Why Are We Suddenly At War With "Islamic Fascists"?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

by John W. Dean

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0908-23.htm

The latest orchestrated war-speak from Bush Administration officials, as they ramp up their oratory for the mid-term election, has recast Islamic militants and terrorists as "Islamic fascists." Thus, as we approach the five-year mark since terrorists attacked Americans on our own soil, the Administration is redefining the enemy - once again.

We have gone from the non sequitur of the "war on terrorism" (A war on "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce for political purposes"?) to the neologism of the "war on Islamic fascists." Or, depending on the speaker, on "Islamofascism." Why the new rhetoric?

The answer is simple: Pure politics. Republicans, for good reason, are worried about losing control of Congress. (For less than rational reasons, many Americans believe Republicans are more effective than Democrats in fighting terrorists.) Should Republicans lose control of Congress, or either chamber, of course, it will mean the effective end of the Bush/Cheney presidency -- with the remaining two years of the presidency likely to be consumed by investigations into the activities of the prior six.

For these reasons, the Administration needs to create a more fearsome enemy. That new enemy is Islamofascists - whoever these people may be, they sound more frightening and important than the previously-named enemy. The Administration is aware that Americans are not sufficiently afraid, and that clear thinking will be its demise...

[bhikkhu]

1. ramping up the fear, timed to peak in November

[cornermouse]

2. Because the PR department told them that this approach would "sell".

[Briar]

3. Because

the last "good war" we fought was against fascism, because that war has been constantly refought, sanitised and mythologised in our mass media, and so can be used to "frame" our current illegal and immoral wars in terms which automatically appeal to the unthinking part of the elctorate.

[thecrow]

4. PLUS: It takes the word "fascism" out of the Dems hands

You know.. fascists... the thing we have been
calling them for years.

They did the same thing by comparing OBL and his ilk to Hitler and the Nazis.

They are just taking these words and molding them to their own debate.

[many a good man]

5. October surprise: Al Qaeda invades Poland!

Sir Winston Bushchill told us not to forget about Poland! GHWB arranged the financing!

[teryang]

6. Islamic or Republican Fascists?

Islamic Or Republican Fascism?
by Thom Hartmann

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0828-23.htm

While the Republicans promote the term "Islamo-fascism," the rest of the world is pushing back, as the BBC noted in an article by Richard Allen Greene ("Bush's Language Angers US Muslims" - 12 August 2006):

"Security expert Daniel Benjamin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies agreed that the term was meaningless.
"'There is no sense in which jihadists embrace fascist ideology as it was developed by Mussolini or anyone else who was associated with the term,' he said. 'This is an epithet, a way of arousing strong emotion and tarnishing one's opponent, but it doesn't tell us anything about the content of their beliefs.'"

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation...


In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added:

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

"American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."