The Intellectual Cheating of Liberals

A short reply to a Liberal –By Con George-Kotzabasis

Clearly your vocation in the ‘market of argument’ is to be a peddler in non sequiturs. Why are you shifting the ground of the argument, is it because your pockets are empty of all coins of counter reasoning on the issue? The question as was initially put by Clemons’s use of the Bolton quote was not whether Israel’s and America’s wars were self-defensive or not but whether there was “moral equivalence” between the deliberate and non-deliberate killing of civilians. Clemons by cheating intellectually, by speciously transforming this argument of moral equivalence into an argument of devaluation of “Muslim and Arab lives” has made himself intellectually and morally persona non grata.

Talleyrand, eloquently and boldly said the following in the face of Napoleon, when the latter deposed the legitimate Ferdinand II and placed his own brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, “Sire, un enfant de famille may gamble away his last farthing—the heritage of his ancestors—the dower of his mother—the portion of his sisters—and yet be courted and admired for his wit—be sought for his talents and distinction—but let him once be detected in cheating at the game, and he is lost—society is forever shut against him.” You likewise, in partaking in this Napoleonesque cheating of Clemons “at the game,” have become your own ‘guest’ as an intellectual and moral pariah.

The Presence of U.S. and Western Troops Underpins Survival of Afghans from the Blitz of Taliban

By Con George-Kotzabasis --A short reply to an American Liberal

The better question is, in my opinion, how many Afghans want the U.S. out and how many of them want the Taliban back in? That is where the “real argument’ lies. The fact is that there is a substantial number of Afghans that can only survive by the presence of U.S. and Western troops at this particular political and military juncture of the country.

To consider that this “flexing of its muscles” by the United States is for “empire” and not an ‘aggressive’ pre-emptive attack against an irreconcilable deadly foe is to be stuck in the rut of conventional leftist unimaginative thinking.

The Iraq Surge was not quantitative but qualitative. It was completely a new strategy that used the means of war imaginatively and remorselessly against the insurgents as well as baiting the latter with monetary incentives to switch sides or disarm. In war one has to use all means at one’s disposal creatively to subdue an enemy. In the toppling of the Taliban on November 2001, the CIA saturated the Northern Alliance with caches of money, military equipment, and intelligence that defeated the Taliban within forty days without any American troops fighting on the ground.

Remembrance of Things Past Thought Wrongly

I’m republishing the following riposte that shows how wrong Liberals have been in regard to the outcome of the war in Iraq.

By Con George-Kotzabasis—a retort to:

State of the Union Address


Arguing with Bush--By Professor Juan Cole

INFORMED COMMENT-- January 1, 2006 www.juancole.com


Professor Cole’s piece is contaminated with incurable negativity. It shows him to be a sturdy contestant for the Bush hate trophy from which so many academics of the Left “rake” their inspiration to make their comments about the grave political issues au courant. He argues that for Bush to state, that the elections in Afghanistan and in Iraq are an achievement of self- government, “is the height of hubris” as such “self-government” is laughable and cannot be constructed under an American military occupation. However, only by distorting the context within which Bush made his statement, can he cogently vindicate his contention against the President. And this is exactly what he is doing. Both in Afghanistan and in Iraq the elections were a massive demonstration of their people of their unquenchable desire for “self-government”, within the context of recently toppled dictatorial regimes. And it’s precisely within such a context that one who is intellectually objective should interpret Bush’s statement.

He claims furthermore, that the invasion of these two countries, especially of Iraq, were not legal. But who defines the legality of the invasion? The UN, which for many years now had lost the plot and resolve to deal effectively with the crises of the world, e.g. Ruwanda, the Congo, and presently Darfur in Sudan, not to mention others, and which was steeped in the corruption that Saddam had set up with the food-for-oil scandal? Or would it be the French, the Russians, and the Germans, who were in cahoots with Saddam, whose ingrained envy as politically miniscule and morally petty rivals of the US hegemon induced them to obstruct all the reasonable defensive actions the latter was forced to take, in the aftermath of 9/11, against the two rogue states that sponsored global terror?

But this chapter of history is not yet closed, and the academics that cannot see anything positive emanating from this “illegal invasion” might eventually have a lot of egg on their face.

Labor Government’s Abolition of Nuclear Weapons a Decision in Cuckooland

By Con George-Kotzabasis

If the reason for the abolition of nuclear weapons is flawed because the latter are the “poor man’s defense” against the preeminence of the U.S. in conventional weapons of “prompt global strike” by which the U.S. will continue to dominate the world by the threat of their use against its deadly rivals and enemies, such as N. Korea and Iran as Marko Beljak implies, then the other reason is that in the age of millenarian movements the abolition of nuclear weapons is also flawed as rogue states bristling in their apocalyptic beards, like Iran, could produce stealthily nuclear weapons. In such a situation to set up an International Commission for nuclear disarmament, as Prime Minister Rudd proposes to do, is the ultimate stupidity that any one could suggest. And in the aftermath of 9/11, the magnitude of such stupidity takes astronomical dimensions. Just imagine that countries such as America, Britain, France, and especially, Israel, which could be the targets of a nuclear attack by an Islamist state or by proxies of the latter, would even consider their nuclear disarmament in such a dangerous context.

