Nemesis

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: THE CONTINUATION OF “REVOLUTION” BY OTHER MEANS

Con George-Kotzabasis

A specter is haunting freedom of speech the specter of political correctness. All the moral and political values of democracy, liberalism, individualism, freedom of speech and expression, are haunted and cast out as empty and false bourgeois values, as they were by Marxian revolutionaries in the past. Under the “revolutionary” order of political correctness, these values have no substantial right to exist, if they are going to be used to criticize and call into account the self-appointed guardians of the less privileged in our society. Needless to say, no votary of this new dispensation would concede that the adoption of the precepts of political correctness would suborn and undermine these venerable values of democracy. And without any doubt, the followers of political correctness would consider such an accusation as laughably nonsensical and a calumny to their true position.

It’s not unusual, however, for people who are so clearly aware and conscious of their thoughts and actions, to be completely oblivious and unconscious of the consequences that emanate from these same thoughts and actions. In the “blind rage” of their “correctness”, they cannot see nor can they imagine the wide and meandering ramifications of outcomes their precepts are engendering, and in the darkness of their blindness, they cannot perceive where the latter are leading. For once you proscribe, even by implication, certain ideas and opinions, or by giving them red neck status, and forbid their voicing or prescribe the form of their expression, you erode the value-hold these ideas have in the general community, hence making it more easy for people not to adopt and not to express them in the form of their own liking. Consequently you deprive people their inalienable right, in a democracy, both to voice and express ideas in accordance to their individual wishes and preferences, i.e., to choose the forms and figures of speech by which to articulate them. In the past, phrenologists use to put mad people in straitjackets. Presently, the high priests of political correctness are putting reasonable conventions in the straitjacket of their own “madness”.

The followers of political correctness have deliberately chosen not to conduct the debate of their propositions before the court of reason, but in the emotionally charged precincts of the boudoir. Whence they can dub and castigate their opponents with the emotive terms of racist, sexist, etc. with the purpose of shutting them up. Where reason is absent, however, the issues that are important to the advancement and public good of a society tend to swing to-and-fro without resolution. Even when a resolution is reached its outcome, more often than not, arises from a bad compromise that the best side of the argument makes to the worst, due to the mistaken belief that it’s better to come to some sort of conclusion, even by means of a bad compromise, than to no conclusion at all.

The protagonists of political correctness, in the torpor of their satiated intellectual state, are not aware that they are conceiving and are giving birth to a “Frankenstein”, who will wreak havoc on the institutional values of a democratic society. Nor are they conscious that by succeeding in dubbing certain forms of speech and expression as socially unacceptable, they will crack the foundation upon which a democratic society functions. The vigor and robustness of liberal institutions depend wholly and utterly in the strong disposition and will of the people to exercise their democratic rights regularly and fearlessly and not let them fall in a state of desuetude.

The latter is a real danger and no hyperbole. In contemporary democratic societies, when human rights and social justice are strongly stitched in the social fabric and have great political and moral appeal among the people, it would not be difficult for a small group of political activists, who ostensibly profess to represent the interests of the less privileged and less favored among us, to persuade a sizeable part of the majority that political correctness not only protects and augments the rights of the under privileged, but it’s also a better fit to our democratic structure in alleviating, and, indeed, in eliminating injustice, than the “formal freedoms”, according to them, that emanate from liberal institutions. The latter, after all, from their radical perspective, are no more than the instruments by which the powerful are depriving the socially indigent from their rights, with the outcome of keeping the latter in a permanent state of disempowerment. The acceptance of such a proposition by a large number of people, as well as by many Labor politicians, is already becoming de rigueur. Especially, when it’s supported and promoted by the artfully “credible” voice of sections of academia, as well as by the fourth estate, the media, which has chosen, with some exceptions, to shroud its critical faculties behind a veil of darkness, avoiding to criticize the paltriness of reasoning that is embedded in such a proposition. That the influence of political correctness is real, and that it can determine the discourse of political and civil debate in our society, or stifle it, is demonstrated by three recently published events.

CONCRETE EXAMPLES OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

First, the maladministration of the financial affairs of ATSIC and the venal practices of some of its leaders, have been known by at least one former minister of Aboriginal affairs, almost five years ago. Yet that minister refused to investigate these serious allegations and directed his department not to probe into them, apparently being concerned and fearful of the backlash that would have risen against him and the government from most leaders of the Aboriginal community. Who would have slurred such an investigation and they would have claimed, as they do now, that such investigation would have brought reconciliation to an end. It was due to this reason, that the former minister abandoned his ministerial responsibility.

