WAR ON TERROR:ISSUING FROM CULTURE OF FEAR OR DANGER OF OMINOUS ATTACK?

Con George-Kotzabasis

The respectable and cerebrally sharp Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security advisor to president Carter, mounts an intellectually and strategically disrespectful argument, in the Washington Post on March 25, 2007, that the war on terror has created a culture of fear in America, and has a pernicious impact on American democracy and its psyche, and on US standing in the world. He contends, that the war in Iraq, could never had gained the congressional support it got, without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Further, that terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare. And he caps his contention by stating, that the war on terror “defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies”, and also creates a “sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger”.

It’s apparent that Brzezinski’s points are instigated by his experience of the Cold War era and Soviet communism--of which he was an exemplary acute observer and had identified clearly the dangers emanating from Soviet expansionism--and it’s precisely for this reason that are completely inapplicable to the undeclared “Hot War” that fanatical Islam is waging against the USA and the infidel West generally. To replicate the policies that were successful in eroding Communist power and finally casting it into the waste bin of history and apply them to an “ unidentified”, shadowy, religiously inspired fanatic enemy is not merely a lapse of historical nous but a totally inept and faulty strategy against such a foe. The fact that Communism was a limpidly identified enemy and precisely dangerous, was the cause that united the countries of the West and rallied them to stand behind the leadership of the USA. In contrast, it’s precisely because our present “presumed enemies” are lacking a “geographical context” that makes them nationally unidentifiable and hence an “imprecise danger”, is the reason that disunites Western countries and makes them reluctant, if not inimical, to stand behind the American leadership and strategy against global terror. Moreover, a false and unimaginative sense pervades many European countries that they are not equally endangered by global terror, like the USA is, and that they can wriggle themselves out of this danger by not engaging in the war against it and indeed, by appeasing the Islamic fundamentalists.

Further, Brzezinski’s psychology does not pass muster with the 9/11 portentous event. The latter was not, as he argues, the “psychological linkage” between its “shock” and the “postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” that led to war and which “had gained congressional support”, but the reasonable reaction of the Bush administration, or for that matter of any historically responsible administration, to a future ominous and more devastating attack by terrorists armed with WMD, and indeed, with “portable” nuclear weapons, supplied by rogue states such as Saddams’, on the United States. The war on terror, therefore, did not create “a culture of fear in America” (e.a.), as he contends, since this fear was an instinctual fear on the part of Americans of the great danger hovering over their lives in the aftermath of 9/11. This was illustrated by the fact that nearly ninety percent of Americans initially supported both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this was the basic reason why it was also almost unanimously endorsed by congress. Hence, Brzezinski’s contention that this culture of fear had a pernicious impact on American democracy and on America’s psyche is baseless. Not to mention the fact that a culture does not spring up like a crop at the first droplet of rain. His culture of fear therefore is nothing else but a figment of his exuberant imagination.

Moreover, Brzezinski sublates to use a philosophical term, he assimilates the terrorist who is a real entity into a “technique of warfare”. Averring that terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare. Who then is the enemy? Is he a disembodied being who uses this technique? Can one separate an enemy from the war technique he uses? And is the US led coalition in Iraq that is trying to deprive the terrorists of the wherewithal of this technique, i.e., factories that manufacture car bombs and IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices), not fighting an enemy? The fact is that the terrorist who is the mortal enemy of civilians knows only this technique and uses it effectively and lethally to achieve his goals, in the case of fanatic Muslims, against the Great Satan America and the infidels of the West.

Brzezinski also states that the war on terror has tarnished the US standing in the eyes of the world. But is this surprising when so many people in the world, and especially in Europe, wrongly believe and presuppose that it was American policies toward the Middle East and ultimately its “adventurism” in Iraq that fomented and increased global terror? What people under such gargantuan misconception would be congenial to US involvement in the war against global terror? And especially when US actions are perceived to be unilateral and lack the backing of other major nations and the UN? Is it conceivable that under such misperception--not to mention the serious tactical errors committed on the ground in Iraq by US strategists in the aftermath of Saddam’s defeat that justified to a certain extent the wrath of the critics of the war--that America would not have eroded its standing and tarnished its reputation? Besides, who would expect that a powerful nation such as the USA, especially being the sole superpower, in conditions of world peace when nations are not threatened by another superpower and are in no need to be protected by the US as in the past, would have the respect and affection of the rest of the world and not the enmity and hostility that rises from the curse of envy against the great and the powerful?

