Posted on 09/09/2006 11:10:24 PM PDT by Prospero
Finally, the President of the United States has validated the name of our nation’s intractable enemy. On the morning Britain (hopefully) busted at least one plot to blow up American passenger jets over the Atlantic, in a first, brief response to the round up of suspects in the U.K., I wasn’t the only one who noticed him say Americans must understand “we are at war” with “Islamic Fascists.”
Interestingly, the reaction from the self-anointed voices of Islam in America was predictably quick and loud, but short-lived. The sky did not fall, mosques were not torched nor Muslims lynched, even as polls showed increasing fear of Islam in general and of Muslims in particular.
After a long, terrible, costly struggle, America remains stubbornly tolerant, blessed with an arguably fragile but, far and away, the freest and, simultaneously, the most integrated culture and social order in world history. American Liberty should never be taken for granted.
Bob Woodward, no genuine friend of any Republican administration, in his book Bush at War, wrote that the very first thing President Bush expressed concern about upon returning to the Oval Office September 11, 2001 was how to engage in war against a largely invisible enemy, without compromising civil liberty in the United States.
This is, of course, a remarkable contrast with the ridiculous characterature painted of him by his domestic political enemies five years later. As a kid growing up in Washington decades ago, “everyone knew” the NSA, or “the Puzzle Palace,” or as “No Such Agency” was then known, had been monitoring all international telephone calls probably since the Truman administration.
But “Fascists?” I chafe at Kurt Vonnegut’s insistence that Nazi Germany was a “Christian nation,” and I suppose if someone insists our victories in the European battlefields of World War II were triumphs over “Christian Fascists,” it might easily start a heated argument. Nevertheless, and amazingly, there were and are self-described “Christian” Fascists in our world, in Latin America, Lebanon and elsewhere, and throughout history. It is, of course, a ridiculous and political stylization. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that anyone can call himself or herself a “Christian” and anyone can call himself or herself a follower of “The Prophet.”
What is refreshing about the president’s use of the word “fascists” comes from the historic context, the false assumption that the strain of virulent Mass Movement most Americans during World War II called “fascism” died with Germany’s surrender in May 1945. For most of my life it has been one of those words used so often and improperly that it has almost lost all historic meaning.
As a Mass Movement, among its followers, genuinely terrified of Liberty, anxious to escape responsibility for “knowing Good and Evil,” and equally anxious for self-annihilation by surrender to almost any group promising “inevitable victory” and release; for a certain type of individual, well-prepared already with a sense of being a hopelessly flawed person living in a hopelessly flawed present, the nationalistic strain we once called “fascism” is very much alive and well.
So is it’s twin, the international strain we still call Communism. And all Mass Movements compete for and recruit followers from the same pool of remarkably intelligent, often relatively affluent and educated people who, in their heart of hearts, are no different than Adam and Eve “fleeing for the tall grass” fearing the nakedness of their responsibility before God because of their knowledge of Good and Evil.
In each case the abstract cover provided can range from an extended “family” to nationalism and internationalism or self-annihilation by a total loss of self by merging with the Infinite. And nearly all Mass Movements are unified by hatred of those “outside.”
Before Islam (the nation and religion) began its return to historic roots, becoming little different from the other modern Mass Movements with which American Liberty could not “co-exist,” during World War II, before the Cold War and Israel’s declaration of independence, European Fascism sank deep roots in Islamic and Arab nationalism.
Even The History Channel recently devoted two hours tracing the roots of Arab Nationalism directly to Nazi Germany. It has long been noted by historians this present “new war” has battlefronts amounting to long-neglected mopping up operations aimed at remnants of European Fascism.
Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime in Iraq, and that same Party’s equally nasty regime in Syria trace their ideological lineage and methods directly to Adolph Hitler, most visibly through a little remembered fellow named Mohammad Amin-al-Husayni, the “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,” who had a wonderful garden party with the Fuhrer in 1941, together hoping to prepare for a front in the Middle East, but succeeding in developing a strain of fascism that survived the fall of Berlin and inflamed a mostly dormant anti-Semitism. Eventually, what appears to the West now to be an almost “stateless” terrorism grew from the root a more broadly planted fascist nationalism than Hitler could have dreamed.
