By Con George-Kotzabasis—January 9, 2012

In a hostile world only the strong have the right to indulge in hope. Thucydides

Ah, that memorable, fascinating, admirable, and politically insightful and intrepid subject, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, that challenges almost all of contemporaneous political leadership that is scrambling on all its fours--with some notable exceptions such as Lee Kuan Yu, of Singapore and Antonis Samaras, of Greece--from Obama to Zapatero to Merkel and Sarkozy, who  instead of standing on the shoulders of political giants, like Thatcher, to command events, they have been overwhelmed and overcome by them.

The characteristic spending profligacy of Labour socialist governments over a number of years, and the excessive borrowing and inflation that resulted by the latter’s policies that brought the UK into economic stagnation gave Margaret Thatcher the opportunity to win the election in 1979 with a sizable majority. Her victory would bring not only the transformation of British politics but would also spawn, with a small astute coterie of others, the seeds of a profound change on the political landscape of the world. Further, by re-introducing forcefully the idea of privatization as a dynamic concept among the economic detritus left by Labour’s deficit-laden nationalization of industries, she would place the country on the trajectory of economic efficiency and generation of wealth for the benefit of all Britons.  To open markets to the world she abolished all exchange controls on foreign currency five months after coming to power. The UK from being the poorest of the four major European economies in 1979 became by the end of ten years under Thatcher’s stewardship the richest among them. In a series of economic policies packaged by Milton Friedman’s and Frederick Hayek’s monetarist theories, Britain’s GDP grew by 23.3% during this period outpacing that of Germany, France, and Italy. However, to accomplish the latter goal, she would have to confront the power of unions decisively, which, in a ceaseless campaign of strikes and imprudent and irrational demands were ruining the British economy. In 1979, at the apex of union power, Britain had lost 29.5 million working days to strikes, whereas at its nadir, under the robust stand of Thatcher and her strong blows against it that led to the defeat of unions, in 1986, the figure of lost working days was 1.9 million. The Moscow trained communist Arthur Scargill, secretary of the Mining Unions, had unleashed in 1984-85 a myriad of strikes with the aim to obstruct the Thatcherite pro-market reforms that would put Britain on the roller skates of economic prosperity. By the end of that year that shook the foundations of British industry and broke the morale of some of her Cabinet members--that prompted Thatcher in a memorable quip to say to them, “You turn if you want to. The lady is not for turning.”—the red flag became a trophy alongside the Argentinian flag in her collection of victories, as Arthur Scargill conceded his defeat.

In international affairs she questioned Kissinger’s policy of détente toward the Soviet Union as she believed strongly that Communism should not be accommodated but overcome. For this implacable stand the Soviet Army’s newspaper Red Star christened her the “Iron Lady.” Together with President Reagan, she planted the diplomatic dynamite under the foundations of the Soviet empire that would eventually bring the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Lenin’s benign Marxist dream that had turned back to its true nature as a nightmare of Gulags and Killing Fields.

Thatcher in the 1980’s fiercely opposed the European economic and monetary integration. To her the European construction was “infused with the spirit of yesterday’s future.” In the kernel of this construction laid the central “intellectual mistake” of assuming that “the model for future government was that of a centralized bureaucracy.” And she was prophetic to the current events and crisis of Europe when she argued that German taxpayers would provide “ever greater subsidies for failed regions of foreign countries,” while condemning south European countries to debilitating dependency on handouts from German taxpayers.” She concluded, “The day of the artificially constructed mega-state is gone.”

However, no statesmanship is without its warts. In 1986 prohibition of proprietary trading went out; the separation between commercial and investment banks was abrogated; and ‘casino banking’ took off, which without these changes would not have happened. Her critics accused her of promoting greed which she personally abhorred. Also, the introduction of the poll tax on adult residents was most unpopular among Britons and sparked the Poll Tax Riots on March 31, 1990, that instigated an internal coup against her that ousted her from her premiership.

Margaret Thatcher entered number 10 Downing Street with her strong character and astute political perceptiveness with panache that destined her, like all great statesmen, to “walk beneath heaven as if she was placed above it,” to quote the seventeenth-century French political philosopher, Gabriel Naude. She will enter the ‘gate of heaven’ not as the frail distracted old woman, as she was depicted in the film made by Phillida Lloyd, but as the iron lady who will never die and continue to show the way.