By all historical standards the war against global terror in the wake of 9/11 was fully justified and prescient in its aim to prevent a future ominous and much more devastating attack on the United States by terrorists, who would use weapons of mass destruction and indeed nuclear ones in their irreversible goal to destroy the Great Satan. And if America could be attacked so easily by al Qaeda and its affiliates then European nations that are saturated with Islamic fifth columnists and activated jihadists would be sitting ducks.

It’s this great existential threat to America and Western civilization that has prompted the US to mobilize its military might and its brave soldiers in a long war against global terror. But in spite the clarity and awareness of the Bush administration about the real stakes of the war, it made a grave psychological error with devastating consequences to its overwhelming public support of the war by deflecting the invasion of Iraq which was quintessential to the defeat of global terror to the issues (a) of finding the elusive weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and (b) building democracy in Iraq. When these two issues had apparently foundered and were at the same time associated with the difficulties the US led-coalition countenanced in suppressing the insurgency, the war ineluctably lost its popularity among the US electorate, and reached the levels of unpopularity of the Vietnam War. The American electorate didn’t give a damn about whether WMD would be found or not, everyone believed at the time that Saddam was in possession of them, nor had they a modicum of interest in building democracy in Iraq. What they were concerned with was their security, and on this basis they were prepared undeviatingly to support the war both in Iraq and Afghanistan and to endure the pain and sacrifices that it would entail. This was the stupendous blunder that the Bush administration had committed. By substituting the war in Iraq as an essential part of global terror with building democracy in Iraq, it lost the support of the American people in the face of the arduous and tough difficulties of the war.

However, notwithstanding the serious errors of the Bush administration its original war plan to fight al Qaeda, its affiliate bodies, wherever they raise their hydra’s head, and the rogue states that support them, remains historically unblemished and is a tribute to the strong leadership of the triumvirate of Bush, Blair, and Howard. This was a historic decision, to stand up and fight the religious fanatics that threatened the viability of Western civilization and its freedom. And not to fall to the historically and politically naïve and supine blandishments of the nipple-fed liberal intelligentsia that terrorism and its state sponsors, like the Soviet Union, could be contained or that their Allah anointed grievances could be negotiated. It’s for this reason that the judgment upon Bush, Blair, and Howard, not to mention the indomitable, but so maligned by the media, Vice-President Cheney, whether their stand against global terror and their involvement in the Iraq war was right or not, will be made by history and not by political opportunists and leadership pretenders, such as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and our own, Kevin Rudd.

MULTICULTURALISM:HOW A PET IDEA BECAME A DINOSAUR

The following paper was written on February 1996 at the request of the Australian Think Tank The Institute of Public Affairs and was published in its magazine on the same date. It's republished here for the readers of this new blog hoping they will find it to be of some interest and will enjoy reading it.

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

THE INTELLECTUALLY WEAK DECISION OF THE HIGH COURT ON WIK

Con George-Kotzabasis

The following article was written on November 1997, but no newspaper at the time had the gumption and the historical insight to publish it. It's published here for the first time hoping that the readers of this blog will find it of some historical interest and will enjoy reading it. Since its writing many lawyer's reputations have been irreversibly tarnished and most of all the reputations of the majority of the august justices who passed this historically ignorant, ignominious, and most unwise decision.

The High Court's decision that Native Title could coexist with pastoral leases, will remain in the annals of legal decisions as one of the most intellectually weak, matted, mechanistic, and unimaginative decisions that have ever been issued from the highest bench of the land. The decision has breached Aeolus's casks releasing the winds of controversy, that generations of lawyers will have to contend with, and be haunted by, until "atonement" day. As no less is, and will be, at stake, than the professional and intellectual integrity of present and future generations of lawyers, and, indeed, their amour propre.

