PRESIDENT TRUMP STRENGTHENING AMERICA AND FORGING NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER

The hard crucial choice for Americans: Triumph with an indomitably strong leadership or fail with a weak one.

“Great men have always done well, when they made use of their power before their enemies reached a position where they could tie their hands and destroy their power.” (Frederick The Great).

By Con George-Kotzabasis October 10, 2017

It is not the last time that in critical times, unexpectedly, men of gigantic ability, will-power, moral strength, and celerity in decisiveness emerge phoenix–like and take in their firm hands the reins of power to save their countries from dangers that threaten their existence. And certainly such men are out of the normal mould and crash against the conventional establishment that often makes them its bete noire. It is precisely this “unexpectedness,” especially in a climate of political correctness, that dumbfounds a sizeable part of the intelligentsia, that an outsider out of their own clan has the chutzpah and audaciousness to gate crash “their” political turf.

Such an outsider is ostensibly clear, is Donald Trump, whose entry into the oval office has shocked and appalled the liberal intelligentsia and a great part of the media that embodies and expresses their views and opinions. That the Fourth Estate and its liberal patrons have reacted against this out-of-the-norm new president with such unprecedented vehemence, using the ignoble and sordid means of vilification, defamation, lies, “fake news,” and sinister conspiracies, reveals that the opposition against President Trump will be vigorous, durational and unendingly dirty.

The democratic liberals, accustomed to having weak presidents who could be easily manoeuvred to adopt their own policies through the corridors of power, are dismayed and anguished that before a relentlessly strong president, such as Trump, they would lose the power to formulate the political agenda of the country. Up till now, “munching” happily on the weak “pop-corn presidency” of Barak Obama, and his two similarly weak predecessors, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who had adopted and implemented all the economic, political, and moral tenets of the liberals that, according to the latter, had broken the backbone of an imperial America, they now feel threatened that with the Trump administration, they will lose the influence to determine the course of the country, and more widely, of the world. By being swept out of commandeering the ship of state, that the changing tempestuous winds of the Trump administration has brought on the political “seascape,” and the terrifying event of being sunk into the depths of oceanic oblivion, the liberal leftist intelligentsia, its media cohorts, and the politically immature young of the drop-outs and others of academe–who are used as storm-troopers of the left–are reacting with inordinate vituperation against the president. Hence, the liberal establishment is releasing all its viperous furies against Donald Trump; and in this ferocious attack against this “dangerous outsider,” they will not hesitate to use all the fiendish and vile means to remove him from the White House.

The attacks on all the policies of President Trump since taking office by this condominium of liberals and the mass media, evince, that this fight will take no prisoners and will triumph only on the cadaver of the president. His critics are even prepared to sacrifice policies that would make America stronger and safer on the altar of their righteousness. Their repudiation of the “travel ban” on countries that breed terrorists; their criticism of the President’s stand toward Europe and NATO, wherein the Europeans should share a greater part of the costs of the continent’s security and should not continue to depend on American largesse; their condemnation of his withdrawal from the Paris agreement on CO2 emissions, on the reasonable grounds that such an agreement would lead with certainty to the loss of jobs contra the uncertainty of perilous climate change; their assertion that during the election campaign Trump colluded with the Russians with the purpose to win the election, despite the fact that the court found no collusion; and their latest attempt to charge the president with obstruction of justice in regard to the investigation of the dismissal of the director of the FBI. All these censures of his detractors, even if they are found to be legal chicanery (The Supreme Court has fully justified President Trump on his “travel ban” by reversing the lower court’s decision and hence making it legal and hence exonerate the president from any impeachment), have the aim of generating such a mountainous negative public opinion against President Trump that would oust him from the oval office.