Secondly, in the Easton Affair, Carmen Laurence, the premier of Western Australia, before and after her condemnation by the Royal Commission, was able to cover her brazen lies behind the hood of sisterhood. All the feminists were up in arms against anyone who would dare to criticize her. The feminist lobby of political correctness and its supporters within the Federal Labor Government were able to seduce and mobilize a “glitterati” of ministers and the Prime Minister Paul Keating, to defend the indefensible. Despite the doubt and moral apprehensions some of them, in all probability, might have had, about the veracity of their Labor colleague Laurence. Ostensibly, not even the former government’s glitterati would have dared to confront the wrath of the feminists. On the altar of political expediency and political correctness they sacrificed their moral and intellectual integrity, which fatefully led to a further lowering of their political credibility, and which in turn contributed significantly to their electoral defeat. What was more disturbing, however, was the conspicuous absence of the moral and intellectual leadership of the country, and of the media almost as a whole, on this primarily important issue. That is, whether public personae had an absolute obligation to uphold the moral values of our society, and to tell the truth. What made the keepers and upholders of our moral values, our academics and church leaders, to be so closed-lipped on this fundamentally important issue? Were they afraid, that if they had spoken publicly and condemning this mendacity coming from a premier, they would be stung by the “bee” of political correctness? And was the media too, with some exceptions—one of which was Laura Tingle of The Australian—afraid of this same sting? As on this issue of the Easton Affair, it transmogrified the fourth-estate into the last estate, apparently, without any professional pangs of conscience!

Thirdly, the welfare state, which in a short time would become in so many areas the fraudulent state, and its extensive abuse, must have been known to government officials—and if it wasn’t known, these officials would be just as culpable both for the grossness of their ignorance and professional ineptitude. Yet these high officials and their ministers, with the exception of some of the more blatant abuses for which few persons were prosecuted, were unwilling to enter this hornet’s nest and initiate a commission of inquiry that would expose this widespread abuse of the welfare system. When the Paxton family was criticized for its lack of zeal, to say the least, to abandon the state of their unemployment, all the guardian angels of the welfare state were in full flight accusing the critics of being insensitive and unfair to the plight and distress that the members of the Paxton family were experiencing. And, indeed, that such critique was an invasion of their privacy. No lesser institution than the ABC adopted such a line of political correctness. Stuart Littlemore, of Media Watch, criticized Channel Nine for pillorying the Paxton family. If the powerful and independent ABC can be coaxed and allured by the “trendy” etiquettes of political correctness, what else can lesser mortals do than succumb to these same etiquettes?

THE LABOR OPPOSITION TURNS A BLIND EYE

What is astonishingly surprising however, is the statement of the leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, that there is no “wholesale fraud” in welfare payments. In a recent Four Corner’s program on the ABC, that covered the issue of outdoor workers in the clothing and textiles industries, the unions covering these two industries claimed, that there were at least three hundred thousand people who were working in these industries and who were rapaciously exploited by employers. In the course of the documentary, it was revealed that the majority of these workers were at the same time receiving some form of welfare payments that they were not entitled to receive as employed workers, as well as not paying any taxes on the wages they were receiving.

The unions had known for years of the existence of this outdoor work and had made several approaches to the former Labor government to stop this rampant exploitation that was affecting migrants by appropriate legislation. In this context therefore, the statement of Kim Beazley, to say the least, is puzzling. With such a large “population” of employees receiving unemployment or welfare payments that they were not eligible to receive and for the leader of the Opposition to state that there is “no wholesale fraud” in the welfare system, one can only say that apparently Kim Beazley is no “populist” and therefore cannot be blamed for not having a “populous” definition of wholesale fraud.

The paramount question is why, with such overwhelming evidence of fraud the former Labor government abdicated its responsibility and did not do anything about this widespread fraud of which obviously was aware and instead adopted the ‘don’t rock the boat’ attitude? Was it apprehensive that if it had set up an investigation in regards to it, it would trigger the animadversion of the welfare and ethnic lobbies? And beyond the political embarrassment that it would bear, if such investigation verified the existence of the fraud, was it also the “rattles” of political correctness that such a probe would cause which cowered the former government from exercising its responsibility? But beyond any doubt, in all these three events it was the perverse influence of political correctness that led to the eclipse of political probity and responsibility.

