Against "Islamofascism"

I briefly considered responding to Christopher Hitchens' defense of "Islamofascism" (the term not the doctrine) via a roundabout discussion of Orwell fetishism, but suffice it to say that I identify with the pragmatist tradition and the thing to ask about a term like this is what does "Islamofascism" do.

And it's pretty clear what it does, namely provide a spurious patina of unity and sameness to diverse phenomena involving Muslims Behaving Badly so that al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Assad, Saddam, Iraqi insurgents, Somali Islamists, plus sundry oppressive folk practices common in portions of the Islamic world like female genital mutilation in parts of Africa, "honor killings" in parts of South Asia, etc. The question to ask ourselves is what, if anything, is accomplished by devising and deploying a term that unites all those phenomena. If you want to use emotional outrage at 9/11 to leverage political support for an invasion of Iraq, then the answer is obviously "yes." Similarly, if you want to leverage outrage at 9/11 into political support for a bombing campaign in Iran then the answer is "yes."

But I don't want to do either of those things, and, indeed, I think the people who do like to do those things are having an immensely detrimental impact on our ability to understand events in the contemporary world and pull the United States out of the foreign policy tailspin we've been in recently. Which is a long way of saying, I'm not buying.

Comments

Matt, in light of the above, have you considered that you too might be an Islamofascist?

Posted by Bill | October 24, 2007 8:57 AM

You ask:

"...suffice it to say that I identify with the pragmatist tradition and the thing to ask about a term like this is what does "Islamofascism" do."

One of the main advantages of Hitchens use of the term is it blunts somewhat the application of the term fascist or proto-fascist to the policies of Bush/Cheney et.al. And these terms are altogether apt. The techniques from the Big Lie, military aggression, torture, indiscriminate bombing, the leveling of Fallujah, the use of unrestrained mercenaries, wiretapping, political use of the Justice department, punishing political enemies, controlling the media through contacts with corporate heads, falsifying scientific reports, all go back to the great fascist regimes of the last century and have not been seen on the world stage on this scale for a very long time.

Posted by della Rovere | October 24, 2007 9:04 AM

Christopher Hitchens is as sickening as the word. A sickening hate-monger teaching others to hate.

Posted by Jennifer | October 24, 2007 9:05 AM

I'd still like to hear about Orwell fetishism (and also, I recognize a good straight line when I see one, but I haven't had my coffee yet).

Posted by godoggo | October 24, 2007 9:16 AM

Re Hafez Assad

It would be seriously in error to refer to the late and unlamented Hafez Assad as an Islamofascist. The Alawite clan to which he belongs is not considered to be part of Islam by other Moslems. Mr. Assad was a plain old fashioned unadorned fascist (who by the way killed more Islamofascists in two days in the assault on the City of Hama then Israel has been able to kill in 58 years of battling them).

Posted by SLC | October 24, 2007 9:20 AM

Matt, of course you're not buying. This is the conservative equivalent of "imperialist". It's a useful catch all phrase for a set of vaguely related groups and behaviors, and it's more a rhetorical marker of agreement with a world view than an actual description.

You don't agree with he world view, so you find the phrase sort of silly.

And della Rovere, if we start to see violent repression of dissent or an abridgment of the first amendment more serious than Mccain-Feingold, I'll agree you might have a point. As it stands now, your use of "fascist" is even less convincing than Hitchens' use of the Islamo variety.

Posted by heedless | October 24, 2007 9:22 AM

Excellent post Matt. I love the way you thoroughly disassemble an idea so that you can judge the constituting parameters on the merits clearly and concisely.

That Ivy League philosophy training did pay off indeed.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | October 24, 2007 9:22 AM

Not only does the term unite all of those diverse phenomena, but "Islamofascism" also attempts to draw a parallel between World War II and the fight against terrorism. The hawks very much want to be Churchill.

Posted by Gabriel | October 24, 2007 9:25 AM

"Excellent post Matt. I love the way you thoroughly disassemble an idea so that you can judge the constituting parameters on the merits clearly and concisely."

What? Nowhere in the Slate piece does Hitchens lump together "Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Assad, Saddam, Iraqi insurgents, Somali Islamists". I believe this called a straw man.

