lebanon, had the further aim of passing on a message to the followers of those fundamentalist imams (whose followers obviously are not small in number), that he himself is as radical as their leaders - all in the hope of winning them over to his side. The Government and ASIO therefore, need to be aware of this portentous danger that lies within the borders of our country, and to take the appropriate hard measures against it.

It would be the ultimate folly of any government not to take these statements of Mufti Hilaly as being most dangerous to Australia. At the present moment, Australia is involved in an implacable and relentless war with global terror. The Howard government has wisely chosen to join the U.S., the U.K. and its other allies in this war against terror, which threatens the civilised world with catastrophic annihilation. For this purpose, it has committed and sent its brave young men and women to fight both in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is pivotal to the defeat of global terror and which can only be accomplished by fighting it on two fronts, i.e., also against the rogue states which support directly and indirectly terrorists and which are more likely than not to supply weapons of mass destruction to the latter, with devastating consequences upon the survival and viability of open and free societies. It is for this reason necessary, not merely to denounce the statements of the Mufti, as the Foreign Minister Mr. Downer has done, but to take firm unrelenting measures against the Mufti and his cohorts, for inciting young Muslims to join the ranks of suicide bombers and to become martyrs in this holy war against the infidels.


Sheik Al-Hilaly is an Australian citizen, and as such his statements are treasonable since they support the enemies of Australia, with whom the latter is currently engaged in war. It behoves therefore that the government enact immediately preventative measures that would restrain the Mufti and other radicals from inciting Muslims in this country to engage in a Jihad against Australians. If a Muslim country such as Indonesia could charge the religious leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir, with offences related to terrorism that would put the latter in jail, why should Australia not do likewise? Does it have to have a Bali bombing on its own territory perpetrated by local Muslim terrorists, inspired and instigated by the teachings and statements of the Mufti, or of his rival fundamentalists, before the government will find the grit, fortitude, and resolve to jail Sheik Al-Hilaly? But no wise, imaginative, and strong government acts retroactively.


As predicted above, the Mufti has an abundance of cunning and duplicity in the storage of his mind. On his return to Australia he tried to conceal his insidious, sinister, and treasonous statements - this time behind the facade of Arab poetry. In his interview on the ABC on the 7th of March 2004, he said that his comments had to be taken within the poetic context in which they had been expressed and must be interpreted within such a context. However, the enormity of the Sheik's cover up has been exposed by his fellow Arabs themselves. The chief executive of The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils’ Amjad Mehboob, said that many Muslims were concerned that Sheik Al- Hilaly's speech had been interpreted (no poetic interpretation by his fellow Muslims?) as ' a call to arms', although in the same interview Mr.Mehboob said that the Sheik was a 'moderate and tolerant leader'. But this contradictory comment of Mr. Mehboob reveals the Janus nature of many Arab leaders and the many faces with which they "double-speak".


The war against global terror will not be won easily unless governments also uproot the breeding grounds of terror, which many Islamic schools and mosques are, not only in the East, but also, in the West. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Australian government takes prerequisite and firm measures that prevent Islamic schools and mosques from propagating, either openly, or by insidious and devious means (the use of poetry?), the radical teachings of the fundamentalists, and if they continue to do so, the government should take the most severe measures against the teachers of these schools and mosques and should immediately stop subsidising these institutions with tax payers’ money.


It is about time that the cocoon of lies under which the Mufti of Lakemba hides and conceals his true beliefs and intentions be broken, and he be exposed for the real and great danger he poses to Australia. No volume of dissembling by his spokesman Keysar Trad will hide the fact that the Sheik is a wolf in sheep's clothing.