I rest on my oars: your turn now…              

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Are you proposing an unbalanced budget as a way out of zombie economics and long term prosperity? To live beyond one’s means is to live in FALSE prosperity that will not last long, as the present situation in Europe shows starkly. Moreover, a false prosperity encourages and incites a stampede of speculative bubbles that with algorithmic precision blow up in a bust. You are confusing austerity as a ‘drug’ and austerity as a ‘poison’. As a drug it cures your insanity to live beyond your means; as a poison it exacerbates the illness of recession by depriving you of the stimulants of a Central Bank that could weaken the virus of recession and cure it gradually, if one uses the funds wisely to reinvigorate the REAL economy and boost entrepreneurial creativity and innovation, as the leader of the Opposition in Greece, Antonis Samaras, last May, proposed in his Zappeio Address.

Hence, your “zombie” austerity turns into a boomerang and hits you with all the force of Newtonian gravity in your confused austerity.      

The following exchange between Con George-Kotzabasis and Professor Yanis Varoufakis of Athens University took place on his blog

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu about the capitalist system under the post:

Ending 2011with a fable for our times-December 24, 2011

December 24, 2011 at 03:14 #

Kotzabasis says,

Is Amartya Sen’s absolute prosperity and relative inequality of the capitalist system vulgarly to be replaced by Yanis Varoufakis’s “despicable inequality?”

Professor Varoufakis distorts and defames the whole history of the dynamism of entrepreneurial capitalist wealth that shot up the standard of living of the masses to “Himalayan” heights. To claim that capitalist “wealth …needs poverty to flourish,” is just an ornamental academic trapping empty of history and fugitive from serious thought. Capitalism, like everything else in life, was never meant to be “stable” but a process of Schumpeterian “creative destruction.” But this can only be understood and accepted by realists and not by heroic ideologues, like Professor Varoufakis.

Good Christmas to all

Professor Varoufakis says,

• December 24, 2011 at 15:32 #

It is always good to encounter intransigent Panglossian views in the post-2008 world. There is something touching about undying faith, even when of the toxic variety.

1. December 25, 2011 at 01:48 #

Kotzabasis says,

Professor Varoufakis

Are capitalist entrepreneurial creativity, wealth, and prosperity based on “intransigent” “Panglossian” naivety? And is the history of capitalism to be truncated and concentrated naively and un- imaginatively between 2008 and 2011 for you to make your uninspiring and toxic argument?

Professor Varoufakis says,

December 25, 2011 at 11:56 #

No, capitalism’s wonders have nothing to do with Panglossian naïveté. But your determination to portray it as the best of all possible systems exudes it. As for my assessment of capitalism, and your claim that I truncate the latter’s history to a period around 2008, feel free to judge it. But only after you acquaint yourself with it. (For had you read it, eg either of my last two books, you would have realized that I truncate nothing. And that I go to great lengths to analyse capitalism’s contradictions, something that entails a celebration of its achievements as well as an exposition of its failures.) Till you are prepared to become acquainted with what I am really saying, before you attack it, I shall treat you as no more than a minor Panglossian.

Kotzabasis says,

December 26, 2011 at 02:46 #

Professor Varoufakis

Thank you for your advice how to overcome my “minor Panglossian” status. But unfortunately for me I’m bound to retain it, as your crass defamation of capitalism in your POST, hardly incentivized me, to use a term of your “little man” John Howard, to read your books and be acquainted with your thoughts. And indeed, my preference is to be “treated… as a minor Panglossian” than go through the treat to major on your ‘Pandistortions’ and jaundiced strictures on capitalism.

But to come to the gist of the matter in hand, my riposte to you was not to either of your two books, which, as I imply above I have not read. My reply was specifically to your post where you wistfully and wrongfully write, “Should we dare to hope of a new era in which WEALTH NO LONGER NEEDS POVERTY TO FLOURISH,” and of the illusion that “capitalism can be stable” and where you vulgarly and gracelessly contend that capitalism creates “DESPICABLE INEQUALITY,” and in your reply to my first post where you refer to the “post-2008 world.” It might well be that these ‘populist flourishes’ had not meant to be of any intellectual seriousness and their only aim was na deleazei ( to allure) and enthuse the ignorant to rush and become volunteer workers to your construction of your ‘matchsticks’ good society, as a replacement to the infernal deeds of capitalist society. But could one do this at the cost of one’s intellectual integrity?