Posted by Peter K. | October 24, 2007 9:25 AM

SLC, could you be more of a slimy disgusting degenerate racist? Is it possible? I do not think so. You are the most degenerate of racists. Be proud, Rotten SLC.

Posted by Jennifer | October 24, 2007 9:31 AM

Peter K. No whoever said he disassembled an idea was maybe wrong, depending on what you think that means, but here's what Matt said:"suffice it to say that I identify with the pragmatist tradition and the thing to ask about a term like this is what does "Islamofascism" do." I.e. no straw men.

Incidentally, I read my first blog (Daily Dish) as a link from a link in your site, so I'll be nice.

Posted by godoggo | October 24, 2007 9:43 AM

The Republicans have kissed off the black vote, and seem unconcerned about the Hispanics, as well. What does the careless scapegoating and vilification of Muslims do to that vote? There are 5-8 million Muslims in the US, and I would bet that they are pretty pissed off at this loose talk about "Islamofascism".

Posted by bob h | October 24, 2007 9:44 AM

It might be more convincing if both the phrase and its users seemed more genuine in their opposition to fascism and fascist tendencies, with Islamic 'fascists' just being one set of flavors within fascist tendencies.

But neither the phrase nor its users seem genuine in their opposition to fascism or fascist tendencies whatsoever, although they are strongly opposed to Islam.

Posted by El Cid | October 24, 2007 9:46 AM

What does the term islamofascism do?
It unites America's enemies and divides America's friends. It is therefore a bad idea if you care about maintaining American influence in the world.

But conservatives are currently in love with the Hama Rules of politics so like the President said, bring it on. America versus the World. Is this a winning strategy?

Posted by Northern Observer | October 24, 2007 9:49 AM

It's only because Americans are terrified of Muslims that the neocons have been able to push the whole "Islamofascist" theme. They craftily exploit our panty piddling paranoia, dropping hints that if we don't maintain a perpetual war footing - and invade Iran soon - the towelheads are going to Conquer the World and haul us all off to the "showers."

In short, we've created the condition, namely sheer screaming fear, that has allowed the neocons to push their agenda.

Posted by Peter | October 24, 2007 10:02 AM

They're trying to tun it into another cold war against a homogenized enemy that "patriotic Americans" can stand up against.

http://www.sunstateactivist.org/

Posted by mpp | October 24, 2007 10:04 AM

In practice, using the term "islamofascism" allows one to shift one's own fascist ideology to another as an accusation. None of the country club powerful Republicans I know have a clue what fascism is, all they know is they are powerful by providence of god. They think Islam is flawed with evil filtering down to good, misled people and lacking imagination, the grab "fascism" (their fathers great enemy) and strap it to a proven haters of american hegemony. They all nod in agreement as they down the 18 year old scotch, then move on to sports talk.

Posted by Chuckchuck | October 24, 2007 10:17 AM

Hitchens defends his use of the term by ultimately citing its polemical value. Which is just crazy; if he wants to really fulfill his Orwell and Paine fantasies, he needs to adhere to a semblance of intellectual honesty. Reading his column in Slate, I was struck by how all of his arguments pertained better to "authoritarianism" or "totalitarianism," which are certainly far more apt when discussing Salafism or institutional Islam.

Posted by James F. Elliott | October 24, 2007 10:47 AM

Excellent post Matt! It's gems like this that keep me coming back.

I think if you were to ask a neocon/right-winger what an Islamofacist does, you'd get a response like, "Their goal is to unite the world under an Islamic caliphate and convert all people to Islam. That is what they work for; that is what they do." For what its worth.

Posted by DanF | October 24, 2007 11:02 AM

godoggo,
I can't tell if you are being serious in your reply to PeterK, but it is hard to think of a less serious defense to the charge of a straw man attack, then that the person making it claims to not be making a straw man attack.

On the otherhand, for PeterK's argument to be cogent it is not enough that Hitchens' defense does not mention those varied groups. After all Hitchens' is presumably defending the actual usage of the term, which is not limited to either that column or Hitchens himself. For Yglesias to be making a strawman, then it must be the case that the term "Islamofascism" has not been generally used to lump together these various groups, and not just that the defense on a single occassion does not do so.