Nonetheless Atlas, the creative individualistic dynamism of the United States, is not to be “Shrugged”, under the strong and savvy leadership of President Trump. In appointing to key positions of his administration the strongest and the brightest, picking them exclusively from the most robust institution of the country, i.e., the armed forces of the USA, the president is determined to place America on a new course as the guardian of Western values and as the protector of civilized life against all implacable enemies who pose an existential threat to it. And just as importantly, President Trump “knows thy enemy,” the Islamist fanatics whose godly-agenda is to destroy the “great Satan” America and all the other transcontinental infidels. Moreover, he is aware that this enemy is irreconcilable and cannot be appeased by any change in the foreign policy of the USA that would apparently be favourable to this enemy. On the contrary, it would consider such a change as weakness on the part of the USA.

Such an enemy not only has to be defeated but also annihilated on the battlefield. This is the reason why President Trump has pointed his focus on his military personnel and placed generals James Mattis, John Kelly, and Herbert McMaster, as Secretary of Defence, Chief-of-Staff, and National Security Advisor, respectively. This will be a military and militant Administration, especially, as apparently anticipated by Trump, in light of the possibility that weapons of mass destruction or even nuclear ones could strike America. With the possibility of such an attack the president will have to declare a state of martial law, to defend America not only against an external enemy but also against an internal one, due to the large number of Muslims living in the country amongst whom there is a sizeable part of Islamist Jihadists who would be willing martyrs to the destruction of the United States. In such circumstances, ordinary laws will have to be suspended and replaced by an active military dictatorship, under the orders of the president, as only the latter will be effective in protecting the country from this deadly internal enemy.

Already a dress rehearsal of the new vital role that the military is going to play in this war against the Islamists or any other foe (as is shown by the threat of North Korea) is illustrated by President Trump’s speech on the war in Afghanistan a month ago. After mulling over on his initial stand to withdraw US military forces from Afghanistan he admitted, that he was finally persuaded by his military advisors to abandon this position and on the contrary to increase the US expeditionary force in its fight against the Taliban. And he made it clear, apparently again on the advice of his military councillors, that the pre-eminent role in this war would be played by military professionals.

In his speech, he sketched a radical transformation in the military strategy of the USA that no previous president dared to think, and least of all practice. He declared, that national building is over and there will be no micro-management of the war from Washington. The military will determine the strategy to win the war and conditions on the ground will determine US strategy, no arbitrary timetables made on the golf course of Washington a la Obama.

The Great Threat of North Korea

The nuclear-rattling of Kim Jong-un and his portentous tongue-in-cheek threats that he is making against the USA, are not going to be taken lightly by President Trump. If these threats are not to be consummated in the immediate future they will remain imminent for the near future. That is why the Trump Administration will not risk such a possible nuclear attack by North Korea and will have to resort to a massive overwhelming pre-emptive nuclear attack against the latter and totally destroy its capability to launch even one nuclear missile against the USA. It will be a pre-emptive strike that will end the war before it starts; unlike the Australian strategic analyst David Kilcullen, who is concerned about the great danger that it will be an exchange of nuclear missiles by the warring parties. US strategists will ensure, with algorithmic precision, that no such exchange will occur. And if it does, the missiles of North Korea will be destroyed in mid air.

In circumstances where a nation faces an existential threat, as America is, humane sentiments toward a deadly foe take a back seat. North Korea can avoid such an annihilating nuclear attack by the United States only if it completely dismantles all of its nuclear developmental facilities, under the meticulous observation of a United Nations agency that will make absolutely sure that these facilities are clearly destroyed, with no possibility of their clandestine restoration in the future. The question is whether this toddler leader of N. Korea will abandon playing with his nuclear toys and will abide with the demands of the United Nations to destroy them.

Another great concern of the Trump Administration is the flawed agreement that his predecessor Obama clinched with the Islamists of Iran, in order to prevent the latter from acquiring nuclear weapons. This agreement has so many holes through which the mullahs can wriggle through and ultimately produce a nuclear bomb. It is for this reason that President Trump wants to revise this agreement that will render the Americans with a rigorous surveillance by which they will make sure that the Iranians will be totally deprived of the capacity to secretly develop a nuclear bomb.

