« Higazy | Main | Context: The New Singling Out » Islamofascism23 Oct 2007 10:05 am
It's a little sad that, as a country, we've reached a point where the Center for American Progress feels the need to publish an "Islamofascism Awareness Week" Response Kit, but it led to a funny picture and it's nowhere near as sad as the fact that we live in a country where there's a serious "Islamofascism Awareness Week" campaign under way. Comments (39)
Why are the more Islamofascist-aware among us only putting on this campaign for a week, huh? Why not a month, or a year, or even longer? Don't they know that this is a generational struggle? Was there only a "Nazi Awareness Week" in WWII? Why does David Horowitz hate America? 
But would anyone actually be aware of Islamofascism Awareness Week if folks like CAP (and MY) weren't publicizing it? That's a genuine question on my part, I don't mean it rhetorically. Or merely rhetorically, I guess.
Glad Bede could give us a nice dose of ethnic cleansing this fine day.
How about we have an "AMERICAN-Fascists Awareness Week"?? Start with pointing out that if you want to create a fascist government, you need to make up an external threat. Something like ,oh, "Islamofascists".
Actually, didn't nearly all the 9-11 hijackers enter America on tourist visas?... What we really need to do to protect our beloved America is to OUTLAW TOURISM!!! Tourism---The Greatest Threat to American Freedom!!! North Korea has NO TOURISM and also NO TERRORISM!!! ...Case proven.
I guess if you had fallen asleep in the 1950s and woke up today you'd only have to replace one word to feel at home. People need a power evil enemy to see how great their own country is, otherwise they might start complaining and concentrate on domestic corruption and stuff. That is not specifically American, it's pretty much the same everywhere.
It's not sad. In fact, let's face it, Islamofascist week is funny. It's road rage past its sell point - the kind of YAF thing that only the most sterling and strident will care anything about, but that will be vaguely alienating to most people. Horowitz never does anything that doesn't seem to be a sort of parody, as if he'd decided to embody the sixties underground comix view of your average Nixon supporter. What's superfunny is the fact that he has convinced so many on the right to see his parody of them as the mirror of all things conservative. And the parody has even spawned a parody candidate, Giuliani, who in turn is attracting all the kooks - Hitchens, for instance, just announced that he was leaning towards Giuliani. However, it will be sad if parody conservatism continues to have any power whatsoever in the U.S.
Wow, thanks for the new profile picture. And remember kids, if you share illegal mp3's you're downloading Islamofascism. Girls, if you give it up before marriage you're going steady with Pres. Mahmoud Amnamanabad.
Here's irony: liberals giggle about moral equivalence at the same time this is in the news:
Medal of Honor ceremony at White House "He took his deployment personally. He was going after, and his team was going after, the men who planned, plotted against and attacked not only the United States, but the city he loved, New York," said his father. "He knew what he was fighting for."
Hitchens is exactly right (about Islamofascism): there are still a bunch of people in the world that need to be pursued by our military and killed.
Hitchens is exactly right (about Islamofascism): there are still a bunch of people in the world that need to be pursued by our military and killed. Yes, and unless we view such people in the most retardedly simplistic comic-book terms possible we'll never "win," right Steve? By the way, what's the connection with the Medal Of Honor guy? I totally don't get it.
I think it's an art project. Someone using Burroughs cut-up style on the Weekly Standard. Either way, the medal of honor thing was just jarring. LESS QQ MOAR PEW-PEW STEVE!!!!!
So, are the FrontPageMag stinkoes saying that they are generally against fascism and fascist behavior, or just the "Islamo" part of their equation? If so, they must have some difficulty with Michael Ledeen, the Mussolini fan. I don't think they care about fascism at all, and like Republicans traditionally have admired fascism and fascist movements.
Unless we act as PR agents for the terrorists -- building them up into the Greatest Threat We Have Ever Faced, bigger than the WW2 Axis and the Cold War Soviet Union, and on the verge of turning the whole world into a new caliphate -- the terrorists have won?
How about the fact that fascism is a specific historical movement that has certain qualifying criteria, none of which are present in Al Qaeda? The "call terrorist any bad words we can think of" thing is the most aggravating part of all this. They're not fascists! Why not just call them Stalinists? Quakers? Beatles? Who cares? Words don't have meaning!