Hitchens is one of the people who was pushing a link between al qaeda and Hussein long after the evidence justified such a thing. If the term "islamofascism" was used in that campaign, then the charge of strawman fails. Although I have to admit I do not follow the history of Hitchens' word usage closely enough to leave that as anything but a conditional.

My general sense though is that Yglesias is right that the term has generally been used by the people who are trying to blur lines, originally between Hussein and al qaeda, and more recently between al qaeda and Iran (who then tend to claim that Hamas, and Hezbollah are mere agents of Iran).

Posted by Lon | October 24, 2007 11:11 AM

Well, my impression is that Hitchens, Horowitz, and most of the other main propagators of the "Islamo-Fascism" term are basically (former?) Communists...

Now Communists have always gone around calling all of their various enemies "fascists"---it's just a synonym for "enemy" or "bad person" in the Communist lexicon. They even called the rival Communists whom they didn't like "fascists," as in Trotskyite-Fascists. So "Islamo-Fascists" is the Communist word for "bad Muslims"...

I must say that living in a country controlled by bloodthirsty Communists really isn't a very pleasant experience...

Posted by RKU | October 24, 2007 11:16 AM

Re Jennifer

Ms. Jennifer is a poopyhead.

Posted by SLC | October 24, 2007 11:17 AM

SLC, try on a little more racist diatribe. You are slipping and you never want to become sane.

Posted by Jennifer | October 24, 2007 11:22 AM

I think if you were to ask a neocon/right-winger what an Islamofacist does, you'd get a response like, "Their goal is to unite the world under an Islamic caliphate and convert all people to Islam.

Well, the Sunnis want to restore the caliphate, anyway. With the Shiites, it's a bit more complicated--they don't recognize the legitimacy of most of the historical caliphs, and have a rather mystical view of the office. The notion that Sunnis and Shiites could agree on a contemporary individual (bin Laden?) as Caliph is risable. About as likely as Republican fundamentalists recognizing Obama as the second coming of Jesus . . .

Posted by rea | October 24, 2007 11:47 AM

Actually, I think the practice of using Islamofascist has another, historic dimension. Its introduction as a press term came about the same time Paul Berman's small book tracing Al qaeda's ideology came out, and I think it was carried on that book's merit. Unfortunately, the merit was very small - Berman's whole intellectual history rather neglected the largest fact shaping the middle east over the last sixty years, which was the cold war. And, not to put to fine a point on it, the American policy during the cold war was to support, where it could, Islamic fundamentalism as a counterweight to Nasser's nationalism and to communism. The fact that mosques in Europe, for instance, are so often centers of Salafi teaching isn't magical. In Germany, for instance, where the largest Moslem population comes from Turkey, it doesn't even match the kind of teachings that are common to Turkey. What it does match is Saudi financing. And what Saudi financing matches is coordination with the U.S. on all levels to try to use the religious card to trump communism.

Islamofascist is a word that obscures and hides this past. A much better term would be legacy Islamic anti-communism. But then, the rightwing might not like that.

Incidentally, how low is Hitchens apparent support for Giuliani, and now for Horowitz, going to sink him in the serious sweepstakes? Is he still up there with Kaus? Or is he on the Krauthammer level yet?

Posted by roger | October 24, 2007 12:00 PM

Roger -- I don't know if I got the impression from Hitchens's piece that he was on Horowitz's side on this; it looked to these eyes like he was defending the term given its popularization by someone who is, well, kinda snakeshit crazy.

(That said, I don't know where Hitchens stands vis-a-vis Horowitz -- I do seem to remember them having shared a lecture stage at some point recently, though the same could be said of Hitchens and Al Sharpton.)

Posted by Tobias | October 24, 2007 12:13 PM

Irony: Hitchens recently wrote a book called "Why Orwell Matters," and yet he employs the Orwellian word, "Islamofascism." I suggest he re-read his own book.

Posted by Matthew | October 24, 2007 1:35 PM

"but suffice it to say that I identify with the pragmatist tradition and the thing to ask about a term like this is what does "Islamofascism" do."

It describes the ideology of Al Qaeda. But many on the pacifist left don't want to hear that Bush is fighting fascism. So they try to make the term go away.

The term describes the ideology behind the 9/11 attacks. That's essentially what it does. The ideology/religion has also been described as Salafism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi

Islamofascism is just shorthand for Islamic + fascist.