President Trump’s awareness and astuteness in discerning the above dangers that threaten the existence of Western Civilization perforce put his presidency at the Archimedean point that will move the world in a new direction. Under his strong leadership and administration he will confront and annihilate these satanic forces, whose goal is to destroy all infidels and their economic, political, scientific, and social achievements. President Trump, by strengthening the USA and forging a new international peaceful order will guarantee the economic prosperity of all nations and peoples, who steadfastly affirm the liberal tenets of the free market and who are engaged in creating the institutions and business enterprises that will fulfil this laudable goal.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now.

 

 

Thucydides Engendering Philosopher Warriors is the Saviour of Western Civilization

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The following is a comment of mine in a Seminar held at the Greek Community Centre in Melbourne, on the 16 of March, 2017, whose theme was, “Thucydides as Philosopher-Historian.”

The teachings of the philosopher-historian Thucydides are taught assiduously and meticulously in the military academies of the Western world, especially in the United States and Russia.

Thus, these academies are churning out—like Plato’s academy generating philosopher-kings—philosopher-warriors. One such military savant is general Petraeus, the vanquisher of al-Qaeda in Iraq; another two, are generals McMaster and Mattis, the present occupiers respectively of the posts of National Security Adviser and of Defence, in the Trump administration. And it is not an aleatory action or chance event but a deliberate choice, on the part of Trump, that he has appointed high military personnel in key positions of his administration: In anticipatory awareness that America could be attacked with bio-chemical, and, indeed, with nuclear weapons, once the terrorists of Islam acquire them. Such an attack would overturn the USA in an instance from democracy into a military dictatorship, as only the latter could protect America and the rest of the West from this sinister existential threat that is posed by these fanatics.

Two Thucydidean fundamental principles in warfare were, “Know thy Enemy” and “Pre-emptive Attack.” Thus Thucydides in the twentieth-first century, will be the saviour of Western civilization.

Will America Rise from its “Comatose” State?

In view of Trump’s Victory at The Elections, I’m republishing the following discussion between me and an American for the readers of this blog.  

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A reply to a very clever American Open Salon

The Global Credit Crunch and the Crisis of Legitimacy

By RCMoya612

RCMoya, after your excellent and resplendent analysis I feel, if I captiously quibble about few points, like a bat squeaking in the dark. First, inequality might have “continued its forward march” but I would argue that it did so on a higher level of general economic prosperity in America following the up till now unassailable historical paradigm of capitalism and free markets that has made the poor ‘richer’ in relative terms, as Amartya Sen has contended.

Secondly, America’s “hectoring and ignoring” has its counterpart in Europe and in other continents whose countries were strong allies of the US during the Cold War but with the collapse of the Soviet Union have reappropriated their independence both geopolitically and culturally and expressing this in their own hectoring and ignoring against America, thus continuing the irreversible law of the political and cultural competition of nation-states.

Thirdly, I would argue that as long as America continues to be the centripetal force attracting the “best and the brightest” to its shores and not stifling the Schumpeterian spirit of entrepreneurship and “creative destruction”, it will be able to rise again even from the ashes of a comatose state and will continue to be in the foreseeable future the paramount power in world affairs.

And fourthly, the rejection by Congress of the funding plan that would have a better chance than none to prevent the economy from collapsing was inevitable in the present political climate where reason cannot compete with populist emotionalism and when a swirl of weak politicians, like Nancy Pelosi, and, indeed, Barak Obama, are its ‘slaves’. Only by cleaning out these wimpish politicians from positions of power will the political narrative reassert its legitimacy.

RCMoya says

kotzabasis

October 01, 2008 07:26 AM

Thanks for the points. Interesting thoughts.First, I’d be careful in praising the ‘unassailable historical paradigm’ of capitalism and free markets. That has never really been the case elsewhere in world–including Japan and Europe, and definitely not in the third world–and yet that has not stopped those countries from reaping the benefits of a globalised economy. Simply put, capitalism may have been successful–it is–but it is not the case that completely ‘free markets’ have played a central role in the enrichment of advanced economies. That was probably the result of a misleading analysis (an altogether too cheery one at that) of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’–which has monumentally failed more than once since the 1980s.