The paramount, the profound importance of the Wik Case, has been conceded and acknowledged by the eminent justices themselves. By the fact that all seven of their constituent members sat and adjudicated on the case, which rarely happens, except in the most important cases that come before the court. Hence, the eminent justices were deeply conscious of the unfathomable significance of their decision. However, they were completely unconscious that their decision had the potential to be the catalyst that would raise the ugly face of racism from the atavistic miasma that afflicts parts of the country, and from which no other parts of the world are immune.

It's for this reason therefore, that the decision of the justices should not have been limited and confined only within the domain of the law, and its pros and cons should not have been debated and resolved solely by judicial arguments, without considering the widespread and portentous repercussions such a decision could have upon the country and its institutions. As it was inevitable that such judgment, on this grave and contentious issue, would "somersault" beyond the issue of "juridical" justice. And one must note, that even the strict legal arguments of the case were not clear cut to the justices themselves, as the decision was split four to three, and that in itself should have alarmed the begetters of the majority opinion and should have awakened them from a most serious lapse of cognitive awareness, since the Law itself upon which the decision rested was disputable. But there is no doubt that the majority judgment emanated from "a fine cloud of solicitous idealism," to quote the great Austrian writer, Robert Musil.

It was this "seraphic" zeal of the justices to render ideal justice to the Wik case, that has sundered the aborigines from a substantial part of the rest of the community, and is threatening to unhinge the reconciliation process--a process which, like everyone else, the justices themselves are sensitively concerned with, as by "reading the lips" of their judgment, one can easily tell that the latter "secretes" this lofty desire and aspiration for reconciliation--as the nature of the decision imperils the interests of the pastoralist, logging, and mining industries. And causing all people whose income is derived from these, to rise up in arms.

The eminent justices "shelved" in the ethereal atmosphere of their glasshouse existence, could neither imagine nor foresee the upheaval their decision would bring forth amongst the contending groups and were obliviously ignorant of the mundane interests of ordinary mortals. All they could see in the reflective glass of their craft, was the reflection of their perceived law--even if the law itself was misty and far from clear. And in their idealistic and romantic innocence pursued its shadowy beauty, and by coupling it with their unimaginative and mechanistic thinking, they hatched this cerebrally "ugly" judgment.

The judgment proved to be a veritable Pandora's box placed on the bosom of the contending groups, if not on the bosom of the country. As it was evident, that by pitting the interests of the aborigines against the interests of the pastoralists, the loggers, and the miners, the justices would unleash the destructive emotions of the cave amongst them all. Furthermore, they were unable to anticipate that their decision would passionately rally all those who care for the disadvantaged in our society behind the aborinal cause, especially the good Samaritans of the middle class. Whose involvement and concern in the plight of the disadvantaged often is, an escapist distraction from the ennui of their economic comforts, if not a sedative for their collective guilt, for their disinclination to pay higher taxes, which would be the most effective way to help the disadvantaged to cross the street of their plight. As well as all the "fief-holders" of the welfare protectorate and their hangers-on, who long ago abandoned their status of a volunteer calling and transfigured it into a profession. With all the "fixtures" (including those of the mind) of vested interests that inexorably accompany all professional bodies.

Hence the venerable justices, fugitives from reality, bondaged to their mechanistic thinking, and unfailingly callow in human affairs, committed the "caring" folly that not only divided the contending groups and their auxiliary supporters on economic and political lines, but, also, because of the pigmentation of the contestants, on racial lines too. (Despite the fact that we are all subject to the vagaries of chance for the colour of our skin, the latter always seem to have, in disputes between humans, the last word.) Therefore, the judgment of the Court has lit the fuse of a time-bomb that threatens to explode into a ferocious and ugly war fought on racist lines. Such an outcome would seriously harm the reputation of our country of being generally free from the perniciousness and woes of racial intolerance. It would diminish Australia in the eyes of the rest of the world and could damage some of our economic interests, particularly those of our tourist trade with countries in our region that are justifiably sensitive to the rise of even a semblance of racism.

ARE NATIONS CREATED BY IMMACULATE CONCEPTION?

