(By Victor Davis Hanson)
George Bush recently declared that we are at war with "Islamic fascism." Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive. Critics of the term chosen by the president, however, should remember what al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and other extremist Muslim groups have said and done. Like the fascists of the 1930s, the leaders of these groups are authoritarians who brook no dissent in their efforts to impose a comprehensive system of submission upon the unwilling.
Osama bin Laden urged Muslims to kill any American they could find, and then tried to fulfill that vow on Sept. 11. Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah bragged that "the Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them" -- and then started a war. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, promises to "wipe out" Israel, and is seeking the nuclear means to do so.
Sharia law and dreams of pan-Islamic global rule fuel their ambitions. Once again, they seek to fool Western liberals through voicing a litany of perpetual hurts.... Islamic fascism is also anti-democratic and characteristically reactionary. It conjures up a past of Islamic influence that existed before the supposed corruption of modernism. Like Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, who sought to recapture lost mythical Aryan, Roman or samurai purity, so Islamic fascists talk in romantic terms of the ancient caliphate.
Anti-Semitism is a tenet of fascism, then and now. But so is a generic hatred for unbelievers, homosexuals and blacks. The latter are slurred in the Arab media, while homosexuals were rounded up under the Taliban and the Iranian mullacracy. "Mein Kampf" sells well under its translated title "Jihadi." .... Even now, it is hard to distinguish the slurs against Jews ("pigs and apes") used in the Middle Eastern media from the venom of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda. Goose-stepping and stiff-armed salutes at Iranian and Hezbollah parades are conscious imitations of past fascist armies.
Some object that the term "Islamic fascism" is too vague to encompass the differing agendas of diverse groups such as the Wahhabis, al-Qaida and Hezbollah. But just as racist German Nazis found common ground with Asian supremacists in Japan, so too the shared hatred of the West trumps the internecine rivalries of present-day Islamists.
The common denominators are extremist views of the Koran (thus the term Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (thus the notion of fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: the old fascism is back, but now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam...
The real problem is not that "Islamic fascism" is inaccurate or mean-spirited, but that this identification earns such vehement disdain in Europe and the United States. That hysteria may tell us as much about the state of a demoralized West as the term itself does about our increasingly emboldened enemies
More here
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ELSEWHERE
How the Church of England preaches the gospel of Christ: "A priest with the Church of England who converted to Hinduism has been allowed to continue to officiate as a cleric. The Rev David Hart's diocese renewed his licence this summer even though he had moved to India, changed his name to Ananda and daily blesses a congregation of Hindus with fire previously offered up to Nagar, the snake god. He also "recites Gayatri Mantram with the same devotion with which he celebrates the Eucharist", according to The Hindu, India's national newspaper. The Hindu this week pictures him offering prayers to an idol of the elephant god Ganesh in front of his house. However, he still believes he is fit to celebrate as an Anglican priest and plans to do so when he returns to Britain.... "My philosophical position is that all religions are cultural constructs," he said"
Whiners get a reply: "President Bush in the White House East Room Wednesday explained for the first time in detail the importance of interrogation as an intelligence tool in the war on terror. He conceded that some of the techniques used against the likes of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were "tough." But he also used his remarks to declassify a fair bit of information about what's been learned. Quite clearly the interrogations are a major reason there have been no further terrorist attacks on American soil in the past five years. The demagogues alleging senseless "torture" at "secret" overseas prisons have now gotten a proper reply. Like the programs for monitoring bank transfers and warrantless wiretaps overseas, interrogating those who would do us harm has helped keep the country safe with minimal intrusion into the lives of ordinary Americans" [Taranto has some good excerpts from the Bush speech]
Americans like Wal-Mart better than unions: "Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Americans have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of labor unions while 33% disagree and have an unfavorable view. Those figures, from a Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults, include 23% with a "very favorable" opinion and 12% with a "very unfavorable" view. By way of comparison, 69% of Americans have a favorable opinion of a company the unions love to hate-Walmart. Twenty-nine percent (29%) have an unfavorable opinion of the retail giant".
Got to admit it's getting better ...: "The basic message Greenhouse and Leonhardt deliver is that 'wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960's.' That is literally correct, according to the federal government's measures. But it's also misleading, for two main reasons, in order of importance. First, as marginal tax rates have increased for most people except the highest-income people, due mainly to rising Medicare and Social Security tax rates over the last 40 years, employers have paid a higher and higher percent of compensation in the form of untaxed benefits. So a more-relevant measure is not wages and salaries but total employee compensation. Second, national income is a better base to use for considering each group's -- employees, corporations, proprietors, landlords, and lenders -- share of income"
Prop 87: Paying at the pump and misdirecting innovation: "Californians pay an average of more than $3.20 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. Many consumers are agitated because prices have increased more than a dollar per gallon since the beginning of the year. British Petroleum's Alaskan shutdown has only increased concerns. Unfortunately, if passed, Proposition 87, the Clean Alternative Energy Act (CAEA), would only make matters worse. The Act would increase gas prices and our dependence on foreign oil, while creating a vast new bureaucracy that is unlikely to speed the successful development of alternative fuels."
For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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