Where he may differ from Horowitz and others is that they seem to single out Islam, and make it a White Judeo-Christian West vs. a Dusky Islamic Middle East, where with Hitchens, he's equal opportunity:

"It was once very common, especially on the left, to prefix the word fascism with the word clerical. This was to recognize the undeniable fact that, from Spain to Croatia to Slovakia, there was a very direct link between fascism and the Roman Catholic Church. More recently, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica, coined the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Messianic settlers who moved onto the occupied West Bank after 1967. So, there need be no self-pity among Muslims about being "singled out" on this point."

Posted by Peter K. | October 24, 2007 2:01 PM

"Islamofascism is just shorthand for Islamic + fascist."

Wow. Peter K., I don't know where you get brilliant insights like these. Surely you must be working on some highlevel project for the CIA to be that expert a hermeneut. Now, finally, finally we know where the term Islamofascist comes from! I think the common misconception was that it derived from Islamofoccacio, the name for a kind of bread made in an Italian bakery in Kabul.

Well, that has finally cleared that up.

Posted by roger | October 24, 2007 2:09 PM

The term "islamofascists" is similar to "game animal". The latter are not connected in any other way but a decision that they can be legally hunted.

The former are similar, except that there are no game wardens enforcing the rules, like not killing the little ones. I also think that Game and Fishing Commission would take a dim view on torture, and overall, it is highly regulated what can you hunt, when, where, using what weapons so one could talk about some kind of due process.

The other difference if that most of the time Game and Fishing Commission tends to be a very rational and competent body, partly because hunters tend to be very rational, at least, as hunters (as oppose to their views on non-hunting matters, like Islamofascism). Can you imagine a commisioner reporting that the damage to crops caused by woodchucks increased a lot, so the bear hunting season should be extended from 3 days to a full month. Later opponens of that extensions are called vegetable haters (they hate us for our vegetables!), groundhog lovers etc.

Posted by piotr | October 24, 2007 2:13 PM

Matt's point is spot on But this is unsurprising. Daniel Pipes et. al don't really care about fighting the genuine threat of extremism; they don't really want to understand the very different types of political realities that characterize the Muslim world. Some of those realities are unrelated to "Islam"--but these characters are not interested in analytical nuance.

What they do want is to completely suppress domestic debate by waving the red flag of "Islamofascism." And not just about foreign policy. Their biggest concerns aren't the terrorists; they are domestic progressives in the U.S. fighting to maintain a semblance of sanity in the legal, social, and political system. And in this context, "Islamofascism" (and the like) are handy terms designed to bully Americans into acquiescence to whatever Bush and his coterie say. "Islamofacists are out there; therefore if you are a true American, vote for the Republicans, give up habeas corpus, abortion rights, (and lets get the gays while we are at it)." The irony of course is that the people most loudly blustering about the need to reform Islam and bring pluralism to the Muslim world are ferociously attempting to dismantle freedom in America.

Posted by Ahumayun | October 24, 2007 2:34 PM

The pathetic and cowardly right wing would desperately like their incompetent and ridiculous wars to be seen as a global struggle against an ominous foe such as fascism, and it truly pains and frustrates them that their armchair advocacy of battle by others convinces so few to believe in their nonsense wars -- and and fewer still believe that the right wing / liberal hawks care one tiny iota about fighting "fascism" or for democracy or gay rights anywhere. Bombing Arabs, Muslims, and brown people in general, maybe -- but fighting against fascism and for democracy and the protection of the weak? No one believes those ninnies for a second.

Posted by El Cid | October 24, 2007 3:00 PM

Fascism - 1. A philosophy or governmental system marked by stringent socioeconomic control, a strong central government usually headed by a dictator, and often belligerently nationalistic policy 2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.

So, if I want to overthrow the governments in the ME, defeat the West, impose Sharia law and spread the dominance of Islam through the whole world, does that make me an Islamofascist?

On the other hand, I don't think it going to take much to pull that off. Rather, the West will defeat itself in the name of tolerance and let Muslims take over from a minority position (http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/656/26/).

I still don't understand the notion of labeling opponents of militant Islam as "racist". Islam is not a race as far as I know. Actually, Arabs are caucasians so if I am white guy and don't like Arabs I don't think I am racist. I think I am an "ethnicist" or not a fan of multi-culturalism.