And it is most surprising that the Gargantuan, indeed, Cyclopean efforts that you have put in your Modest Proposal—although one must note that Cyclopean efforts without a Ulysses are fated to be wasted efforts—have the aim to save Europe, a system that according to you produces genetically “despicable inequality.” Fortunately, however, for those condemned to this despicable inequality, but unfortunately for you, Andreas Koutras’s fatal Jovian bolts demolished to ashes the MP, from which no contriving number of revisions to it will give rise to a Phoenix solution that will salvage the European Union from its peril.

Lastly, to state that “to analyse capitalism’s contradictions… entails a celebration of its achievements as well as an exposition of its failures,” is to state the obvious.

Professor Varoufakis says,

December 27, 2011 at 04:33 #

Impressed by your dedication to keep knocking down my (according to you) already demolished, and perpetually ridiculous, arguments, as well as by the amount of time you dedicate to a blog (mine) which you consider unworthy, I shall continue to post your comments. Carry on Sir!

Kotzabasis says,

Professor Varoufakis

With your Kazantzakian character I could never imagine that you would not post my comments.

You seem to have lost the essential premise: the “looming economic catastrophe” is largely the creation of the technocrats, and “all the misery that implies” has been embraced by the technocrats with all the enthusiasm an 18th century physician had for purgatives and bleeding.

Con George-Kotzabasis says,

Bruce Wilder, your “essential premise” walks on crutches. In a physical crisis in which you might lose your leg you don’t stop from going to a surgeon just because there are bad surgeons about. To label all surgeons (technocrats) as incompetent and refuse to go under their knife is to lose your leg. That is why your argument, factually and intellectually, waddles on crutches.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

On the crucial measures that could have prevented the “easy” loans that fomented the present economic crisis (Easy come easy go) that were provided under the Community Reinvestment Act the Democrats in Congress voted against them. Obama as community organizer was threatening of suing banks if the latter were unwilling to provide these loans to non-credit-worthy customers. And regrettably many Americans are losing their houses and their jobs now--because of the allure of these easy loans.

By Con George-Kotzabasis—November 02, 2011-11-02

Political midgets, a la Papandreou, have chosen to take the risk of the high wire act by this proposal of the referendum. Hoping that the people will vote for the lesser of two evils, i.e., accepting the debt deal as formulated in Brussels last week and rejecting default and departure from the euro zone. At a time when strong leadership is a prerequisite for diminishing the crisis that Greece is facing, Papandreou abdicates his own and passes it to the people through this future referendum. It’s as if the polloi had somehow a better knowledge and understanding of the critical dimensions of the economic situation and could provide a better solution to the crisis than the expertise of the economically and politically savvy.

Once again politicians, who are more concerned of holding power than of the future of their own country, are ready to prostrate themselves before and pay homage to the idol of the Demos. Papandreou facing in Parliament a no-confidence vote and the ousting of his government promptly announced a referendum that would decide the future of the country, hoping that this would allay the anger and opposition of the people against the austerity measures, imposed by the EU, and at the same time put an end to the disarray within his own government that itself stems from the revolt of the people. It’s clever politicking to avoid defeat and save for him the prime ministership. But he is doing this at the expense of the future well being of the country, as it would take years for Greece to recover from the shock of a default if the electorate voted for it, which is highly likely. This is no less than the revisiting of the ‘sinful’ genius of his pere who himself was the preeminent progenitor of the economic ills that Greece is presently plagued with. The fils merely continues , like father like son, the ‘sins’ of his sire in a more acute form and projects them into the future.

World Bank president, Robert Zoellick said that “if voters reject the plan, it’s going to be a mess.” Economists claim that the immediate effects of a default would probably be a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in domestic demand and a fall of 5 to 10 percent of domestic product. Evangelos Venizelos, the Finance Minister, and his deputy broke ranks and opposed the referendum, saying it would jeopardize Greek membership in the euro zone. Ilias Nicolakopoulos, professor of political science and close to the governing socialist party, stated that a “referendum would put the country in danger of blowing everything up.” In contrast, Henry Ergas writing in The Australian, on November 3, 2011, “Greek Vote a Banana Republic Moment,” praises Papandreou for having the “balls” to propose the referendum, and compares him to the gutsy warning of Paul Keating’s “Banana Republic.” He says, that “to call a referendum on the austerity program is hardly irrational. But he adds the caveat, “true, it is a gamble, and a risky one.” Nonetheless, “the best hope of what comes next must lie in securing a genuine popular mandate.”