Second, Europe may have been an American vassal in the early parts of the Cold War–and yet still managed to create economic structures that were different from the United States. Britain, France and Germany have had distinct economic approaches–and that’s to say nothing of more interventionist Scandinavia–and in all of these countries (save for the UK) the post-war years were considered an extraordinary period of growth.You’re probably right that we’re now re-entering a period of political and cultural competition between states. I think this is a good thing, though it’ll take some time for Europeans to get used to the idea of a weaker America.Your third point is probably concedable…though only to a point. The ‘best and the brightest’ only go to America because of its perceived economic vitality. Take that away and there’d be less of a reason to head over. Also, buying into the ‘Americans are so entrepreneurial’ myth is rather problematic–because some European states, for example, have a greater slice of the economic pie coming from small and medium-sized business owners than America, land of the corporate shopper, has. Maybe it’s the contrary situation at present: maybe Europeans have ‘stifled’ entrepreneurialism here…and in any case releasing it would help, not hurt it.

I’d warn that nothing lasts forever, that nothing is ever guaranteed; if America’s financial system DOES go under even further America’s future role as a power would be substantially jeopardised.Your last point starts off well…until you reveal your partisanship. The Democrats certainly don’t have a monopoly on forceful politicking, to their detriment. I would argue that their greatest weakness is in their ‘social democracy light’-style of policies.Yet, all the perceived ‘strength’ in the world hasn’t made the belligerence of the Reagan-Bush-Republican era any more palatable to the world–and, in fact, has in the longer-term probably weakened America considerably.Strength alone cannot substitute for pragmatism, intelligence and good policy.

Kotzabasis says

OK, but you have to answer the intruding historical questions under what economic system Japan and Europe developed and which was the motor of the globalised economy? One would be silly to say that capitalism is an ‘absolute monarch’ and free markets are the ‘Sun King’ of economic development. But we are talking here about basics and not the sometimes necessary state intervention which has been merely, if you allow me to use this metaphor, a changing of an occasional punctured wheel (excepting the present situation) of an omnibus that has been running quite well for a long time on all rough terrains.

And you have to be consistent with your own logic, if you accept the reality of a globalized economy, as you do, which was the offspring of a long gestation starting in the 1980s, how can you imply at the same time that this globalized economy was begotten by the “monumental” failure of the 1980s? The question of Europe is what cemented more the “economic structures” of Europe. Was it the working spirit of capitalism or the working spirit of socialism? And if a mixture of both is your obvious answer, I’ve to remind you that mixtures are not equal and on the scales of economic development capitalism continues to ‘tilt the scales’ in its own favour contra socialism, and that also applied to your economic model in Europe. Perceptions do not have a long life and for more than a hundred years now America continues to attract the best and the brightest on its shores. So its economic vitality must have more solid grounds than perceptions. Again you are inconsistent with your own logic; if the best and the brightest are in America, as you concede, then your “Americans are so entrepreneurial” cannot be a “myth”.

Needless to say “nothing lasts forever and… ever guaranteed” since man’s fate is to live and cope in a world of uncertainty.Lastly, I’m surprised that you consider my judgments on person’s characters, in this case of Pelosi and Obama, and on political parties as being partisan. Under your criterion only a person who made no judgments would be absolutely impartial. The facts are that the Democrats have cut their sails to the populist wind and are running their campaign on the emotional hate and animadversions many Americans have for the Bush administration and by association the Republicans. “Pragmatism, intelligence and good policy are the offspring of strong genes.

The Danger of Tyros Handling War Strategy

I’m republishing this short piece that was written on October, 2007, for the readers of this blog.

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:

Clinton’s Statement on Kyl-Lieberman Resolution Washington Note, September 30, 2007

Like the two eminent commentators of the New York Times Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, respectable in their own professions as an economist and art critic respectably, and a bevy of politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, not so respectable because of their populist stunt, all of them being novices par excellence in the affairs of war who have attempted to pass judgment on the war in Iraq and cashier its victory despite evidence to the contrary, we now have another “tired less” tyro joining them in war strategy. The scholar and blogger Steven Clemons of the Washington Note. Clemons indirectly rebukes Senator Clinton for her support and vote of the Kyl-Lieberman resolution that designates the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, fearing that this will allow Bush to manipulate this resolution and use it to attack Iran.