The claim of Sir William Deane, a former Chief Justice of the High Court and presently Governor-General, that the violent settlement of the continent is a shameful aspect of our history and will 'haunt us as a source of bitterness', and if we don't come to terms with it he would 'weep for Australia', is singularly puzzling, to say the least. It would have been wiser for Sir William to weep for the un-illuminated judgment of his former colleagues of the High Court that has thrown the country into this social and political upheaval, before he considered and condescended to weep for Australia. One is tempted to ask Sir William, where in human history the "transmigration" of peoples to other areas and continents of the world has been non-violent? Does the Governor-General believe that the building of nation states has been an immaculate conception? History has been an endless "play" of violence of human beings against one another, as depicted by the great tragedians, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. If Sir William widened the horizon of his humanitarianism and religious fervour to encompass all the victims of mankind's violent history and weeped indiscriminately for all of them, his weeping would have dried the oceans of the earth. Not that such weeping of intellectual weariness, coming even from the highest office in the land, would have changed anything.

The Wik decision not only lacks, and is totally devoid of, historical and anthropological groundings, but is also an attempt to cross and hybridize Aboriginal culture with the values of Western culture. As it grafts upon the former the values of proprietary rights and possession which are totally alien to it. The aborigines have a spiritual bond with their ancient territories that is linked to their dead ancestors. But as nomadic tribes always on the move in search of food and water, this spiritual bond had no fixed territory and hence historically they never developed the sense of private or collective property. This is illustrated by the present fact, that when they are moved in more modern homely surroundings their houses are soon run-down, as a result that their occupants have no regard for private or communal property. Moreover, the question is not whether the High Court "created" these rights to property, but whether by the Wik decision it acknowledged and reinforced this figment of their imagination. The decision, furthermore, spawns among aborigines a destructive divisiveness, in the form of the sacred and the profane, i.e., between the purists who resolutely want to uphold the sacredness of their vital bond with ancestral territories, and the "less pure", the more "entrepreneurial", such as the misters ten percent of the aboriginal elite, who want to sell these sacred grounds to the highest bidder. Such a conflict was clearly illustrated by the Carpentaria's Land Council coordinator Murrandoo Yanner, who, representing the purist side, refused to sign the 1.1 billion Century Zinc project agreement, and by those other less pure representatives of aboriginal communities who were willing and desirous to sign the agreement , and hence receive their pound of flesh for the sites of their sacred bones. And one must also note, that the beneficiaries of Native Title will not be the aborigines of the woodlands, but the urban aborigines, of the "plastic mobile" elite, whose affinity with the former is becoming more and more slender and frail.

Ostensibly, the justices of the majority opinion, had a greater desire to tack the halo of "saintliness" on their "headlong" decision, than the halo of sober earthly reason. Not that the latter would have been an easy task! Since in their deliberations they had aborted prudence and reason, as a result of their abject failure to consider the events that their umimaginative decision could set in train. Being temperamentally unable to be instructed by reality, they found it easier and more congenial to their mental make-up, to be instructed by the simulacra of their idealism. "Victims" of their training and profession, the precedents of law had priority over the precedents of history. Effete descendants of Blackstone, von Gierke, justice Holmes, and our own, Sir Harry Gibbs, unburdened with the heavy weight of philosophy and history, they craved nonetheless to set an historical foundation to this most unwise judicial judgment. But to erect such a statue of their "weak" justice on Wik, is like erecting a statue of Napoleon riding a donkey. Alas, such is the fate of farcical judgments and the deconstruction of reality by idealistic simulacra.

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.

BLUEPRINT FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ

Con George-Kotzabasis

The ideas behind most of these proposals were conceived at the beginning of December 2006, but the paper was not published for obvious reasons as it was sent both to President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, on January 2, 2007. Now, however, that the new US strategy under the command of general Petraeus has been implemented in Iraq, I think the paper can be published without any detriment to the US strategy. As events have shown, the US military is taking hard measures against Iran by arresting some of its citizens in Iraq suspected of supplying weapons and roadside bombs to the insurgents, as well as US commandos crossing the border of Iraq into Iran in search and destroy operations of caches of munitions--of which we don't hear about--that are earmarked to be supplied to the insurgents. Also, some of the "Surge" of US forces have been deployed in the province of al Anbar where many of the insurgents, in anticipation of the Surge have abandoned Baghdad, are now heavily concentrated. And last, but not least, the US has a secret plan to attack Iran within twenty-four hours on the orders of the President.

