Gentle Folk Attempting to Analyse the Realm of Geopolitics
By Con George-Kotzabasis
You are one of those admirable genteel souls who attempt to cogitate and philosophize and be judgmental about the morality of realpolitik but who are completely ignorant and oblivious of the fact that the contemporary practitioners of geopolitics, as all their predecessors, are the direct descendants of the ‘feudal knights’—omnipresent throughout human history—”who made literal mincemeat of their enemies, leaving the clergy to handle the morals”, to quote the great Austrian writer, Robert Musil.
One would have expected you to at least be consistent with the logic of your own argument. If you are going to blame the U.S. of “propping up local despots”, who at most repressed their own peoples, and which perforce had to do during its deadly contest with the Soviet Union—it is a luxury to believe that one can chose one’s allies in critical situations-- you have to praise the U.S. for having defeated the foremost dictatorships of our times, Nazism and Communism, not to mention Imperial Japan, which threatened to repress the freedom of mankind. Why have you ‘slipped’ from this consistency and irresponsibly imply that the perception of many people of the U.S. as the “Great Satan” could be justified?
As to your facts which some of them are imprecise, such as giving land to “interlopers” i.e., the Israelis, and the ones that are correct, you draw the wrong conclusions from them as a result of lack of imagination? The establishment of the Jewish State was the result of the “Balfour Declaration” re-affirmed by the Mandate of the League of Nations and was not the offspring of imperialist interests, if this is what your loaded word “interlopers” implies. And the upheavals of 1917 in Russia what did they bring in their wake? The rise of the most brutal millenarian movement, Communism. And the upheavals of the Middle East, what do they presage? The rise of another more brutal millenarian movement, Islamofascism. This is what the West must prevent at all costs, if it has learnt the lessons of history. And to achieve this one has to do it tragically in the mien, the spirit, and in the full armour of the ‘feudal knights’.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Terrorism Continues to be Top Risk
By Con George-Kotzabasis
The reason that they are not in the list might be not because they are not a “top risk” but because terrorism is immeasurable. One must bear in mind that there are issues and events that can be estimated by the calculus of reason and others that cannot. Al-Qaeda and international terrorism fall in the latter category. There are no statistics for natural disasters, plagues, and deadly viruses of which one can make an estimate when, where, and to what degree they will break out, since they are said to be ‘acts of God’. Islamic terrorism is the ‘act of God’ par excellence since its practitioners reverently believe that they are executing the orders of Allah.
No calculus of reason will ever measure the degree of fanaticism, its crescendo, and its virus like spread in the Muslim communities inhabiting the world. And the great danger of terrorism lies, unlike natural disasters which are intermittent, in the fact that it’s a continuous threat without knowing in advance where and when it will break out. But despite this hand of invisibility that perpetrates these murderous actions of terror, it can be defeated by intelligent and decisive action. Eroding and continuously diminishing the ability of terrorists to be successful in their operations might put the mouse of doubt into their hearts nibbling at their belief that they are the instruments of Allah and thus gradually force them to abandon their eschatological cause.
By Con George-Kotzabasis
The reason that they are not in the list might be not because they are not a “top risk” but because terrorism is immeasurable. One must bear in mind that there are issues and events that can be estimated by the calculus of reason and others that cannot. Al-Qaeda and international terrorism fall in the latter category. There are no statistics for natural disasters, plagues, and deadly viruses of which one can make an estimate when, where, and to what degree they will break out, since they are said to be ‘acts of God’. Islamic terrorism is the ‘act of God’ par excellence since its practitioners reverently believe that they are executing the orders of Allah.
No calculus of reason will ever measure the degree of fanaticism, its crescendo, and its virus like spread in the Muslim communities inhabiting the world. And the great danger of terrorism lies, unlike natural disasters which are intermittent, in the fact that it’s a continuous threat without knowing in advance where and when it will break out. But despite this hand of invisibility that perpetrates these murderous actions of terror, it can be defeated by intelligent and decisive action. Eroding and continuously diminishing the ability of terrorists to be successful in their operations might put the mouse of doubt into their hearts nibbling at their belief that they are the instruments of Allah and thus gradually force them to abandon their eschatological cause.
Friday, January 08, 2010
The Finger of Obama Forced to “Press the High-Fear-Button”
By Con George-Kotzabasis
Ben Katcher is the court jester of The Washington Note (TWN) followed by a long thread of other TWN jesters, from Norheim to Carrol. While all the late, and belated, actions of Obama emanate from an unabated fear which forces him to “press the high-fear-button,” closing his embassy in Yemen out of fear of a terrorist attack, deploying U.S. Special Forces in the country fearing that the latter would become a training terrorist base that would threaten the Western world, according to the latest statement of his Secretary of State, and the new rules prompted by the fear of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack that would involve 14 nations undergoing extra screening in airports, Katcher claims, that Obama refuses to “use fear for his personal political advantage,” as if by protecting--even if Obama doesn’t take these harsh measures out of personal belief but out of political expediency-- like Bush, America from the real fear of a terrorist attack, would not also be for Obama’s personal political advantage.
By Con George-Kotzabasis
Ben Katcher is the court jester of The Washington Note (TWN) followed by a long thread of other TWN jesters, from Norheim to Carrol. While all the late, and belated, actions of Obama emanate from an unabated fear which forces him to “press the high-fear-button,” closing his embassy in Yemen out of fear of a terrorist attack, deploying U.S. Special Forces in the country fearing that the latter would become a training terrorist base that would threaten the Western world, according to the latest statement of his Secretary of State, and the new rules prompted by the fear of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack that would involve 14 nations undergoing extra screening in airports, Katcher claims, that Obama refuses to “use fear for his personal political advantage,” as if by protecting--even if Obama doesn’t take these harsh measures out of personal belief but out of political expediency-- like Bush, America from the real fear of a terrorist attack, would not also be for Obama’s personal political advantage.
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