newprotest.org: ISLAMOFASCISM

ISLAMOFASCISM

August 28, 2006
by: jovial_cynic
The War on Terror? No, no - that's so pre-August, 2006. After the thwarted attempts to blow up airplanes again with liquid explosives, we're no longer fighting against Terror.

According to Bush, the attempted bomb-plot is "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." I guess I needed reminding, because I thought we were still fighting against... you know, Terror.

Our new war, apparently, clumps together all sorts of folks from the Middle East. Iran, Syria, Palestinians, Lebanese... and don't forget Iraq. Iraq, in which the leader was democratically elected and ran the country via secular rule. Doesn't sound very Islamic to me... perhaps the Bush Administration doesn't know the difference between Persians and Arabs, and between Shi`ites and Sunnis. I guess the Administration wants us to clump everybody together.

Katha Pollitt's article, reprinted on AlterNet states:

"Islamo-fascism" conflates a wide variety of disparate states, movements and organizations as if, like the fascists, they all want similar things and are working together to achieve them. Neocons have called Saddam Hussein and the Baathists of Syria Islamo-fascists, but these relatively secular nationalist tyrants have nothing in common with shadowy, stateless, fundamentalist Al Qaeda -- as even Bush now acknowledges -- or with the Taliban, who want to return Afghanistan to the seventh century; and the Taliban aren't much like Iran...

It's a good thing Saudia Arabia isn't among the Islamofascists, being that they're a US ally and all.

It was under the actually existing US-supported government that female students were forced back into their burning school rather than be allowed to escape unveiled. Under that government people are lashed and beheaded, women can't vote or drive, non-Muslim worship is forbidden, a religious dress code is enforced by the state through violence and Wahhabism -- the "Islamo-fascist" denomination--is exported around the globe.

But nevermind all that. We're at war.
np category: politics
tags:

COMMENTS for ISLAMOFASCISM


Mark Glesne said:
The war on terror is also the war on Islamofacism.

Additional term, same war.

August 29, 2006


jovial_cynic said:
Saddam ruled the country under nationalism and secularism, not under Islam. So that couldn't have been Islamofascism. Now, in Iraq, we have the Sunnis and the Shi`ites, both of which are strongly Islamic. Are both examples of Islamofascism against which the US is fighting? And what happens when the Sunni nations form a political alliance with Israel against Shia Muslims in Iran? Do the fiercly hate-the-west fundamentalist Islamic Sunnis suddenly join the ranks of the fiercly hate-the-west fundamantalist Islamic folks in Saudi Arabia as US allies?

This is all rather weird, don't you think?

August 29, 2006


jovial_cynic said:
and... source.
August 29, 2006


betmo said:
i find it amusing that the current government of the right not only has taken to calling the arab folks 'islamofascists' and the democrats just plain 'fascists'- but that they are doing so after folks on the internet started calling their policies fascist. if you look at the definition, i think you'll see the real story.
August 30, 2006


jovial_cynic said:
And here's the definition of fascist, via American Heritage Dictionary:

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Yup.

August 31, 2006


add comments. you are limited to 5,000 characters:

<< your name
<< your email (won't be displayed)
<< your website / location
<< type these numbers: 556096 (plus 0NE)

(html -enabled- / no scripts)

<< Comments temporarily disabled >>

Rules: Don't spam. Don't harrass. Don't be a jerk. Your IP address (54.163.195.125) will be logged.