Background: The Current Situation

A constellation of the “best and the brightest” stars of American foreign policy-makers and diplomats are presently attempting to prevent the “penumbra of defeat” from casting its ominous shadow over Iraq. Ominous, from the standpoint that the Administration’s war against Iraq was and is an essential part of the war against global terror, as the cause of the war was the reasonable alarm and concern of the Bush administration - in the aftermath of 9/11 – that the Saddam regime could potentially be in the immediate future a supplier of weapons of mass destruction to the global terrorists. Hence, a real or seeming defeat of the US forces in Iraq would have portentous ramifications on its war against the global jihadist fanatics and its state sponsors, such as Syria, and to a greater extent, Iran. So the stakes for the US are strategically high, as the outcome of an even apparent defeat by the Americans in Iraq would make the holy warriors of Islam stronger, more brazen and more deadly. In the eyes of these fanatics they will see in this “defeat” and in all of their future and impending actions, the imprimatur of Allah.

A premature withdrawal of American forces from Iraq before the consolidation of its government and the latter’s ability to quell the insurgency by its own military would be an irremediable strategic error. It would surpass by a greater order of magnitude all the other errors committed by the US in the aftermath of the defeat of Saddam Hussein. Moreover, if the rationale for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq was the war against global terror -as President Bush pointed out and as both houses of Congress accepted and voted for overwhelmingly - no responsible and historically astute political leadership would withdraw from this war just because of the difficulties that have arisen, as a result of the past mistakes of the war-makers. War by definition is difficult and is far from being error-free. But no strategist of Napoleonic dimensions abandons the field of battle because of difficulties. The military vocation and responsibility of a good strategist is to promptly overcome these difficulties by a new adroit and unconventional strategy that will address these difficulties, while at the same time plan to deal such a surprising and lethal blow to the enemy, that within a short time will disable him and make him powerless to continue his fighting.

The Baker-Hamilton Commission, formally known as the Iraq Study Group, (ISG) rules out a victory in Iraq. Henry Kissinger also believes that victory is no longer possible. It has been reported, that the ISG will recommend to the President next month to seek political accommodation with the insurgents, and to open a diplomatic avenue of negotiations with Syria and Iran and entice the latter to involve themselves toward a peaceful outcome in Iraq. Such a proposition issuing from such a high-powered group, in the face of statements by American commanders on the ground that both Syria, and especially Iran are providing arms and funds to the insurgency reveals that the ISG has hoisted its cognitive anchor from the moorings of realpolitik. One has to remind the Baker-Hamilton Commission that whomever one seeks to negotiate with, one acknowledges as master of the situation, to paraphrase Karl Marx. To go to the negotiating table, cap in hand, when your implacable enemy perceives himself to be at the threshold of military victory, is to make a parody of realist diplomacy, as well as doing this at the expense of US strategic interests.

However, not to be unjust to the Baker panel, if the latter is prepared to enforce its demands upon Syria and Iran through diplomacy - backed by an explicit threat of a military attack by the US if they don’t comply - then such a move on the chessboard of diplomacy might checkmate the menacing and nefarious role of Syria and Iran in their support of the Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the event these demands are rejected by Syria and Iran then the US will have no other option but to unleash its mighty arsenal against them with no quarter given. Only by such diplomacy backed by the clear and unrelenting use of one’s military power against one’s inexorable enemies can one subdue the latter and achieve one’s strategically uncompromising demands. Moreover--and this is the ultimate issue that cannot be resolved by any kind of diplomatic discourse—even if an accommodation is reached by this US power-implemented diplomacy with Syria and Iran in regards to Iraq, the “narrative” of the war against global terror will not change. The war of Western democracies, and especially of the US - being the only nation that can comprehensively defeat it - against this infamy of international terror will continue. But a vital modification in this narrative will be that the jihadists will have a weaker base from which they can launch their attacks against the West once they lose the overt and covert support of Syria and Iran, and more generally of other states that covertly and financially support terrorists. So, the positive repercussions emanating from such a military-backed diplomacy by the US will be an enormous strategic fillip for the latter in its war against global terror, and especially against the insurgency in Iraq.