From whence comes political correctness? The collapse and burial of the revolutionary utopia in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union have left a withered crop of revolutionary and radical ideologues spiritually and ideologically homeless. The levity of the utopia however, too proud to admit defeat, has levitated these homeless ideologues into the haven of political correctness, breathing, hence, into its revolutionary progeny a new lease on life. The show trials of the future will be staged therefore by a radical elite of political correctness ensconced in academia, and by a motley of followers, i.e., feminists, gayists, indigenists, multiculturalists, and a miscellany of lobbyists, who, under the august values of justice, tolerance, equal opportunity, and diversity, will be setting up new “Gulag archipelagos”, where freedom of speech and expression will be incarcerated and muzzled. Political correctness is the continuation of “revolution” by other means. But the “pushers” of this revolution are like an “ageing actor’s face full of often acted artificial passions”, to quote the wunderkind Orson Welles, and feigned roles. And like all the artificial and extreme experiments of the social, political, and economic engineers of the past, who by a set of panaceas and fanciful ideas tried to change the course of history and failed, the attempt of the adherents of political correctness to cripple the march of reason and put it on crutches, will also fail.

The above paper was written in June 1996

DELEGITIMIZE STATES THAT SPONSOR TERROR
Con George-Kotzabasis

Distinguished former diplomats, like Warren Christopher, Clinton’s Secretary of State, remain at their “postless”, no new messages on diplomacy, posts, and continue to argue on the virtues of old diplomacy. In his piece on the Washington Post, July 28, 2006, he calls for “negotiation of an immediate cease-fire between the warring parties” in Lebanon, and asserts that a “permanent” and “sustainable” solution to the root causes of the conflict—which is the goal of the Bush administration—“is achievable, if at all, by protracted negotiations.” As an example of such successful diplomacy that occurred under his tenure as Secretary, he refers to the rocket attacks by Hezbollah in April 1996 against Israel and the countering of the latter with Operation Grapes of Wrath, that the Cagliostro like arts of diplomacy successfully stymied this confrontation and ushered a truce between the parties that lasted for ten years. He claims, that only by such broad-minded diplomacy that involves all the players in the region could America stop its “tattered reputation.” But he is completely mindless of the fact that this long Truce was neither permanent nor sustainable, but, merely, a respite for the Hezbollah during which the latter would militarily train and proselytize its militia with its fanatic deadly ideology and arm it with Katyusha rockets for a deadlier future confrontation with its mortal enemy, the Jewish State, as we now see. To repeat therefore the diplomacy of the past in the present context in the face of these lessons given by this flauntingly failed diplomacy, is not only to repeat the mistakes of the past, but more grievously still, to weaken Israel and its Western allies against greater impending dangers in the future. As the upshot of another long Truce between the belligerents now would only benefit Hezbollaf by making it politically, ideologically, and militarily even stronger, and loading this time the tips of its rockets with weapons of mass destruction, including tactical nuclear weapons, thus fulfilling President Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic foreboding of wiping Israel off the map. And needless to say, such an outcome would be a tremendous victory for global terror and a serious strategic reversal of the West’s war against it.

Furthermore, it would set in concrete the ambition of Iran to become the dominant power of the region, whose present trailblazing two-pronged strategy to forge an axis between Shi’ites and Sunnis, as the present pact between Iran and Syria illustrates against their arch enemy Israel and to paralyze the EU and the US as a condominium to formulate an ironclad policy that would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are the means by which it will achieve its aim. Since, according to the Ahmadinejad regime, the grand diversion that Lebanon has provided will ease its task to acquire a nuclear arsenal, as the divisions that would be spawned by the Lebanon crisis among the Western countries and within the UN about how to handle the situation on the ground, would be of such a nature that would completely enervate the US and EU condominium from casting a position that would stop Iran from joining the nuclear club.

Hence, the war in Lebanon may initially appear to be a local conflict between Israel and Hezbollah but in reality is a geopolitical conflict between Iran and the Western powers since the former will be using the conflagration of Lebanon as a fulcrum to achieve its strategic goals (a) to acquire nuclear weapons, (b) to emerge as the predominant power in the region, (c) to become the leader of the Muslim world, and (d) to establish in the world the millenarian regime of the twelfth imam Mahdi. As the respected Middle East analyst Amir Taheri wrote in The Australian, on August 7, 06, “to Ahmadinejad to wipe off Israel is the first step toward defeating the ‘infidel’ West”. He furthermore quotes Iran’s state controlled media as saying “that Lebanon would become the graveyard of the Bush plan for a new Middle East”. And Tehran believes, “that a victory by Hezbollah…will strengthen Ahmadinejad’s bid for the leadership of radical Islam”. And Taheri comes to the conclusion “all the talk of a ceasefire, all the diplomatic gesticulation may ultimately mean little in what is an existential conflict”.