Posted by danceswithgoats | October 24, 2007 4:53 PM

Don't know if you'll get around to reading this Matt, but you should dig out some of the studies on female genital mutilation in Africa, it occurs much less in Muslim communities there than in Christian ones...

Posted by Meh | October 24, 2007 6:16 PM

On the other hand, I don't think it going to take much to pull that off. Rather, the West will defeat itself in the name of tolerance and let Muslims take over from a minority position...

Again, evidence that the fans of "Islamo-Fascist" dogmatics are not, in fact, serious opponents of fascism in its many varieties, just raving lunatics who enjoy wetting their pants about how the darkies or jihadists are coming to get 'em.

Posted by El Cid | October 24, 2007 6:27 PM

I would say an "Orwell fetishism" is probably one of the healthiest fetishisms one can have. I'm not sure if the term "Islamo-Fascist" is Orwellian or not, but as Hitchens must know Orwell himself wrote that after WWII the term no longer had much use, except to signify something undesirable.

Of course the term has always been rather vague. Conservative movements usually lack universal principals, because they are based on an idealization of a particular culture. There was a Marx of Fascism, or even a Lenin, or Mao type figure. The differences between Italian, German, and Spanish fascism were almost as significant as their similarities. In the beginning Fascism seemed to be a kind of Right-Wing Socialism with the "Fatherland" replacing the "State" or the "Workers" in the official Propaganda.

If the term has outlived its usefulness, the Left is really the one to blame. They've ignorantly applied it to several conservative authoritarians such as General Pinochet. If Fascism really is nothing more than a term for conservative authoritarians then the term "Islamo-Fascism" might hold up, but I wouldn't use it myself.

Posted by Captain Sensible | October 24, 2007 7:32 PM

Correction: I meant to say there was NOT a Marx of fascism.

Posted by Captain Sensible | October 24, 2007 7:37 PM

I'd put a far bigger stack of money on Augusto Pinochet qualifying for "fascist" over any assortment of jihadists any day at all. Same for the Guatemalan genocidalist generals so beloved by Reagan.

Overused as the term "fascist" was on the left (and of course, no one ever overused terms like "socialist" or "communist"), still, it's harder to imagine some idiots using a phrase like "Latino-Fascism" and consistently demonstrating that they really care about the "Latino" part and not the "Fascist" part.

Posted by El Cid | October 24, 2007 7:41 PM

El Cid,

So if I say I don't care for the Islamo or the fascist part; does that make me a bad person?

Great movie by the way.

Posted by danceswithgoats | October 24, 2007 9:53 PM

Badguyofascism
Telemarketerofascism
Shittybossofascism
Dumbdumbpoopyheadofascism

Or you could read Flying Rodent's take on this

Posted by Leinad | October 24, 2007 9:57 PM

"The West will defeat itself in the name of tolerance..."

Very true. In good old days the Moors got a choice: conversion or exile, and converts were carefully monitored by Inquisition. Then a rot settled in, sensible ideas like book censorship or absolute monarchy were abandoned etc. People do not even remember what Matamoros means.

To survive, the West should match Islamofascist, stupidity for stupidity. They believe that Mossad was behind 9/11? We will beleve that Saddam was. They are doubting the theory of evolution? We can do the same, only better! Attempts are made to keep Western women in "their place".

Posted by piotr | October 24, 2007 10:07 PM

"The West will defeat itself in the name of tolerance..."

That's pretty much the only part of "the West" I care about. I don't have a luke warm IQ so I'm really not worried about Muslim's somehow taking that away, but I'll kill and die to save that part of my society. I don't think it's foreigners I'll have to worry about destroying my country either.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 24, 2007 10:55 PM

While I've never heard the term "Latino-Fascism" used, there was a common belief that Latin countries naturally gravitated towards authoritarian leaders. It was suggested that this may have had to do with their Catholic roots. Certainly one can see a resemblance between generals Pinochet and Franco. Though neither one of those leaders was really much of an ideologue. Pinochet was promoted to the head of the army specifically because he was thought to be apolitical. Which goes back to the notion Fascism as simply conservative authoritarianism.