NEW STRATEGY MUST SECURE BAGHDAD

“Flipping the bird”, to use a Brooklyn term, of gradual withdrawal in whatever form before the job is done, as presumably is going to be suggested to the President by the Iraq Study Group - according to leaked reports - is not a step toward victory but a step toward defeat. But for the job to be done either by Americans or Iraqis, or in combination, the strategic and tactical “steps” on the ground against the insurgents will have to change radically. Also, for this new strategy to be successful, it will be necessary to inject a dose of ruthlessness into the coalition forces’ operations that is commensurate to the ruthlessness of the insurgents. The spread of fear by the insurgents must be countermanded by the greater fear of what will happen to them and to their sundry political supporters within Iraq by the might of US military power used against them sans civilized compunctions. The rules of engagement of US troops and the use of the means of war against the insurgents must change seminally in this new strategy. Only by doing so will the latter ensure the defeat of this irreconcilable and bloodthirsty enemy.

Campaign Tactics

Securing Baghdad will be the point d’ appui of this new campaign against the insurgents--with whose military tactics for the achievement of this goal we will deal with further down. Hence, a concentration of US coalition forces will be needed to clear up or eliminate the insurgents from the areas where they are hiding, and restore security under the continuing presence of the coalition forces.

The following tactics are crucial for securing Baghdad:

1. An important element in this new strategy will be degrading the ability of the insurgents to use car bombs, both against civilians, as well as Iraqi security forces. To accomplish this task, the Iraqi government must pass a law that will prescribe that no vehicle within the commercial and servicing areas of Baghdad will be allowed to park without at least one passenger being in it. In case a car has no one in it or is seen to be abandoned by its driver, that will immediately send a warning to commuters close to it that it’s more likely than not a car bomb. To prevent the insurgents from using dummies or kidnapped passengers tied to the vehicle, the latter must have its passenger side-window open so nearby commuters will be able to see whether it is a dummy or a kidnapped person. Hence an important corollary of this law will be the willy-nilly change of Iraqi civilians into commuter vigilantes who will promptly identify a terrorist whom they themselves could arrest when he takes leave of his vehicle, if no security personnel are in the vicinity. This law of course will not prevent the detonation of a car bomb by a suicide bomber who will not abandon his vehicle. But it will diminish in substantial numbers the car bombs by taking out of the equation all those vehicles that are exploded by remote control without suicide bombers in them. Hence, the Iraqi Government, by the passing of this law, not only will diminish the number of car bombs, but it will also actively “mobilise” all civilian commuters against this murderous weapon of the insurgents.

2. Securing Baghdad will require an increased number of US troops, as has already been adumbrated by the Bush administration. The troops will be deployed both within the environs of the city and beyond for the double purpose of clearing areas where the insurgents are hiding and receiving financial support and nourishment from local leaders as well as placing a stranglehold upon them. Bearing also in mind that because the modality of the insurgency is “anarchic” since its operations are not directed by a central command post, as each group of insurgents is doing its own thing - the coalition forces can only decapitate the insurgency by destroying the supply lines and logistics of each group. Hence, only by destroying the caches of munitions of the insurgents will the Americans be able to enervate the insurgency.

3. At the start of the military campaign of cleansing Baghdad of insurgents, the al Maliki government must make the announcement that all entrance and exit points of Baghdad will be closed and no one will be allowed to enter or leave the city. More specifically, unbeknown to the insurgents, Baghdad will be encircled by US troops, so if any of the insurgents embedded within Baghdad attempt to escape the coalition forces’ attack within the capital will be killed by the encircling US troops. (This tactic of encirclement can also apply on a mini-scale, such as Sadr city or any other areas within Baghdad. The commanders on the ground will decide on the scale of its use.) Certainly this closure of the city will cause some inconvenience to the civilians, but this “naval blockade on land” is absolutely necessary for the defeat of the insurgents within Baghdad. This will lock the new American strategy like a vise around them, for if any try to enter or leave the city they will be killed without question. And once Baghdad falls from the hold of the insurgents and the security of the city is accomplished by the continued presence of US troops, Baghdad again will be an open city.