Regrettably, however, Papandreou’s proposal of a referendum does not rise from his “balls” but from his impotence. Unable to lead and convince the country, as a weak leader, to accept the inevitable “scenario, Greece must face a lengthy period of austerity and structural reform,” Papandreou passes this leadership to the impassioned people to decide whether to accept or not this scenario. Professor Ergas’ quote of Sophocles, “truth is always the strongest argument,” though generally accurate, is misplaced in the context of a long corrupt electorate that the fiscal profligacy of past governments accustomed it to indulge in ‘free suntans’ in sunny Greece. In such circumstances, the only truth that this pampered electorate will accept is the continuation of these free suntans at public expense. And that is why they will vote NO to austerity measures and thus turn the referendum into an ogre for the future economy of Greece.

Fortunately the proposed referendum like the balloon it was fizzled out within twenty four hours. Under external and internal pressure Papandreou reneged his proposal and withdrew it. Tonight (November 4, 2011), he places his fate on the lap of the god, parliament, on a confidence vote. Even if he survives by the smallest margin his prime ministership is foreclosed.      

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A response to:

Talking to Iran is our Best Option 

By Ivo Daalder and Phillip Gordon of the Brookings Institution, and advisers to Barack Obama

Washington Post, June 29, 2008  

We cannot tolerate the survival of a political system which has both the increasing capacity and the inexorable desire to destroy us. We have no other option but to adopt the strategy of Cato (Delenda est Carthago)

Raymond Aron

Ivo Daalder and Phillip Gordon, the two savants of the Brookings Institution, have a brief to advise Barack Obama to start “talking to Iran without preconditions”, but they should not allowed to do so at the grief of America’s national interests and the security of the civilized world. The rationale of such advocacy is based in “rescuing a failed policy” of not talking to Iran for 7 ½ years that has made the latter, according to our two analysts, stronger and therefore more intransigent toward American and European demands encapsulated in the precondition that Iran suspends its nuclear enrichment program before any commencement of negotiations between the opposing parties. Further they claim that such diplomatic overture by the U.S. would enable the latter to “test that proposition” of the Iranians, that they “seek only the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the right to nuclear technology”.

It’s almost beyond belief that Daalder and Gordon would be proud to present themselves as the enfants terribles on the stage of diplomacy and in the art of Talleyrand, as their suggestion to “test” this dissembling proposition of Iran behind which is attempting to build its nuclear arsenal, is terribly infantile and politically doltish. It’s like a law officer testing a professional thief whether he has stolen the goods of a house by asking him to show him the master key that has opened the door of the house.

As for their claim that for the last 7 ½ years there have not been any talks with Iran is completely in opposition to the facts. The Europeans, and many of them enunciating and voicing the proposals of their American “ventriloquist”, have been speaking with the Iranians openly as well as sotto voce for a number of years. And have put their own, and indirectly American, proposals before them to no avail. Indeed, Daalder and Gordon concede this by saying that “all of them… [The Europeans] repeatedly presented Iran with a list of benefits Iran would receive if it suspended enrichment”. The latest truckload of carrots were transported to Tehran by Javier Solama, European Foreign Policy Chief few weeks ago only to be turned over and rejected by Iran’s unappeasable Mullahcracy. And this rejection was sealed when Gholam Hossein Elham, a spokesman of the government said that Iran would not comply with Security Council resolutions requiring it to stop enriching uranium.

It’s incomprehensible that Daalder and Gordon do not realize that Iran is undeviating in its goal and determination to acquire nuclear weapons as the latter is the sine qua non of Iran’s leadership of the Muslim people and the implementation of the religious doctrine of the Ninth Mahdi, i.e., the creation of a new world order under the Holy Crescent of Islam. This theological doctrinal lunge for power by Iran cannot be stopped by the humdrum conventional instruments of diplomacy, as the two analysts suggest, but only by diplomacy in the carapace of a bristling hedgehog. And such diplomacy can only be effective by setting certain preconditions at the outset before talks can begin. In the event that such preconditions are unacceptable by the Iranian regime, as presently is the case, then the latter must unambiguously understand that since all roads to diplomacy are closed a bridge too close to war is only open.