Islamofascism is such a joke. But you know what's not a joke? The Christianists. Give them one more SCOTUS nominee and they're going to take away all your birth control pills.
The "call terrorist any bad words we can think of" thing is the most aggravating part of all this. They're not fascists! True, but conservatives are hardly the only ones who have this problem
I like Steve's proxy heroism. The quivering lip, the angry assertion of pride in America, the need to kill to prove it, where have I seen that before? Some dim memory of another time, another place, and a guy saying... "What do I want? I want what they That guy, of course, was one true American hero named Sylvester Stallone, who proved that if America had had the guts, we would have defeated the horrendous communist tyrants and made Vietnam into an English speaking place today! It is still to giggle. And then guffaw. I am hoping that the psycho right follows Islamofascist awareness week with other of their pet causes - miscegenation awareness week, or environazi awareness week. As a freak show, the right gets better and better.
1) Steve misses the major point in the article he cited. That SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy might be alive today if George W Bush was not such an asshole. 2) Murphy's SEAL team was pointed out to the Taliban by a native. If Bush's deep corruption-- his sellout to Big Oil, Big Defense, the Israel Lobby -- had not led him to alienate the Islamic World, then that native might have sheltered the SEALS and told them where the terrorist they were seeking was hiding. One of Murphy's team members , Marcus Luttrell, was sheltered by a village later. 3) It takes deep dishonesty -and hypocrisy -- for George W Bush to honor the very military which he has betrayed. 3700+ men lie dead -- and thousands more are crippled for life in VA hospitals -- because of Bush's unnecessary war in Iraq. A war he pursued by pulling large amounts of support units out of Afghanistan -- as Tommy Franks told Senator Bob Graham. And Bush's idiotic aggression and pandering to some of the USA's worst right-wing religious nuts has the Islamic world wondering if we are worst than Al Qaeda. 4) Bush will be honoring more military heros -- its a cheap propaganda trick done to obscure the deep contempt in which he is held by most Americans. I hope some family tells him to shove his medals up his ass -- because Bush cheapens them. Who appreciates a medal coming from someone who gave the Medal of Freedom to George "Slam Dunk" Tenet 5) Here is what the leaders of a veterans' advocacy organization had to say about that little ceremony in 2004: "Paul Rieckhoff, a former Army lieutenant who served in Iraq and now runs a veterans advocacy organization, said the awards are "a slap in the face to the troops" from "an administration that loves the big PR move. . . . It validates how out of touch Washington is with the reality of what is on the ground in Iraq." See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63623-2004Dec14.html 6) Even Michael O'Hanlon gagged a little on that one: "And Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon, who monitors Iraq, suggested that if the president wanted to honor service in Iraq, he could have selected other people to honor. "I wouldn't expect him to show any wavering" over the decision to go to war, O'Hanlon said of the president, "but I'm troubled by the use of this award in a different way. He could have called attention to the bravery in Iraq, without having to make it about the most controversial figures in the whole operation."
Re "That guy, of course, was one true American hero named Sylvester Stallone, who proved that if America had had the guts, we would have defeated the horrendous communist tyrants and made Vietnam into an English speaking place today!" The right wing are such morons. That's why draft dodger John Wayne is their hero. As is Ronald Reagan --who spent World War II in Hollywood, making propaganda movies.
Campus Progress also has an article up dealing just with the term "Islamofascism": http://campusprogress.org/cribsheets/2065/crib-sheet-islamofascism-debunking-smear-tactic
"I totally don't get it." James don't say 'totally'. Better to use 'completely' or better just "I don't get it". thanks..
KCinDC, re: Unless we act as PR agents for the terrorists, building them up into the Greatest Threat We Have Ever Faced....the terrorists have won? Bingo, you've put the P.R. campaign of "David Horowitz and his allies" (according to the "Terrorism Awarness" website) in a nutshell. It's pretty pitiful, isn't it? You'd think someone youthful among those "allies" would inform Mr. Horowitz of the "don't feed the troll" concept, whether it's a question of fighting their supposed target of "the two Big Lies of the political left"(again from the website,) or whether it's the bigger target of Islamic terrorism. Even WWII propagandists knew enough to ridicule the enemy, not empower him. The CAP kids on the other hand, seem real savvy. Their poster is fabulous; the instructions on the page Yglesias linked to are very smart.
