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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Australian Academic Accuses US and Aussie Forces of Committing War Crimes in Fallujah

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The Australian academic Chris Doran in his article on Online Opinion on August 3, 2008, accuses and condemns the Coalition forces in their attack on Fallujah on November 2004 of breaching the Geneva Conventions and of committing war crimes. But in his passionate condemnation he disregards the fact that wars are not fought by holding the sword in one hand and the Ten Commandments in the other. An ineradicable law of war is that its prolongation increases its brutality in 'geometrical' proportions and hence its casualties in civilians and the military.

The action in Fallujah had the strategic goal to shorten the war. Fallujah was a hornet's nest of foreign and local jihadists who were not only manufacturing the lethal car bombs but also sending their suicidal fanatic warriors in other cities of Iraq. The collateral civilian casualties, not in the huge overblown fictional figures presented by the writer of the article, were inevitable in a war that the enemy uses civilians, and, indeed, members of his own family and relatives as a shield. And the question arises who is the real moral culprit and war criminal in such a case. It's obvious however, that Doran in the heat of his pacifist hate of all wars, whether justified or not, has no propensity to even deal with this question, least of all answer it.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Strength of Character is Shown in Critical Circumstances and Obama Fails the Test

Will the American electorate be susceptible to the false idealistic promptings of a confused weak leader?

A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to a Bush contrarian

Only the poverty of thought can make a statement such as the”poor republicans...through no fault of their own.” There is no virtue to be found in human beings not making mistakes. No one is infallible, especially in the multi-variable dimensions of war. The virtue lies in swiftly correcting these mistakes. And this is exactly what Bush did when he adopted and implemented the Surge turning a losing war into a potentially victorious one. This was the “major” and crucial policy that “was successfully implemented and carried out” with all the potential geopolitical developments that could flow into the region with the establishment of democracy in Iraq, and hence justifying fully the Bush Doctrine of democratizing the Middle East as a preventive cure for terrorism.

The liberal intelligentsia with their tongue stuck in the bitterness of being totally wrong with their gloomy prognostications about the outcome of the war, cannot and will not concede this ‘reversal of fortune’ for the Bush administration. But history, which has no taste either for bitterness or sweetness, will give the final verdict on Bush. And dare I say it will be a favourable one.

What Obama proposes to do is to deprive America of this tremendous strategic victory over the extremists of Islam by his pledge to pull out US forces from Iraq before the conditions for such a withdrawal are strategically ripe.

If you were an editor even in the most provincial newspaper and spelled out the obvious as news, you would not have held your position as editor for very long. Bigotry, irrational religious beliefs, and ignorance—like poverty—up to the present inflict even the best and most affluent societies. If educated prosperous America has this bane in its midst you can imagine other less educated and prosperous countries in what state they are in this area. To say however, that either McCain or Palin would select to govern for the irrational beliefs and ignorance of such minorities, is to show that one is completely politically naive and no one can take such person seriously.

And do you really believe that Obama has his “feet on the ground,” when he says that once America starts implementing its own values it will turn the present hate of the world for America into love, into a global loving circle of holding hands, including perhaps the fanatical jihadists?

Always bear in mind the great adage of Friedrich Nietzsche that the character of a person is revealed in critical circumstances, followed by my minuscule one that in hard times only the hard men/women prevail. Obama lacks the strength of character to lead a great nation in these most dangerous times. In the vocation of Statecraft according to his populist policies and faith in changing America he remains an infant and is the ultimate ‘mummy’s boy’. As the worst mummy’s boy is the one who had no mother. (His mother abandoned him when he was an infant to be brought up by his grandparents.) That is why he chose Biden for his vice president instead of the most savvy politically Hillary Clinton, because his wife Michelle didn’t want the latter. It’s Michelle that wears the pants, and if he wins, which I doubt, it will be the first ‘matriarchic’ presidency of the United States.

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