Will the “new” diplomacy, as embodied in the unanimously approved resolution by the UN Security Council, in its stylishly dashing French clothes, but worn, by the old decrepit body of diplomatic thinking, bring the long desired, but up till now evanescent, permanent and sustainable solution to the region that so many attempts in the past failed to do? The auguries for such an outcome however, are far from favorable. The Council’s resolution calls for a halt to the fighting and Israel’s withdrawal “in parallel” with the deployment of UN peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese troops who will attempt to create a buffer zone in South Lebanon free of the Hezbollah militia. However, the resolution vaguely refers to the disarmament and dismantling of the latter, that is pivotal to a permanent and sustainable peace between Israel and Lebanon and whether such international force and the Lebanese army–which is riddled with Hezbollah sympathizers–even if they had a clear mandate to disarm Hezbollah, would have been able to accomplish this task, given the unambiguous statements of Hezbollah that it will not disarm. Nor does the resolution take a firm and implacable stand in stopping the supply of weapons to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria.

Hence, the dragon teeth of Hezbollal are still planted deep in Lebanon’s soil, presaging an even greater and more dangerous conflagration in the future between the warring parties, especially if Iran stealthily slips into the nuclear club. The UN resolution therefore is merely a soporific. It will provide a couch to Israel and Hezbollah so they can lay down in a temporary state of dormancy until Hezbollah feels strong enough, in its never ending act, to wipe Israel off the map. Thus, the future confrontation will be by far more deadly than the present one, as hundreds of thousands will lose their lives.

AMERICA’S NEW STRATEGIC DIPLOMACY

Surely the American leadership must be aware of this lugubrious scenario that has been staged by this toothless resolution of the Security Council. Unless they have in mind a second stronger swift resolution that will be addressing the complete disarmament and dismantling of Hezbollah and irrevocably stopping Syria and Iran from supplying weapons to its proxy, they will entangle and compromise their up to now clear strategic position in the strategically myopic, unimaginative, fickle, and flabby diplomatic stance of their allies in continental Europe. It will be the ultimate folly, post 9/11, once you have identified your irreconcilable, implacable, and mortal enemy, as the Bush administration has done, to render the enemy and its proxies respites that will strengthen their military capability and make them even more dangerous as well as more difficult to defeat in the future, instead of destroying them at their weakest moment, as no kind of diplomacy ante 9/11, no matter how brilliantly conceived, can achieve the complete destruction of this infernal enemy.

The Bush administration being presumably aware of this fact, i.e., of the complete inadequacy of the old diplomacy, of which so many of its “encoreists”, such as Richard Holbrooke and Madeleine Albright, are continuing to give it “standing ovations”, does seem to be willing–despite its tactical errors in Iraq that have given rise to a rampant insurgency making the war more difficult to win and as a result of this making some members of the Administration more circumspect to launch another attack, this time on Iran–to take leave of its circumspection and embrace a more hawkish diplomacy that would be much more successful than the effete and barren diplomacy of the past. Such robust diplomacy will not be draped in the smooth velvety apparels of “old” Europe or in the tattered garments of the United Nations, but will be draped in the bristling carapace of a porcupine. While there will not be a scarcity of carrots in the exercise of this armed diplomacy, the sticks will be deadly in their threatening application against those intransigent nations that continue overtly or covertly to sponsor terrorists and use them as proxies to achieve their geopolitical and millenarian goals.

