Nemesis

Racism for the Mainstream

By Mustafa Quadri On Line Opinion, May 9, 2008

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis

Mustafa destroys his own argument that there is a “pseudo-intellectual industry” that vilifies Islam of being violent, led by the American Daniel Pipes, by his own major premise. If Islam is peaceful, as he insinuates, then the greatest vilifiers of Islam, second to none, are Muslims themselves. The jihadist-terrorists and their mentors, like al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who influence millions of Muslims, being universal murderers incontestably hold the scepter of vilification of Islam in their own hands.

But here is the zinger. Mustafa asserts that “despite there being no consensus on what it means to be Western or Muslim…many Muslims, including myself, have no qualms about being Muslim and Western”. Indeed, Mustafa may not have any “intellectual qualms” about committing this intellectual “felony” for which a poster put the handcuffs on him. But if he was served pork what would he be, more Muslim or less Western or vice versa? And whatever the choice, whether to eat it or not, he would knock off his own proposition. Mustafa, like so many other educated Muslims, Waleed Ali is another one, make an intellectual mockery of their own education and of themselves.

Poor Mustafa! With the flood of reasoning issuing from most of the posts above he is drowning in the sweet waters of reason. But I guess it’s better to take leave of this world with a sweet taste than with the “bitter taste” of being both a Muslim and a westerner which is the “bitterest” oxymoron.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

Reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

Obama Surrogate Fires Back By Andrew Lebovich

Washington Note, June 18, 2008

For Andrew Lebovich to post his fire cracker after the smoke that has been emitted from the intellectual ashes of Dr. Susan Rice’s argument how Obama’s plan will stop the support of extremists as a serious argument, reveals clearly what a crowd of political dilettantes are attempting to enter the corridors of power and hence crowding out statesmanship.

Dr. Rice’s contention that Obama’s plan will “dry up support for extremists…by upholding at home the values that we preach abroad, even with respect to terrorists and extremists”, is riddled with historical and psychological ignorance and by the fact that she does not know thy enemy and therefore can only be laughed out of serious political debate. The supporters of the extremists and the latter themselves have their own apocalyptic Allah-made values and they don’t give a hoot about the values of the infidels as preached or practiced. Their only concern is to destroy these values thus obeying the orders of their God. If this is the plan of Obama as a new diplomatic strategy if he became president to defeat terrorism, then this diplomacy is destined to be an abject failure and will lead with mathematical precision to the shipwreck of his strategy against global terror to the detriment of the American people and the civilized world.

The correct strategy how to defeat the extremists and to deprive them of their support is already foreshadowed in Iraq, by defeating them in the field of battle, as is being done by the new strategy of general Petraeus, one deprives the extremists of both recruits and supporters. This is why the extremists in Iraq are now using and deploying children and women with Down syndrome as a result of the drying up of recruits. As I’ve argued seven years ago only by depriving the terrorists of their successes by capturing and killing them can one defeat them decisively. And the first signs that this is happening presently is in Iraq. An withdrawal therefore from Iraq at the threshold of a U.S. victory, as pledged by Obama, will be the ultimate stupidity executed by a Commander-in-Chief and an ignominious chapter in American history, surpassing the defeat in Vietnam. And it will be considered by the jihadists to be a great success and thus encourage droves of recruits into the arms of al Qaeda and its affiliates. Obama must not pass!

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

Mahbubani Responds: Western Intellectual and Moral Cowardice on Israel/Palestine is Stunning

Washington Note, May 29, 2008

Professor Kishore Mahbubani of the National University of Singapore argues, with his impeccable credentials as an expert in international affairs, of a dawning shift of economic and political power from the round-eyed transcontinental continents of the West to the slant-eyed continent of the East. And in the eyes of Mahbubani it seems that the U.S. after reaching the peak of power and dominance in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries will inevitably fall from the top branch of the tree of power (like Newton’s apple?) pulled by the gravitational force of Asia. Therefore “America should prepare well for a post-American world order”.

This pending decline of the West and of America is not mainly based on economics that western bears compete with Asian tigers on the global market, but primarily on politics and on the art of political leadership. Although Mahbubani gracefully acknowledges and applauds “the liberal international order which has benefited humanity”, which was the creation of the West and the American hegemon, he claims that presently “Western geopolitical incompetence poses the biggest threats to our international order”. He pinpoints four areas where this incompetence is blatantly demonstrated. The blunders of the war in Iraq and its concatenation to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo bay, the Israel/Palestinian conflict, the dialogue between the West and the Rest, and global warming. All the four issues of course are the same that the liberal intelligentsia is using to condemn and chastise the Bush administration. Hence Mahbubani by picking up the liberal bastinado to beat the U.S.A. shows himself to be vacuous of any originality in his analysis, since all he does is to replicate and regurgitate the animadversions of the international coterie of liberals who like Charon, are preparing to transport the Bush administration and its Republican successors to Hades. Lastly, he blames and rebukes the U.S. for lacking the will and astuteness in its exercise of global “governing” to avail itself the inherent “benign characteristics” of power. Thus implying that in its political engagement with the rest of the world the U.S. is far from being a benign superpower.