Further, Daalder and Gordon seem to be ill-equipped for the art of diplomacy since apparently aren’t aware of some of its cardinal principles. Once one has made strongly clear to his opponent one’s position that the diplomatic avenue can only be opened on meeting certain preconditions, to back down from this initial stand is to irretrievably weaken one’s position in the diplomatic stakes as one would give the perception to his adversary that one enters the negotiations with cap in hand. The military analyst Francois Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies comments drily that “dropping a unanimous Security Council condition (stop enriching uranium) would simply be interpreted by Iran and American allies as unconditional surrender.” (M.E.)

Do the two advisers to Barack Obama consider that by such “surrender” in the diplomatic field the U.S. would have a chance to achieve by talks the latter’s primary goal, i.e., to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal? Moreover, such advocacy for diplomacy rests on the assumption that the present Iranian leadership under Ahmadinejad is a rational actor, and its participation in such negotiations would be well-grounded in its hope to resolve the problems confronting the two parties in a reasonable manner. Such assumption however is contrary to all the evidence as the long-bearded Mullahcracy of Iran continues to load its inter-state relations and actions with the afflatus of millenarianism. This is illustrated both by its annihilation stand against Israel and its apocalyptic confrontation with the West and the Great Satan America. In such a situation for anyone to advocate that the wiles of conventional diplomacy could accomplish a benign turning point in the relations between the American-European condominium and Iran is to have one’s head in the clouds.  

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

I’m republishing this short piece that was written at the earliest stages of the “Intervention” by NATO and the U.S. in Libya, illustrating how wrong the Liberal-Pacifists were about the outcome of the intervention that led to the collapse of the Gaddafi dictatorship.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Distortion and lack of imagination are not a good way to make your case. On your first point, where in the world has there been even a blip of demonstrable opposition to the Coalition’s intervention in Libya? On your second point, only one bereft of a modicum of imagination cannot see that despite the fact that the “goal of the coalition” is not the “defeat of the dictator,” nonetheless the implementation of the no-fly zone by the Coalition nolens volens enervates the loyalist forces and invigorates the Opposition forces with the great potential to overthrow the dictator. On your third, isn’t a fact that Gaddafi and his military personnel fled the compound which was a command and military control centre just before it was hit by a tomahawk missile? And on your fourth and last point that Obama breached the constitution and should therefore be impeached, is a fiction and should be rejected as such. You deliberately and misleadingly leave out the sentence of the War Powers Act, 1973, which is relevant to the current military engagement of the U.S. in Libya. “The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president to notify (M.E.) Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days...without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war.” Only at the passing of 60 days, and if he did not seek an authorized extension for the military deployment would Obama be in breach of the War Powers Act. It seems therefore to me that your ditty about Obama breaching the constitution and should be impeached, is out of tune with the reality of the situation.

You have said to me before that you are some sort of a musician playing the mandolin. It amuses me therefore to see why you switch your talent from ditties to war and strategy that are beyond the depth of a mandolin player.

Further, you will find out at your cost that the land of Australia is not only the land of the kangaroos but also the land of the boomerang that just struck you.

I'm republishing the following article that was written on March 02, 2006, for the readers of this blog.

Why Muslim Leaders dare not Speak the Truth? By Waleed Aly The Australian-February 23, 2006

A reply by Con George-kotzabasis

Waleed Aly’s article is a display of dazzling historical and sociological acrobatics on immigration that leaves his audience breathless. But in his attempt to win the applause of the latter, he forces himself to take some foolhardy risks on the threadbare wire of his argument trying to prove its correctness, that make him lose his reflective balance and fall on a nettless ground that bounces him into the embrace of the seventy-two virgins. What is more dangerous, to be historically and sociologically incorrect or to be in the company of the virgins, is for others to judge.

But let us deal with the premise of his argument and the historical facts of immigration as he presents them, with which he builds his “matchsticks” sociological theory of Muslim terrorism to make his case. His contention is that the so-called local Islamic terrorism of our contemporary times is no different from the Mafiosi terrorism of the 60s, from the Vietnamese triad gangs of the 80s, and treating the Greeks and the Catholics more gently, from the Mediterranean Back welfare fraud of the former and the allegiance of the latter to the Pope. No doubt, all these actions of the above groups are contrary to Australian values, nonetheless they arise from a minority of their communities and therefore it would be both illogical and unfair to blacken their whole communities for the actions of few. Neither, the sociological “deviancy” of a Trimboli or a Condello could denigrate the Italian community in toto and its great achievements as assimilated migrants in this country. Therefore, in similar mode, the beliefs and actions of a small number of Muslim radicals have a sociological pedigree going back to the 60s and 80s, and are of a passing nature, as the deviancy of the few radicals, as it happened with other immigrant groups in the past, will be absorbed within the majority of assimilated Muslims to Australian values in the near future. Hence, according to Aly, history will be repeating itself, neither as a tragedy nor as a farce, as Marx believed, but as progress toward the embracing of Australian laws and values by all immigrant communities, including Muslims.