Yeah, I'm probably in more sympathy with what (for some reason) is called "the right" on this issue than most of you, but I agree, "Islamofascism Week" is extremely lame, as is the use of the term generally. If the point is to educate the public that the jihad exists, has specific goals and principles, involves X number of trained fighters, etc. then I could think of a lot more intelligent ways to do that than to dedicate a week to calling them names.
Re Don Williams When he gets through bashing Haim Saben, Mr. Williams sometimes makes some sense. In addition to John Wayne and Ronald Reagan, we should add draft dodgers Richard Cheney and George W. Bush, both of whom dodged the Vietnam War, even though they supported it. At least Mr. Clinton actively opposed the Vietnam War while dodging the draft. Re Bede "We should: (1) completely withdraw from the Middle East;" Mr. Bede lives in a dream world. The US is involved in the Middle East because of our dependence on Middle East oil. As long as that dependence continues, we will remain involved in the Middle East. If Mr. Bede wants to withdraw from the Middle East, he should relate to us how he proposes to wean US dependence away from Middle East oil. The former ain't going to happen until the latter happens. Period, end of story.
The U.S. is not involved in the Middle East just for the oil supplied to the U.S. itself. It is also involved to control the resources and the investment of the sales of those resources, including that which does not flow to the U.S. You can view this as a wartime strategic view or in an imperialist / clientelist view, as both apply in varying measures in different cases.
Don (love thy enemy) Willianms - Steve misses the major point in the article he cited. That SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy might be alive today if George W Bush was not such an asshole. Funny, I thought a force of 100 radical Muslims killed him, not Bush's asshole..In his eagerness to excuse his Muslim freedom fighter brothers, Williams omits that if they were NOT America's enemy, the SEALs would not be there in Afghanistan fighting them.
Given the Taliban were shielding AQ from over 50 warrants the legalistic CLintons tried serving n them in the 90s, and all the AQ plots happened before Bush and the Taliban still sheltered them and worked side-by-side with them AFTER 9/11 - no surprise herders in a Taliban area would finger Americans in a heartbeat....with what Bush did or didn't do with Oil, Defense, non-Jihad, non goat-related matters --utterly irrelevant to their lives Their doom was actually sealed when Murphy and Lutrell voted to spare the 3 civilian Taliban sympathizers they encountered, rather than kill them to protect giving away their position deep in enemy country with no support. Not just them, but Murphy and Luttrell's vote that enemy civilian lives were more valuable than their own also sealed the doom of 12 fellow Navy SEALs and 4 elite AF sent to rescue them who burned alive in a downed rescue helo. (The largest single loss of special ops forces since WWII) While valor got them medals, Luttrell - while grateful a non-Taliban village saved him - said the "vote" he advocated to spare the 3 herders was the dumbest, most unprofessional, "thinking with no brain, but heart", lethal thing he ever did. Bob Kerrey took heat back when he was running for President when Lefties drug up "atrocity" allegations that when Kerrey was a SEAL in Vietnam, he and his men killed old and young civilians that crossed their paths on deep insertion missions. Kerrey explained that any civilian they encountered could be reasonably expected to be VC-sypathizers and while he regretted having to kill civilians, it was for the safety of his men and mission. With 19 dead Spec Ops, you can be pretty sure that the Murphy incident will be reviewed by all Spec Ops and main combat forces - not just for Murphy's heroism once his decisions doomed his men - but what decisions future soldiers may make learning from choices Murphy made, choices others like Bob Kerrey made on similar missions.
How about the fact that fascism is a specific historical movement that has certain qualifying criteria, none of which are present in Al Qaeda? Don't go there Freddie, unless you want to spend a long time arguing with right-wing nutcases pulling factoids out of there behinds and covering up their lack of knowledge with frantic google and wikipedia searches. Trust me, I've been there. It doesn't help that 'fascism' has been used by everybody and their dog to describe the enemy du jour - the left too has a not so stellar history in this regard.