He calls therefore on Senator Clinton to exercise “leadership in passing an explicit Senate resolution forbidding Bush from taking action against Iran without clear advice and consent from Congress”. But such action is not a declaration of war against Iran needing the authorization of Congress. It’s a strategic force de frappe on the part of the US against Iran in which the elements of secrecy and surprise are pivotal and decisive in the success of such an attack. Therefore Clemons’ call is strategically oxymoronic.

–>

Obama Diminishes Trust of Allies and Increases Confidence of Enemies

I’m republishing this piece that was written on October 2011.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Barack Obama has been elected as president of the most powerful nation in the world that since the end of the Second World War has been the bulwark of freedom against its infernal enemies, i.e., the former Soviet Union and its allies. In the twentieth-first century Western civilization is threatened by a new implacable and irreconcilable enemy, fanatical Islam; and the USA is the only nation in the world that can defeat this foe. But president Obama has already failed both tests of “knowing thy enemy,” and as a sagacious strong respectful leader. He has weakened America both before the eyes of its friends and allies and, most dangerously, its enemies.

The nations of Eastern Europe are rapidly losing their trust toward the US that the latter will protect and defend their interests and security, since Obama’s withdrawal of the missile defence shield from Poland and Czechoslovakia and his concessions to the Russians. And the enemies of America, such as Iran and its multiple terrorist proxies are heartened and have increased their confidence that in Obama they have before them a giant eunuch who is incapable and unwilling to use force, even as a last resort, against them. Since Obama has replaced America’s superpower ‘Jupiterian’ bolt diplomacy with olive branches toward them.

The “dangerous scenarios,” of which you are concerned with, are already in their incubatory stage: a nuclear armed Iran that would start a proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region with all the great dangers that would issue from such proliferation, especially in a region that is replete with the votaries of fanatical Islam. Thus to your question what kind of advice one would give to Obama in such an impending crisis, it would be the most heavily ‘armed advice’ that would fall on his shoulders. But Obama has neither the spine nor the balls to carry such heavy advice on his morally rickety frame, and least of all bring it to fruition as a last resort. Thus any strong advice given to a congenitally weak president would be a barren exercise.

President Obama Appeaser of Radical Islam

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Barack Obama was, is, and will remain an appeaser of radical Islam, as it is a constituent part of his weak character and more dangerously of his effete leadership. Like a fearful child he avoids his fears by hiding his face under the bed-sheets. This is clearly illustrated by his fudging of the word “jihadist” with its inherent fanatical murderous action –which he fears to admit– by changing it to the less fearsome one of “workplace violence,” his description of the Fort Hood massacre, whose jihadist perpetrator Dr Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death today. It is by such changes and meaningless laughable words within the scenario of terrorism that the commander-in-chief of the most powerful nation purports to fight the existential threat that radical Islam poses to Western civilization. A black comedy ham is the occupier of the White House.

Reply to American that to Miss Opportunity for Rapprochement with Iran will Have Big Consequences

By Con George-Kotzabasis

It will have even bigger consequences if it succeeds by wishful thinking.  Rapprochement in itself is meaningless unless there is clear and unambiguous understanding and agreement between the parties about the conditions of such rapprochement. It would be a mistake to deduce from the rhetorically conciliatory statements of President Rouhani that Iran has abandoned its desire to acquire nuclear weapons. And to differentiate himself from the holocaustian statements of his predecessor, Ahmadinejad, is hardly an indication that the new regime is repudiating its clandestine goal to develop a nuclear weapon. Only if Rouhani allows open and rigorous inspections in all areas of Iran where Western intelligence cogently suspects the secret development of a nuclear weapon will the experts be convinced that Iran has changed tack in regard to its nuclear arsenal.