The imprescriptible rule in power politics is that there are no benign characteristics in the implementation of power but only pragmatic ones. This is especially so when a nation in its greatness, such as the U.S., is burdened with the historical responsibility to tilt the balance of the world toward peace and to be the supreme arbiter between other belligerent and warring nations. In such a complex context while it’s possible for the U.S. to be benign in its relations with other nations some of the time, it’s impossible of being so all the time. The mere scale of its responsibilities and of having so many balls in the air, forces it to make its judgments on pragmatic grounds and to the highest degree possible with the precision of a juggler that dexterously keeps all balls in the air without letting any of them crashing with each another. And in this magnitude of the scale of its operations it’s inevitable that the U.S. is bound to commit mistakes, especially in the “fog of war” as it has happened lately in Iraq. But the greatness of a nation lies not that it doesn’t make mistakes in its exercise of political, economic, and military power, but in its ability to promptly acknowledge and correct its mistakes, as the U.S. has presently done with the implementation of the new strategy in Iraq that has critically changed the course of the war and which is leading to an American victory.

It’s an easy call for Professor Mahbubani to make his strictures against America ex cathedra without being directly involved in the quotidian, complex, intricate affairs of the world as the U.S. is as the sole superpower. In such involvement there are no magic or scientific prescriptions that can remedy the maladies of the world. There are no precise scientific instruments that can neither timely diagnose the ills of the world nor provide the instant remedies that can cure them. This is the reason why often in world conflicts the “surgeon” is the major domo. Only his dexterous handling of the knife can prevent a situation from getting worse. The Serbian-Bosnian conflict was a clear example. Conversely, the lack of political resolve to use a surgical strike against the Hutu regime in Rwanda led to the genocide of the Tutsis, as it’s also presently happening in Darfur. But while no surgery is infallible, surgical strikes are unavoidable when a nation confronts an irreconcilable implacable foe. Israel has demonstrated this both in its attack on Iraq’s nuclear plant and on Syria’s incipient one, lately. And an impending attack either by America or Israel on Iran’s nuclear plant might be the next one.

Mahbubani completely ignores this narrative of the complexity and intractability of global conflicts and the often insuperable difficulties that a nation that tries to resolve them finds itself in. To him it’s the incompetence of the U.S. leadership that cannot resolve these problems, and, indeed, due to this incompetence exacerbates them and threatens the stability of the international order. He accuses the West, and by implication the U.S., of “stunning intellectual and moral cowardice” on the Israeli Palestinian conflict and of standing aloof from the “collective punishment” (Me.) of the people of Gaza. Without giving a tad of consideration first that this collective punishment is a result of the intransigency and deadly bellicosity of Hamas, and secondly, in not acknowledging that next to the genocidal punishment of the people of Israel the collective punishment of the Palestinians, even if Israel was to be blamed for, is infinitesimal. Notwithstanding this great threat posed to Israel, Mahbubani claims only the plight of the Palestinian people is the “litmus test” for the West and America.

Further Mahbubani casting himself in the role of “Theodicy”, condemns America for its double standards, for its evilness of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Like a bronze statue impervious and unaffected by the ravages of the weather, Mahbubani is impervious to the ravages of war. He does not recognize that war being the greatest atrocities of all inevitably atrocities of all kinds follow its trail. Even most of its civilized and disciplined combatants will yield to the ugly rules of war—no war can be fought clinically–especially in this case fighting an invisible enemy clad in civilian and often in women’s clothes and who can be identified only at the instance of their terrorist actions. Moreover the religious fanaticism of this “apocalyptic” enemy who believes he follows the orders of his God makes him impervious to any reasonable persuasion that would extract from him information that could save thousands of lives. In such an existential struggle it’s inexorable that human rights and values are secondary and are replaced by human existential rights and values. There are no absolute human rights and the latter are always relative to a particular situation. In the sinking of the Titanic the human rights of men were secondary to the human rights of women and children. Throughout history the values and laws of mankind have a concrete existence and not an abstract one. Their abstract existence is for philosophers but not for philosopher-kings.

Professor Mahbubani by picking the liberal bastinado to beat the U.S. shows himself to be just a follower and an aficionado of the dernier cri, the fads of the global liberal intelligentsia. And he cannot usurp least of all take up legitimately by the power of his intellect and imagination the position of a philosopher-king. He is just a pharisaic sophist superciliously weaving his thesis on the decline of the U.S.A. and its replacement by Asia.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Stating the obvious does not make you sound profound. Of course “war is a hell”, but I wouldn’t say as you do that you wouldn’t “wish it to my worst enemy”, as I believe that the latter must be defeated in war. As often war is the only tragic option in defending oneself from powerful and malicious enemies, to paraphrase Edward Gibbon. To say that “wars are the result of bad governments”, is not only to take flight from reality but also to take flight from serious thought. Was the war against the axis powers or the American Revolution against imperial Britain, just to mention two examples, the result of bad governments?

Further, the world regrettably is not a loving circle of holding hands, as you imply by your edifying “twin” of wish-utopia with your “why a peaceful worker in one nation make war with a peaceful worker in another?”

As for your question “why America is a terrorist target and Canada is not, and up till now you cannot “encounter a mind” to answer your question, I would suggest that with a modicum imagination you could answer your own question. Why any other “mind”, due to your lack of imagination, should even bother to consider your trite question, least of all answer it? No wonder you find it difficult to “encounter a mind” that will answer your banal question.

Your opinion on the issue…