Does this mean a blogofascism awareness campaign is next?
Chris Ford, the atrocity accusations against Kerrey took place long after his run for president had ended and coincided with his decision to leave the senate. None of that came up during his presidential run which, sadly, didn't get as much love as it deserved.
Re Chris Ford's comment "Bob Kerrey took heat back when he was running for President when Lefties drug up "atrocity" allegations that when Kerrey was a SEAL in Vietnam" And even fewer with a need to do so. And they sure as shit aren't "Lefties". It might help if I note that Bob Kerrey was the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of the atrocity stories (April 2001) -- and that he and Republican Porter Goss (Chairman of the House Intel Committee ) didn't see eye to eye on some things. Like, for example, investigation into how a certain major intelligence organization ran a scam on Congress -- getting money to build a huge system. Only to reveal that the money had only covered the cost of collecting the data -- that to actually distribute the data to the users would require much, much more. The allocation of Which, given that COngress had already spent the money to collect the data, was pretty much a foregone conclusion. "Foregone conclusions" , of course, are how the Pentagon likes to negotiate budget discussions with Congress. Chris also evidently doesn't realize that you fight an underground group by divorcing it from support by the population in which it hides. It's easy to capture an Al Qaeda leader when people who recognize him go to a pay phone and make a call. It's a lot harder if the local people don't call because they've concluded that USA officials are probably worst than the Al Qaeda leader.
Re El Cid If the US was totally independent of imported oil from any source, our involvement in the Middle East would be far less then it is. For instance, the invasion of Iraq would never have happened and we wouldn't be talking about attacking Iran. As for the rest of the world, does Mr. El Cid really think we would have this level of involvement in the Middle East to protect Germany or Frances' access to oil?
"...nowhere near as sad as the fact that we live in a country where there's a serious "Islamofascism Awareness Week" campaign under way." Uhh, Matt: you DO know that this is a David Horowitz brainchild, right? How can anyone use "serious" and "David Horowitz" in the same sentence without serious irony overload?
Chris also evidently doesn't realize that you fight an underground group by divorcing it from support by the population in which it hides. It's easy to capture an Al Qaeda leader when people who recognize him go to a pay phone and make a call. It's a lot harder if the local people don't call because they've concluded that USA officials are probably worst than the Al Qaeda leader. A fatuous argument. Like "if we were only nicer to the German people in WWII, then they would have turned the Nazis in!!" You don't change tribal loyalties the Taliban and AQ were careful to marry into, a shared austere religion - by arguing that after 9/11 we should have gone into Waziristan giving out candy to kids and goats to villagers and thanking them for shooting at us from ambush - they'd eventually stop shooting at us if we didn't shoot back and continued to ladle out the free goats and candy. Not a chance. Why? They are enemy civilians with an honor code that demands deep loyalty to tribe, religion, and guests, especially those who do Islamic butchery in their name and who marry tribal chieftan's daughters. The main reason why the 25-27 million reward for Binnie has been a joke for 6 years - honor prevents betrayal. Perhaps though, Don Williams, you are susceptable. If some AQ guy came by and handed you money and treated you real nice - nicer maybe than you think other Americans do - maybe you would agree to help him. Of course, I know you support the troops and I would never dare to question your Patriotism.
Islamic fascism is as real as Italian fascism used to be. It's worthwhile to spend some time being 'aware' of it. To be fair, we should spend another week focusing our minds on peaceful, friendly Muslims, but that's boring.
Um, no, JFred, just because you read about something on a weblog doesn't make it so. Italian fascism was, you see, real, with bad guys in uniforms slaughtering tens of thousands of people in Cyrenaica and Ethiopia, and a crazy guy called Mussolini standing on a balcony in the Piazza Venezia saying that this was great and how one-party states were really cool. Islamic fascism is, um, where, what, who, when, which?
And yet nobody cares about the Islamo-Whigs.
Well, or the Islamo-Bull Moose Party. No awareness at all. Thanks a lot, liberal media!