Rudd’s proposal limpidly illustrates that Australia does not have a statesman at the helm of the government but a political dilettante and a populist to boot who is more concerned to ingratiate himself with the celestial wishes of its liberal minded naively pacifist constituency than to deal with the geopolitical realities.

Moreover, what is rather surprising and amusing is to see that Gareth Evans is willing to underwrite such political buffoonery by accepting the chair of the International Commission for nuclear disarmament. It seems that his Tasmanian “Biggles” days are not over.

Also, the “amelioration of security” by diplomatic means and international institutions, such as PALME, in the age of millenarian movements with irrational actors, is also a flawed conception. In such circumstances nuclear or conventional disarmament is a most dangerous illusion. Only a benign superpower or a coalition of states can keep the order of the world by a combination of sticks and carrots. And in our times the United States relatively is the only such benign power.

Malevolent Mediocrities Incapable of Making a Balanced Assessment of Donald Rumsfeld June 01, 2011


"It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past." Karl von Clausewitz

By Con George-Kotzabasis

It’s good and encouraging to see someone, like Steve Clemons, (See The Washington Note) from the opposing side, highlighting and commending the pensive and important “Rumsfeld Memo,” that the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, presented on October 16, 2003, to his subordinates for discussion, which through its questions attempted to open new vistas of strategic thinking of how to confront this stealthy and unique enemy.

Donald Rumsfeld, gifted with a strong character, high intelligence, and impeccable political responsibility as a public servant, would ineluctably become a maligned figure before the eyes of all the spineless and thoughtless mediocrities, who with the appearance of the first difficulties of the Iraq war and its errors, would blame him for them, as if any human who was involved in such stupendous undertaking and facing a singularly inimitable enemy, could do so without committing mistakes.

For those who can make a dispassionate and in-depth assessment of the former secretary’s thoughts and actions, as depicted in his book “Known and Unknown,” will give him the credit that is due to him for his prudence and indomitable spirit as an actor in the fog of war.

The Art of Politics and War is to Know Thy Enemy


A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

The Holocaust Declaration by Charles Krauthammer

Washington Post, April 11, 2008

The art of politics and war is to “know thy enemy”. And once the enemy is revealed to be irreconcilable and unappeasable, in this case Iran, because of his apocalyptic and chiliastic nature as an irrational actor and therefore most dangerous, one has to destroy such an enemy before he becomes stronger. If preemption is not going to fall into a state of desuetude and finish up as a comical term losing all its seriousness, it must be used against the centrifugal regime of Ahmadinejad relentlessly and efficiently. It’s necessary therefore and timely that the Bush administration makes an open and unambiguous threat to Iran that if the latter does not immediately cease its nuclear program the U.S. will be targeting by an unspecified force de frappe the triangular leadership of Iran, i.e., the mullahs, the high officials of the government, and the higher echelons of the army, in a surprise attack. Only such a clear threat against Iran’s leadership may create a shifting of positions among the latter, and, indeed, a “palace revolt” against the Ahmadinejad regime. And if there are signs that this will not happen, then the U.S. will have no other option but to attack Iran.

Charles Krauthammer’s proposal of the “Holocaust Declaration”, I’m afraid is impolitic. As in America and many other countries in the world many of their peoples still breathe the poisonous vapors of anti-Semitism, and hence, the “Declaration” will be seen by many as a Jewish stratagem and therefore politically will not become a rallying point.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

The Necessity of Knowing the Enemy to Prevent Catastrophe
By Con George-Kotzabasis

In the interminable crises and conflicts that is the natural order of the world it’s necessary to “know thy enemy” in advance if one is to abort timely the birth of these conflicts from arising in all their ugly features. This website is committed to the goal of preventing and resolving impending great dangers. To fulfill this goal, however, depends on our strong desire and willingness to remove our belongings, to paraphrase the Great Russian writer, Vladimir Nabokov, from the premises of ideology. The latter in its tendentiousness ‘discolors’ the multiple and variable colors of reality, and its sundry nuances, and places it in its ideological dogmatic monochromatic mold. Ideological convictions have no ‘civil rights’ on this website that searches for the truth since unlike omniscient ideology we do not possess truth.

It’s on this objective search and its data that we will be writing our essays and recommendations and will be passing them to the heads of governments that have the wherewithal to nip-in-the-bud the dangers of our epoch. To timely stop the “soundless” hoofing of The Four “Flying”(9/11) Horsemen Of The Apocalypse who with scimitars in their hands ‘loaded’ with weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, soon with nuclear ones, provided with the compliments of President Ahmadinejad.