The axis of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah will have the kiss of death planted on its forehead by this no “frills” American diplomacy. But the angel of death in this new diplomacy will be last in the queue. Before the US deploys as a last resort its lethal arsenal against the axis, it will in the incipient stages of this diplomacy call for the de-legitimatization of Iran and Syria as states that sponsor terror. Iran and Syria will become pariah states and will be isolated from the rest of the world. The only avenues that will remain open between the former and the latter will be the economic ones. But the economic transactions between de-legitimate states and the rest of the world will proceed not through individual states but through an intermediary channel, an international consortium whose representatives will be enlisted from the de jure states of the world who will deal with the economic representatives of the outlaw states. Such procedure will place the free world in a powerful negotiating position to impose its own economic regime on the outlaw states. Needless to say, some nations will not accept, and will not abide, this “outlawing” of Iran and Syria and will continue to have their relations with the latter unchanged. But as long as the major nations of the world hold the line, this recalcitrance of the minor nations will in no way loosen the tightness of the noose around the throats of the outlaws, as the latter will be banned from attending all international forums where the important decisions in the affairs of the world are made.

The chances that the call for the de-legitimatization of states that sponsor terror, as a diplomatic move to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are quite high that it will rally many nations to support such a call as the best alternative to an American military attack against Iran, particularly, when such an attack would result in a great loss of lives as well as have the potential to throw the world’s economy into the doldrums, as it’s the latter as well as their electoral base that many European nations are mainly concerned with in the advent of an American attack on Iran. The exercise of this new adroit American diplomacy will address therefore both the concerns of the Europeans and the fears of Iran. It will have, on the one hand, enough carrots in its diplomatic basket to feed the Europeans and to entice them to the idea that the outlawing of Iran is the better option for all concerned than a devastating military confrontation with the latter, and on the other, it will have enough sticks to coerce Iran to abandon its goal to acquire nuclear weapons. In the intense pressure of the vice that the Ahmadinejad regime will find itself both as a possibly ostracized de-legitimate state or as a military target of the Americans, the odds are that the regime will succumb to this pressure. In the event that it sticks to its guns, then it will play Russian roulette with its own people, as such a stand will strengthen the internal opposition against the “mullahcratic” regime. And as the majority of Iranians shift behind the Opposition parties this could lead to the fall of the theocratic regime of Ahmadinejad by an army revolt that would act in the name of such strong opposition from the people.

The success of this diplomacy will depend entirely on the Bush administration making it unambiguously clear to its European allies, as well as Russia and China, of its utter determination that in the event the proposal to de-legitimatize states that sponsor terror is not adopted by the major nations of the world, then the US will have no other option but to attack militarily the rogue states that sponsor terror, and Iran will be the first one and more likely than not the only one, as the other ones will follow the example of Libya and cave in. It’s inconceivable to imagine, that the European nations, as well as China, for which the sine qua non for its present stratospheric economic development is the economic stability of the world, will be so dim-witted not to accept the American proposal and risk the chance that the Bush administration will not deliver on its threat.

Hence, this hawkish US diplomacy is far from being a long shot in persuading the major nations of the world to outlaw states that sponsor terror. Moreover, it has the great potential as a dual realizable threat to outlaw Iran or attack it militarily, to coerce the latter to unequivocally abide by the demands of the international community. In the event that the Ahmadinejad regime remains unwilling to discard its obsession to possess nuclear weapons and continues to defy the European Union and the United States in their demand to stop supplying its terrorist proxies, such as Hezbollah, with weapons, then the call will be on “the angel of death”, draped in stars and stripes, to jump the queue and put an end to this apocalyptic threat that stems from the regime of the mullahs.

HIC RHODUS HIC SALTA

The above article was written on September 20, 2006

TIME FOR RALLYING AROUND A STRONG LEADERSHIP

“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”. Friedrich Nietzsche

Francis Fukayama in his intellectual volte face from a neo-conservative who supported the war in Iraq has now, with the difficulties that have issued from the war, turned himself into a “soft-power” conservative. In his article in The Melbourne Age on April 8, 06, “Time For Softer, Smarter US”, he argues, “that before the Iraqi war, we were probably at war with no more than a few thousand people who would consider martyring themselves and causing nihilistic damage to the US”, whereas now we are facing tens of thousands as a result of our invasion of Iraq. Because of this America should use “soft power rather than hard power” promoting “political and economic development… by focusing primarily on good governance, political accountability, democracy and strong institutions”. Another reason why a soft power policy is more prudent is that the “unipolar world that emerged after the Cold War has stoked broad new currents of anti-Americanism”, and one way to mitigate the latter is for the US to use its power latently, instead of displaying it arrogantly. Also, the broader involvement of international institutions is a prerequisite, if this new policy is to bear its fruit. Although he concedes that these institutions “are inherently slow, rigid and hobbled by cumbersome procedures”. And he admits that the implementation of such a policy cannot be quick and would “require tremendous patience”. But the conundrum of what to do with the war in Iraq continuous to haunt him. As he states, that “walking away… would leave a festering terrorist sanctuary”. And finally,and unwillingly, giving credit to where credit is due, to President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption, he acknowledges that the war against terrorists could be pre-emptive and could often violate the principle of national sovereignty.

