EDITORIAL

Not too long ago we highlighted the importance of abandoning the peculiar idiom of “Greek-Turkish rapprochement,” a linguistic contraption that is wholly of Greek manufacture, as part of purposefully re-defining symbolism in the battle against the Turkish threat. In this present phase of "no war, no peace" so deftly manipulated by our neighbors, words and gestures are almost as important as bullets. And effective symbolism remains a key weapon in parrying Turkish thrusts calculated to sow fear and anxiety among Greek "policy makers," who have delivered, over time, ample examples of hesitation, miscalculation, division, and confusion. To remember Liddel Hart's apt words: "The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men."

The summer of 2009 is rapidly turning into yet another extended period of Turkish provocations in the Aegean through demonstrations of military force. In the middle of a supposed, mutually agreed summer moratorium on military training exercises, Turkey dispatches almost daily armed warplanes to make low, very loud passes over small inhabited Greek islands lying near the Asia Minor coast. Turkey has announced oil exploration inside the boundaries of the Greek continental shelf southeast of the Greek island of Kastelorizo. And Turkish coast guard vessels carve "innocent passage" patterns inside Greek territorial waters with complete immunity and, even, make "honest mistakes" that, in one recent case, brought a Turkish patrol boat at the mouth of the harbor of Kalymnos, the famous Dodecanese island home of sponge divers. The Turkish skipper, with incredulous Greek coast guards watching from a distance, disarmingly apologized over the radio for reading his charts wrongly!

Earlier this month, Greek authorities announced the busting of a "syndicate of crime" run by a notorious felon from behind prison bars. Extensive wiretapping, with the help of the National Intelligence Service, demonstrated an almost unfettered capability of the gang leader to direct criminal enterprise operations with the help of cell phones which he obtained with over-the-counter ease inside prison.

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

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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

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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.