4. However, the consolidation of the security of Baghdad in the long term can only be accomplished if this security is expanded and achieved in other towns that are in the vicinity of Baghdad. Therefore the towns that are situated in the province of al Anbar, and which are Sunni strongholds of the Iraqi insurgency, will also have to be cleared from the menace of the insurgents. To be successful in this task US strategists will have to pick an appropriate town from this province and resort to unique strategic tactics in the form of “a prototype of destruction” that will serve as a deadly example to the insurgents and to their clan and Sheikh leaders of what awaits them in other towns of Iraq, if they do not surrender. US forces will blockade the town and announce to its residents that if they want to save themselves from a devastating attack they will have to take immediate leave of their town. Once civilians exit their town --and quite possibly some insurgents will be amongst them but they will be unarmed, otherwise they will not be able to pass through the American checkpoints — US commanders will ruthlessly use the appropriate lethal ordnance and bombs that will destroy the town and along with it all the insurgents in their bunkers who choose to be martyrs or consider the US warning to be merely a bluff. As for those insurgents who escaped with the egress of civilians from the town, the chances that they will be rearmed and recycled back to the insurgency will considerably diminish with the security of Baghdad and the borders of Syria and Iran from which the insurgency receives its arms and munitions.

Beyond any doubt, some civilians who stayed behind because they were either relatives or supporters of the insurgents, will be killed in this remorseless destruction, and there will be a tidal wave of protest, censure, and purgatorial blame against the US military action. But one must be reminded, that throughout history all protests and censures dissolve in the cup of victory. Providing this new strategy and tactics will be victorious against the Iraqi insurgency and its foreign jihadists - and the chances are that they will be - the exponents and the practitioners of this unconventional strategy will neither be accountable to man or God, but only to history. In all great crises of mankind, morality is superseded by Realpolitik and the reality of war.

5. The defeat of the insurgency also entails its covert allies, Syria and Iran, who are supplying the insurgents with armaments and whose porous borders are conduits for foreign jihadists to enter Iraq, are going to be dealt with. The US must exercise a strategy of “zero tolerance” against Syria and Iran. If they do not cease their “supply” of weapons to the insurgents and don’t stop foreign jihadists from entering Iraq, then US air power will attack their borders where the caches of weapons are stored.

CONCLUSION

The means of war were invented not for the purpose of lying idle in their “silos”, but to be used as a last resort against an implacable and mortal foe. If President Truman’s rationale for using the atomic bomb against Japan was the saving of American lives that an invasion of that country would inevitably entail, then President Bush has a stronger rationale of using the current lethal weapons -although not nuclear ones- that the US possesses against the bloodthirsty insurgency in Iraq. This is not only for the purpose of saving American lives but also of defeating an enemy who, in the event of taking over Iraq, would turn the latter - both physically and psychologically - into a haven and launching pad for global terror, whose jihadists would threaten the viability, and, indeed, the survival of Western civilization, as we know it.

In order to defeat global terror one must place terror in the hearts of the terrorists. Islamofanatics believe in toto that they have Allah on their side and while they even think they are winning will become an even more implacable foe. Fanatics only understand the language of force and respect only the currency of strength. It is this harsh fact which must drive the rules of engagement, replacing the hitherto “nice guy” military approach of the Americans, with some notable exceptions.

This new strategy of staying the course - but with the commanders on the ground having all the appropriate means of war at their disposal to be used remorselessly against the insurgents - has a great chance of being successful. And unlike all the pessimistic pundits who have “cashiered” victory in Iraq—but pessimists cannot win wars that is the vocation of optimists—2007 could be the Annus Mirabilis for President Bush, if he has the mettle and sagacity to adopt the above strategy that could indeed be the blueprint for victory.