Interestingly Peron in Argentina, who is usually seen as a left-leaning populist figure was friendly with the Hitler and Mussolini regimes during the hay day of Fascism.

Posted by Edward | October 24, 2007 11:07 PM

"Similarly, if you want to leverage outrage at 9/11 into political support for a bombing campaign in Iran then the answer is "yes."

But I don't want to do either of those things..."

WAIT! WAIT! HOLD THE PRESSES!

Did Matt actually just say he doesn't want to bomb Iran?

Did he actually express a specific OPINION on Iran?

I'm shitting myself! I need diapers!

Oh, wait...maybe not. He just said he didn't want to "leverage outrage at 9/11 into political support for a bombing campaign in Iran."

Oh, he just doesn't want to "leverage outrage."

Doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't want to bomb Iran.

Never mind.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 25, 2007 12:38 AM

SLC: (who by the way killed more Islamofascists in two days in the assault on the City of Hama then Israel has been able to kill in 58 years of battling them).

So what?

Who gives a shit how many he killed? You like him, move to Syria. Otherwise your point is stupid.

Just because some dictator kills a bunch of his own citizens doesn't say anything about some other country killing a bunch of other people.

Israel is fascist - they just happen to be so to people other than their own (Jewish) citizens.

Hitler killed all sorts of people all over Europe including German citizens. Should we excuse him for killing Jews because of that?

Fucking Zionist troll.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 25, 2007 12:44 AM

Roger: Actually, I think the practice of using Islamofascist has another, historic dimension. Its introduction as a press term came about the same time Paul Berman's small book tracing Al qaeda's ideology came out, and I think it was carried on that book's merit.

Interesting that you mention Berman's book. I just today read a review by Chalmers Johnson of "The Matador's Cape: America's Reckless Response to Terror" by Stephen Holmes in Asia Times which mentions Berman's book as follows:

How did pro-war liberals help stifle national debate on the wisdom of the Iraq war, as illustrated by Paul Berman in Power and the Idealists (Soft Skull Press, 2005)? Wildly overstating his influence, Holmes writes, Berman, a regular columnist for The New Republic, "first tried to convince us that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, far from being a tribal war over scarce land and water, is part of the wider spiritual war between liberalism and apocalyptic irrationalism, not worth distinguishing too sharply from the conflict between America and al-Qaeda. He then attempted to show that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden represented two 'branches' of an essentially homogeneous extremism." (p 181) Berman, Holmes points out, conflated anti-terrorism with anti-fascism in order to provide a foundation for the neologism "Islamo-fascism." His chief reason for including Berman is that Holmes wants to address the views of religious fundamentalists in their support of the war on terrorism.

Chalmers goes on to comment:

Holmes rejects any direct connection between Islamic religious extremism and the 9/11 attacks, although he recognizes that Islamic vilification of the United States and other Western powers is often expressed in apocalyptically religious language. "Emphasizing religious extremism as the motivation for the [9/11] plot, whatever it reveals," he argues, "… terminates inquiry prematurely, encouraging us to view the attack ahistorically as an expression of 'radical Salafism', a fundamentalist movement within Islam that allegedly drives its adherents to homicidal violence against infidels." (p 2) This approach, he points out, is distinctly tautological: "Appeals to social norms or a culture of martyrdom are not very helpful ... They are tantamount to saying that suicidal terrorism is caused by a proclivity to suicidal terrorism."

Instead, he suggests, "The mobilizing ideology behind 9/11 was not Islam, or even Islamic fundamentalism, but rather a specific narrative of blame" (p 63). He insists on putting the focus on the actual perpetrators, the 19 men who executed the attacks in New York and Washington - 15 Saudi Arabians, two citizens of the United Arab Emirates, one Egyptian, and one Lebanese. None of them was particularly religious. Three were living together in Hamburg, Germany, where they did appear to have become more interested in Islam than they had been in their home countries. Mohamed Atta, the leader of the group, age 33 on 9/11, had Egyptian and German degrees in architecture and city planning and became highly politicized in favor of the Palestinian cause against Zionism only after he went abroad.