Islam is a nation, with undetermined borders; a concept rooted in its Holy book and ancient ideology, stretching from the Eastern Pacific, interrupted only by China and India, all the way to West Africa, with colonies holding to and enforcing their own national law everywhere in the world. Taking an interesting opposite course from that of its European stepfathers, this rising strain of fascism, this true Islamic nationalism, appears to be undergoing its internal conflicts after consolidating its conquests, working out internal strife similar to the murderous gang wars among German fascists from which Hitler eventually emerged to become the unquestioned ruler of the German nation and who only afterward proceeded with his territorial conquests.
Call it what you will. We are at War with Islam.
You sir, have great clarity of vision!
BTTT
Unlike others we have been at war with the Islamic Fascists are not particularly in a hurry. They will be move at their own chosen speed.
bttt
Who first used the term Islamofascist or Islamic Fascist? Was the term coined here in FR?
I have reached your same conclusion. I'll have to revise my tagline.
How comforting. Pakistan has nukes. Iran is trying to acquire same. If Pakistan's government is toppled or falls into Islamic hands, they won't use 7th Century warfare and weaponry.
Interesting link:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Gallery/18.htm
Bookmarked.
That is true. Obviously, Bush is only adding the "fascist" bit for public consumption and because to Americans it is unthinkable that anything that calls itself a religion could be utterly and entirely bad. But in many ways, fascism does not apply to Islam, which has as its ideal a theocratic, transnational government in which the religious and civil spheres are one and the same. This is not true of fascism, which, as the author himself said, is based on extreme nationalism. The author is right in that Islam is a "Mass Movement" in the sense he defines it, that is, something that takes away individual responsibility, fosters hatred of those on the outside, etc. But this is because Islam is essentially a cult, which differs from a religion in that it is focused on creating a closed, all-encompassing world that answers all the follower's questions, relieves him of all responsibilities for deciding on right and wrong, imposes its own set of behavioral rules that are arbitrary and have no ethical roots, and is controlled entirely by the leader or his appointed followers. Mohammed was an Arab, so Arabs have preeminence in this group (remember, being a cleric who is a descendant of Mohammed is ultra-super-special), but it cannot simply be defined as an Arab nationalist movement.
The Arab nations have always had a particular hatred of Jews, probably because of their proximity to Israel, or, before its existence, to territory that they knew to have belonged to the Jews. This anti-semitism pervades their scriptures and hence has been adopted by Muslims everywhere. But I think their main attraction to Hitler and his movement was their shared anti-semitism, because, as you say, fascism is no more a government the Muslims could apply than is democracy.
Oddly enough, I think Islam could function with a Communist government, because Communism has some of the same features (transnational, etc.) and also exercises a great deal of control over its citizens, who have virtually no individual existence. The left is very authoritarian and "mass think" oriented, and I think that's one of the reasons many leftists really admire Islam, which as "religions" go has a concept of an impersonal, arbitrary god who does not will or desire human freedom or any response, other than fear and submission. Also, of course, as dysfunctional Muslim economies have shown time and again, Mohammed and Marx would get along just fine with each other in the area of economic structure, too!
But as you say, no further definition is necessary: Islam in itself is the enemy.
Somehow I doubt that.
There is not a thing wrong with any one of those terms. Each one describes Islam to a 'T'. Islam seeks conversion through threats, acts of terror, acts of aggression, global conquest, and global warfare.
According to the great (all seeing) info god "Google" Many people think they have coined the term Islamofascist.
No valid religion is about suicide and/or killing other people's children.
Unless folks want to get into that "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is a Muslum and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is a Fascist, therefore all Muslims, all of Islam, is Fascist" kind of logic, that the term arose from the ether; a redundancy, like "Democrat Liberal."
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