EDITORIAL

Special Correspondent

And when counsel is Phobos
There is no ground hallowed
For men to die with courage

Unknown trench poet, Western Front, First World War

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The Greek Ministry of Defense announced recently the cutting of national military service, mandatory for all male citizens over 18, to nine months down from twelve. The decision affects those serving in the Army. Press reports said the Ministry is also contemplating recommendations to remove national service conscripts from the Navy and the Air Force entirely, leaving these two Services manned exclusively by regular officers, NCOs, and long-term payroll volunteers.

Special Correspondent

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

Among the many unenviable records Greece holds one prominent one is the Greek media’s amicable relationship with publishing and publicizing terrorist proclamations, thus giving the terrorists’ verbal offal maximum cost-free exposure.

The recent resurgence of domestic terrorist activity, and the concomitant resurfacing of terror screed writers, has rekindled this relationship. With the Internet providing instant access to self-publishing, a tool that did not exist in the old “glory days” of the 17 November terrorist gang (17N) and its cousin, the now defunct People’s Revolutionary Struggle (ELA), many of our “neo-terrorist” cells have quickly emerged on anarchist sympathizer Web pages with their torrent of mental invective replete with threats of mayhem and shooting, or other, death. But the allure of the traditional print press has apparently not abandoned this new wave of unreformed, Web-based terror pistoleros who, just like their older murderer predecessors, hold on to the illusion that “the masses” host a ripe revolutionary mood (or, at least, want us to believe they do).

Special Correspondent

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

Recent events in Iran have highlighted the fact that even the toughest, most entrenched dictatorship is unavoidably subject to the law of Physics that determines the effect of materials fatigue. All vehicles have a strictly determined performance envelope. Once certain figures that define basic materials cohesion have been exceeded, the process of disintegration begins. The speed of this disintegration is determined by many factors, almost all beyond the control of the driver.

Special Correspondent

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

The assassination of Officer Nektarios Savvas as he sat in his car in the early morning hours of June 17 has brutally pushed human-killing terrorism back to the top of Greece's domestic agenda.

Officer Savvas was savagely riddled, Mafia style, from pointblank range, revealing  murderers possessed by rage and an uncontrollable urge to send an unmistakable, blood-spattered message to other police and the vast majority of Greek society.

The RIEAS Web page was first published in 1997. Those were the days of awkward Web site builders and free hosting with little functionality and even less stability. But the RIEAS page (and those behind it) persisted. Over the years, the page went through various incarnations to arrive recently at the format you now see.

There is no need to stress here the importance of an on-line presence in this present day and age. Without a "window" to the on-line world, companies, businesses, academic institutions, and so many other organizations are practically invisible -- and, some would argue, non-existent.