Holmes notes, "According to the classic study of resentment [Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals (1887)], 'every sufferer instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering; more specifically, an agent, a "guilty" agent who is susceptible of pain - in short, some living being or other on whom he can vent his feelings directly or in effigy, under some pretext or other.' If suffering is seen as natural or uncaused it will be coded as misfortune instead of injustice, and it will produce resignation rather than rebellion. The most efficient way to incite, therefore, is to indict." (p 64)

The role of bin Laden was, and remains, to provide such a hyperbolic indictment - one that men like Atta would never have heard back in authoritarian Egypt but that came through loud and clear in their German exile. Bin Laden demonized the United States, accusing it of genocide against Muslims and repeatedly contending that the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia ever since the first Gulf War in 1991 was a far graver offense than the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, even though that had led to the death of 1 million Afghans and had sent 5 million more into exile.

The fact that the 9/11 plot involved the attackers' own self-destruction suggests possible irrationality on their part, but Holmes argues that this was actually part of the specific narrative of blame. Americans feel contempt for Muslims and ascribe little or no value to Muslim lives. Therefore, to be captured after a terrorist attack involved a high likelihood that the Americans would torture the perpetrator. Suicide took care of that worry (and provided several other advantages discussed below)...

He goes on as follows with an interesting point:

One was to recast what had happened in terms of Cold-War thinking. "To repress feelings of defenselessness associated with an unfamiliar threat, the decision makers' gaze slid uncontrollably away from al-Qaeda and fixated on a recognizable threat that was unquestionably susceptible to being broken into bits." (p 312) Holmes calls this fusion of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein a "mental alchemy, the ‘reconceiving' of an impalpable enemy as a palpable enemy". He endorses James Mann's thesis that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others did not change the underlying principles guiding American foreign policy in response to the 9/11 attacks; that, in fact, they did the exact opposite: "[T]he Bush administration has managed foreign affairs so ineptly because it has been reflexively implementing out-of-date formulas in a radically changed security environment." (p 106)

This clearly ties in with "Islamofascism" is that the neocons want people to visualize all of Islam as one "great big enemy".

This is par for the course for states. The state cannot exist without an enemy to fight against, either internal or external.

The nature of the state is expressed as: "You do everything we tell you and give us everything you have, and we'll protect you against the bad people both inside and outside our borders. And if there aren't any bad people, we'll makes some."

No more "Communist Threat"? So now we'll make the same guys we used against the "Communist Threat" the NEW "Islamofascist Threat"!

And we'll use the same tactics we used against the Communists to fight the Islamists - namely, WAR!

Except, this time, we don't have to worry about being NUKED - so we can just go ahead and KILL PEOPLE FREELY! We might even nuke THEM!

Wallah! Iraq! Afghanistan! Lebanon! And soon, Iran and Syria!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 25, 2007 1:08 AM

piotr and Ed,

Better enjoy that tolerance while you can. It ain't part of the Islamic plan for the world.

Posted by danceswithgoats | October 25, 2007 10:47 AM

piotr, Ed, and anyone else.

You can relax. There is no Islamic plan for the world which will affect you.

Posted by El Cid | October 25, 2007 10:50 AM

um, or maybe Hitchens just hates all religion in general, and the more oppressive elements of religion (as exemplified, in different ways, by most groups on your list, Matt) in particular.

yes, i think i remember hearing something about how much Hitchens hates religion. I think it was in a book he wrote or something.

but nah, you're probably right. he's probably just another one of them genocidal racists.

Posted by wkw | October 25, 2007 11:37 PM

he's probably just another one of them genocidal racists.

No, of course not, he's actually one of those old and dangerous 'revolutionary' types who don't care in the slightest what actual effects their feverishly advocated policies have upon those they claim to be liberating.

Posted by El Cid | October 26, 2007 12:39 AM

Better enjoy that tolerance while you can. It ain't part of the Islamic plan for the world.

I'll try this in small words.

When the Taliban makes their amphibious assault on tolerance I'll have to ventilate them. I'd handicap that at around the same odds of me taking the Boston Marathon next year.

Meanwhile, I have you and your filth hanging around trying to destroy everything noble, honorable, and decent about my country. You exist because of tolerance, because a bunch a bunch of squishy liberals aren't willing to be as much of a dick as you are. You really, really, aren't worth it, and you should thank God for tolerance every day instead of acting like a spoiled five year old who gets off on acting like a evil asshole.

Posted by Ed Marshall | October 26, 2007 1:29 AM