It is more probable, because Rouhani perceives a weak president in the United States, he will be exploiting that weakness to achieve Iran’s historic and Islamic aim to enter the nuclear club by persuading Obama about the peaceful purpose of Iran’s nuclear build-up. Rouhani is aware that Obama needs and desires a suspension of tensions so he will have the excuse to take all options off the table and thus as an incompetent and effete president tranquilize himself by false hopes. And Rouhani and his advisors know, that this détente can be achieved on promissory notes that will never be cashed. Thus by providing Obama the confidence that he can come to a reasonable agreement with Iran, Rouhani achieves two diplomatic goals. (1) He defers USA action from resolving speedily and decisively the issue of nuclear weapons by creating the euphoria that this matter can be resolved by prolonged negotiations, a dilatoriness that Obama is most happy to accept as he desires to push the hard options, if they are needed, in the future ahead with the hope that they will never be used, and which also suits Rouhani perfectly as it will give Iran more time to achieve its strategic goal to build the bomb. And (2) weakening Israel’s resolve to unilaterally attack Iran’s nuclear installations, if other Western states are found to be wanting in stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear armaments, by isolating Israel from its major ally, the USA, and from other Western nations, and thus making it more difficult for Israel to strike.

It is for this reason that Clemons should be more restrained in his optimism of the opportunity of reaching a rapprochement with Iran when a more sinister and malign opportunity could be hidden behind the apparently benign talk of Rouhani.

Senator Schumer Lambasts Obama’s Stupid and Inconsistent Diplomacy

In view of Obama’s variable inconsistencies in the Syrian Crisis declaring on the one hand that he would be attacking Syria for breaking his “red line,” for using chemical weapons against its own people, and, on the other, dithering and postponing this attack until its authorisation by Congress, I’m republishing the following article that was written three years ago for the readers of this blog.  

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Would Edward Luce and Daniel Dombey, and by implication Steve Clemons, expect Robert Gibbs, the Press Secretary, to say that Barack Obama agrees “with what Senator Schumer said? It is astonishing to see Clemons diverting the issue of the total freeze of settlements, which Schumer correctly criticized as a grave error on the part of Obama contra Israel, to what Schumer’s stand was to Jesse Helms and to John Bolton “few years ago.”

Clemons is entitled to his opinions but he is not entitled to his facts. The facts are that the foolish imposition of the total freeze of settlements on the Netanyahu government by the Obama administration’s lack of foresight that it would be politically unrealizable for Israel and that it would evolve and become for the Palestinians, as it did, a rigid condition for their participation with any talks with Israel, was the major factor that derailed Obama’s engine of diplomacy from its track that would bring the two belligerents to the negotiating table. It was precisely this quintessentially wrong and injudicious policy of Obama that Senator Schumer rightly criticized as being the reason of the administration’s abysmal failure in the Middle East. Another fact is that Obama’s diplomacy is inconsistent, rewarding his enemies and penalizing his friends. While he claims that his diplomacy is indiscriminate and is based on soft and smart power coming on doves’ feet and extends his hand in a velvet glove to the enemies of America, he carries a bludgeon in his hand in his relations with his strongest and most loyal ally, in this case Israel.

Throughout history there has never been a case when a nation engaged in war with implacable enemies would chastise and alienate its most steadfast and reliable ally for the purpose to placate its enemies. Obama will go down in history as the only leader who not only doltishly and doggedly opened the door of diplomacy to an enemy such as Iran which has been training in its own country members of the Taliban and supplying them with weapons–as well as its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah–to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan, but who was also willing to sacrifice the vital interests of his most staunch ally against Islamist terror, Israel, on the altar of this spineless, strategically unprincipled, and totally fallible diplomacy.

The above emitted the two following responses:

Posted by Dan Kervick, Apr 27 2010, 6:54AM – Link

Kotzabasis, WigWag seemed to be wondering a few days ago why those posts in which you make a serious, debatable point are ignored. But can there be any doubt why people habitually turn you off, when so many of your posts consist in cowardly, third-person personal characterizations of other contributors, lamely shouted out to no one in particular?