In scope and depth this proposition is as serious as claiming, that soft “pasta” made terrorism is similar to religious fanatic terrorism that is fomented by an Islamofascist suicidal ideology and whose reach is global. That religion, which plays such an authoritarian and dominant role among Muslims, can be relegated to sociology. To keep his canoe theory afloat in the billowing waters of reality, Aly, like a magician has to conjure away the history of Islam as a supremacist religion, which the precepts of its prophet Mohammed reveal and attest. He also has to hide the fact, that this superiority of Muslim religion and culture inspires the minds and senses of most Muslims. Therefore, any assertion by Muslims that they support and ardently embrace multiculturalism is not only disingenuous but a blatant lie. To expect of them to accept multiculturalism will be akin of expecting them to become votaries of polytheism.

Aly”s argument, that Muslims will be as easily assimilated to Western values as other migrant groups have done from Christian and Buddhist backgrounds, is demolished by his co-religionists leaders. The Montreal Muslim News, on February 26, among whom one of its hosts is the President of The Muslim Council of Montreal who is considered to be by all media outlets the representative of the views of the community, in criticizing the comments of Treasurer Costello that all citizens should accept the laws and values of Australia, stated the following: “If we look deeply into the sickness that passes for ‘western values’ one can see why we chose Allah over human made systems of morality and conduct”. It’s this rigid, bigoted, and supremacist beliefs of Muslims that makes Western values terra rejectaneus to them. One also must take note of the historical fact, that unlike Christianity which had its Reformation that Luther nailed on the door of dogmatic papacy, Islam never had its reformation and it’s still “mind-locked” in the dark ages of the 8th Century and therefore it’s completely incapable spiritually of immersing itself in the torrential stream of modernity. This is the reason why, despite the Midas wealth of many Muslim countries, their peoples live in poverty and in cultural ghettos isolated and detached from the modern world under authoritarian regimes. And this is why when they emigrate to the West they remain in their religious and social ghettoes, instead of reaching out from the windows of opportunity that a dynamic free enterprise economy is offering them and reaping the economic and social benefits that emanate from Western education, and engagement with the advanced world of globalization. Hence, bailing out from high rates of mostly voluntary unemployment and dependency on welfare, with all their dire social consequences. But the question is how can a group of people who spent so much time (praying seven times a day) in the affairs of the other world succeed in the affairs of this one?

All the interactions that Muslims have, even in their dress and in their appearance, e.g. hijabs, white caps, and beards, with other Australians are motivated first and foremost by their religion. To claim as Aly does, that Muslim migrants are “rejecting culture altogether, Western or other wise’’ and leaving it at that without probing and answering, especially, why they reject the Western variety, is to say the least shallow sociology. They are rejecting it because being chained from head to foot with the rigidity of their culture are unwilling to break their chains and thus become free to accept the tenets of a modern world that will lead them to social and individual success. Ultimately therefore, they reject Western society because deep down they feel that they will fail in all their endeavors to succeed. Hence, like all failed cultures, they will scapegoat all the successful ones and blame them for their own shortcomings. And for this vicious circle failure, they will seek and find solace in, and embrace, the millenarian teachings of fundamentalist Islam and its Jihad against the great Satan America and its future promise of a caliphate and paradisiacal bliss.

It’s for all the above reasons and the following fact that the claim of Aly that terrorism in Australia is a “fringe element”, to quote him, is as far from the truth, if it’s not a “warring” lie-as according to Mohammed in war telling lies by Muslims is justifiable- when the radical Sheikh Omran of Melbourne, who considers bin Laden to be a good man, has more than ten thousand followers.

One remains nonplussed, why an intelligent person such as Waleed Aly, leaves all the above facts out from his article? And dons the top hat of a conjuror that attempts to present the beliefs and deeds of religious fanaticism as being sociological and similar to the innocuous, by comparison, deviancy of a Condello from the mainstream? What does he have to hide? It’s up to his keen readers to answer the non-answer of Waleed that dares not speak the truth.

I rest on my oars:your turn now...

This article was written on March 2, 2006