There are however historical, political, and strategic reasons that Fukayama’s soft power strategy will be a greater failure than the presumed failure of hard power. Moreover, one cannot contrive “smarter” US policies as a recipe of success. All policies of government in their major part are made by smart people. But in the scope of their implementation are often “outsmarted” by a multiplicity of variables that no human mind can foresee or imagine or absolutely control. But that does not mean that one has to be nihilistic about intelligence. The latter rules the world, but it’s not an absolute sovereign. It has its limits. And within these limits governments carry out their realpolitik on calculations of the highest probability and without being immune from committing errors. The war in Iraq is an illustration of this. It started with a smart military strategy which within three weeks defeated Saddam’s army. But at the commencement of the American occupation, US strategists committed a series of mistakes, such as the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the delay in setting up an interim Iraqi government, which had the result that units of the disbanded military personnel regrouped into the ranks of the future insurgency. No one anticipated that from the ashes of the defeat of Saddam’s forces the Phoenix of insurgency would rise. Only a clairvoyant could possibly see the unraveling of this possibility and could have prevented the errors of the Americans.

But let us deal with the main reasons why Fukayama’s soft power idyll has no chance of being successful. The historical and political ones go together. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a result of its inability to compete with the unsurpassable economic and military power of the US, the latter became the sole hyperpower in a unipolar world. It carried, like Atlas, all the burdens of the globe on its shoulders as well as the responsibilities of keeping the world in order, and suppressing either by diplomacy or force the tribal and sectarian conflicts that would arise from nascent states in their pursuit to expand and consolidate their power, but which could destabilize parts of the rest of the world – not to advert to the humanitarian issues. But responsibilities are coupled with dangers. Dangers that emanate both from success and failure. The US has both on its scorecard. The defeat by the might of its military power of the Axis alliance in World War II, and especially the defeat of the Soviet Behemoth by its economic power and belligerent diplomacy, brought in its wake both the admiration and the envy of the world upon the US. But admiration is a passing passion, unlike envy. The former lasts as long as when the performance ends. The duration of the latter however does not end in one act, but continues to exude its bitter vapors against the US as long as the latter dominates the world scene. Monopoly of power, generates monopoly of hate. Not only by nations that have been pushed by the US from their former positions of power, but also by nations that have been America’s allies during the Cold War, as a result of being cast to play, as nations with proud cultures such as France, a secondary role in the affairs of the world. And of course, by most Islamic nations, whose failure to make their entry into the world of economic development and prosperity blame America for their condition, which is more likely than not the outcome of their failed culture, and the overdetermination of their people’s lives by religion in a secular world where people can only succeed by adopting whole-heartedly the latter’s values.

This is the fate of America as “Prometheus Unbound”, in a unipolar, unequal, and enviable world. Whatever America will be doing in the affairs of the world, it will not be able to avert the wrath of these nations. Even its most benign, if not altruistic, humanitarian actions will be seen as having a rapacious interest at hand. In the political domain, the policies of democracy, good governance, that Fukayama is suggesting, if they are going to be implemented under US auspices, will be seen by many nations as latent expansion of US imperialism. America therefore finds itself in the unenviable situation of being “damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”.

But in the dangerous situation that the Western world has been placed by the attacks on New York and London, it’s better to be damned for one’s actions than for one’s inactions. As strategically,only by swift hard power action can one ward off and prevent such danger from expanding into an even more lethal form than 9/11. And this cannot be otherwise, even if, because of the magnitude of scale and its uncertainties, mistakes will occur, as it happens in all wars, in the performance of these actions.

A strong leadership, such as the Bush administration is – despite the critique of the malevolent rabble-rattlers of the media and the populist cocottes of its political opponents – cannot mortgage its strategic policies against this potential mortal threat to the weathervane of polls nor to its fickle allies and that Babel of discord and indecision, the United Nations. And the people of the Western world who have not lost their pride for the achievements of Western civilization, must rally behind a strong leadership that protects this civilization from the deadly attacks of a horde of fanatic barbarians.

The above article was written on April 14, 2006