 

Posted by WigWag, Apr 27 2010, 9:45AM – Link

Actually why the interesting point Kotz made is never debated is rather plain. His point was an astute one, but as I am sure Kotz would be the first to admit, it was hardly an original one. Kotz was making precisely the same point Schumer was; that by offering to conduct their negotiations for them, the Obama Administration provides an incentive for the Palestinians not to negotiate at all. Kotz, Schumer and many other sage observers have also made the point that by making demands on Israel that Obama knew, or should have known, that it wouldn’t comply with, it was Obama himself who was making his stated goal of getting negotiations started much more difficult.

Steve Clemons in his diatribe against Schumer never responded to this point and Dan Kervick hasn’t either. Neither has any other serious commentator as far as I can tell.

It seems to me that the lack of response to the Schumer/Kotz allegation is evidence of the fact that the point is irrefutable.

If it’s not, someone should give it a try.

Reply to American who Blames US Policies for Irruption of Terror

I’m republishing this article that was written on March 2008 for the readers of this blog hoping to find it of some interest.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

This is no time for populist politicians like Obama, nor, could I say, for “aureole” New York Times commentators like Paul Krugman, who are attempting to bait the electorate’s hate of the Republicans. But for politicians with mettle, sagacity, and visual clarity and imagination to deal with the stupendous issues that America faces in a very dangerous world that emanates from the great Islamist threat. It’s for this reason that John McCaine is Napoleon’s “voila une homme”.

It’s an easy intellectual escape, when one is devoid of arguments, or should I say when one is replete with hackneyed arguments, to dub one’s interlocutor’s points as being a “straw man”. You still see war and great dangers emanating solely from states, and you cannot see, due to lack of imagination and historical perspective, those “stateless” invisible enemies who operate both from within and from outside the countries they are attacking are even more dangerous, especially when, the rapid technological development accelerates and consummates their possibility of acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and indeed, nuclear ones, and which they will use with fanatic glee against the infidels of the West and the “Great Satan” America.

Further, your contention that Republican policies created terror is your own real straw man. It’s America’s unprecedented success in the history of mankind in the fields of the economy, science, technology, and cultural and political power and its status as the sole superpower that has created the envy and also the hate of many people of the world against it, especially of people with retarded cultures and chiliastic religious beliefs. Residing in countries of corrupt and authoritarian governments, and as a result of this they have been left behind in the race of economic development and tend to scapegoat America for all their ills.

Policies are objectively evaluated geopolitically and morally only within the context they are made. Hopping in bed with ugly and murderous regimes was an unenviable choise that the U.S. perforce had to make during its cofrontation with a powerful planetary enemy, such as the Soviet Union had been. Sure enough, some of these policies alienated many people, but the end result was to save the world from the most brutal of all regimes in the history of mankind, Communism.

There is no costless freedom. And often one has to pay a high price for its keep, politically and morally, not to say bloodily. Thucydides tour de force History of the Peloponnesian War, clearly depicts the intricacies of geopolitics and the unholy alliances nations have to make to prevent their downfall.

Your Opinion on this issue…geopolitics

Obama’s Limits of Imagination Transformed into Limits of Power

I’m republishing this short piece that illustrates the diplomatic scarcity in international relations that is the inexorable feature of the Obama administration.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Steve Clemons and Ben Katcher are using the ‘shamanistic’ art, the art of a conjurer, to turn the limits of imagination into “the limits of American power.” The “aborted attempt” of the Obama administration to “persuade the Israelis to enact a “settlement freeze”, has nothing to do with US power limits but with lack of imagination and political insight on the part of Obama and the State Department not to foresee the political implausibility of trying to impose such a doltish demand on the Netanyahu government. It’s a dismal failure of policy and not a limit of American power as Clemons and Levy in their conjurers’ role aver.

As for Daniel Levy’s ”asymmetries of power,” WigWag’s post is instructive and unassailable in its historical logic. All defeated nations in wars were due to asymmetries of power.