Muslims Against Sharia congratulate David Horowitz FREEDOM CENTER and Mike Adams, Tammy Bruce, Phyllis Chesler, Ann Coulter, Nonie Darwish, Greg Davis, Stephen Gale, David Horowitz, Joe Kaufman, Michael Ledeen, Michael Medved, Alan Nathan, Cyrus Nowrasteh, Daphne Patai, Daniel Pipes, Dennis Prager, Luana Saghieh, Rick Santorum, Jonathan Schanzer, Christina Sommers, Robert Spencer, Brian Sussman, Ed Turzanski, Ibn Warraq and other speakers on the success of the Islamofascism Awareness Week. Islamofascism (or Islamism) is the main threat facing modern civilization and ignorance about this threat is astounding. We hope that this event becomes regular and reaches every campus. A great many Westerners do not see the clear distinction between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism). They need to understand that the difference between Islam and Islamism (Islamofascism) is the same as the difference between Christianity and Christian Identity Movement (White Supremacy Movement).
Comments closed November 06, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
Israel Lobby v. Muslims: The Middle Ground
Terrorism is an immigration problem, not a foreign-policy problem.
After reading some recent debates on the Israel Lobby, it made me realize that many people have set up a false dichotomy where one must either be pro-Israel or pro-Muslim; there is no middle ground. There is, however, that large grey area, where one can be skeptical of both, which is probably the most tenable position.
The problem with neocons is that by making “Islamofascism” a “World War,” they have skewed what is truly in the American interest (and probably in Israel’s interest too). The Wilsonian transformation of the Middle East to liberal democracy is revolutionary, not conservative. The very notion of “regime change” comes from the pages of Marxist annals, not Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk. Furthermore, there is the question whether we have any business in the Middle East at all. We do not. Less than 15% of our oil comes from the Middle East, and with alternative sources in Canada and South America, this percentage will likely decline. Even oil men, like James Baker, were skeptical of the war. And on principle, perhaps the most important point of all, we should not be intervening in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries.
Paleolibertarians like Justin Raimondo have rightly criticized the lack of conservative credentials of the neocons, exposing them for the globalist rogues that they truly are. However, in their vehement opposition to the Israel Lobby, many paleolibertarians have become apologists for Islam, in fact denying that there is any Muslim threat at all to the West. Many of them seem to have fallen into this trap that by opposing the Israel lobby, one must deny the Muslim threat.
At this point, a skeptical reader might be upset that I already have used the phrase “Israel lobby” numerous times. Think what you will, but John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt, despite the protestations of Abe “I hate Christians” Foxman, have overwhelmingly demonstrated the influence of the Israel lobby, a fact that patriotic Americans have known all along. Without the involvement of the Israel lobby, and our subsequent alliance to Israel, we most certainly would not be in involved in this lost cause in Iraq.
That being said, many of the writers at Chronicles have taken the most sensible view, that of the grey area. Americans should be outraged at the influence of the Israel Lobby, and how it has worked against the American interest, but at the same time we should not underestimate the Muslim threat - especially here in the U.S. or Europe. One only needs to walk around parts of London, Paris or Hamburg to see that this threat is real. And although the U.S. may not be a part of Europe, if Europe falls, the West is doomed.
The Muslim threat is not in the Middle East. And it is not a foreign policy problem; it is an immigration problem. Through a more sound immigration policy, Sept. 11 would not have occurred. The real problem not only for the U.S. but also for Europe, is third-world immigration. (And patriotic Americans should be most alarmed that fifth-columnist neocons like Bill Kristol think that the U.S. should spend billions to secure the borders of Israel and Iraq, while simultaneously supporting the open-borders, third-world invasion of the U.S.)
It is thus most sensible, I think, that we pursue a policy of disengagement of from the Muslim world (which is not an original idea, but a very sound one). If we truly want to end the terrorist threat here at home (as we have no business ending it in the Middle East), we should completely disengage ourselves from the Muslim world:
We should: (1) completely withdraw from the Middle East; (2) end all immigration from the Third World; (3) encourage the deportation of all Muslims from the West; and (4) end foreign aid to all Middle Eastern countries, including Israel.
http://conservativetimes.org/?p=1201
Posted by Bede | October 23, 2007 10:15 AM