[NYTr] Compelling Answer to Neo-cons Dismisses "Islamo-Fascism"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

LobeLog - Nov 14, 2007
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/


A Compelling Answer to Horowitz, Podhoretz, Gaffney, etc.

by Jim Lobe (IPS)

A particularly cogent and concise answer to David Horowitz’s
“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” as well as the fulminations of other
neo-conservatives, such as Frank Gaffney and Norman Podhoretz, partial
to the phrase, appears in Wednesday’s edition of the far-right
Washington Times in the form of an op-ed by Harlan Ullman, one the
Times’ token “realists.” Entitled “A Bad Name and a Worse Idea:
‘Islamo-fascism’ is offensive and flawed,” the article points out the
many tactical and strategic downsides to the use of the expression in
connection to the “global war on terrror” (GWOT). “It is clear that the
neo-conservative advocates of Islamo-fascism wanted to link radical
Islam with the Nazis and Hitlerian (though not Italian or Japanese)
fascism and of course the image of a latter-0day nuclear or biological
holocaust,” writes Ullman, adding that not only is the analogy false,
but, “any smart strategy [to deal with the threat posed by radical
Islam] must be based …on dividing and conquering rather than lumping
all the villains as Islamo-fascists.”

While that point is not original, Ullman notes other disastrous
consequences of linking radical Islam under whatever guise to Nazism,
including the use of torture (although the U.S. didn’t subject even
members of the SS, he points out, to the kind of abusive conduct
associated with Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay.

My favorite example of lumping all the villains together is found in
Richard Perle’s and David Frum’s 2004 screed, An End to Evil. Although
they didn’t use the word “Islamo-Fascism,” the way they wrote about the
the Arab world in general (and Iran, of course) offers an excellent
illustration of the neo-conservative mindset that Ullman complains
about.  “Religious extremists and secular militants; Sunnis and
Shiites; communists and fascists — in the Middle East, these categories
blend into one another. All gush from the same enormous reservoir of
combustible rage. And all have the same target: the United States.”
It’s that kind of conceptual precision that’s sure to win hearts and
minds.

                         ***

The Washington Times - Nov 14, 2007
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071114/EDITORIAL09/111140012/1013

A bad name and a worse idea

by Harlan Ullman

Despite valiant efforts by past Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to
exorcise the phrase "global war on terror" (known as GWOT) from the
political lexicon, not only did he fail: Alongside it, an even worse
name has arisen from the neoconservative vocabulary to describe the
erstwhile enemy. The name is "Islamo-fascism," which manages to be both
truly offensive and based on a profoundly flawed idea.

Having lost the fight over GWOT — despite the reality that we are not
really a nation at war and terror is a thing not an entity or enemy —
perhaps reason can prevail in this instance. Before laying out why we
should eliminate the use of this name and idea, consider a few other
equally nasty applications. Why not Christo-fascism, Judeo-fascism,
Mormon-fascism and even Buddha-fascism to apply to faith-based
radicalism? The answer is because it is absurd.

Language today has been "dumbed" down and in many ways has become more
uncivil embodied by the worst forms of rap music. This coarseness of
language has carried over to how politics are conducted and when the
four "G's" — "guns, gays, God and gestation periods" — may ultimately
be responsible for choosing, or weeding out, candidates to be the next
president for both parties. At a time when the nation faces dire
dangers and impossibly difficult tests at home and abroad, and
government is broken, a higher level of discourse seems essential.
Three reasons make the case against use of Islamo-fascism.

First, Islamo-fascism mischaracterizes and distorts understanding of
the adversaries we face. Second, to a large slice of the globe's 1.3
billion Muslims, the term is highly offensive and contributes to
further backlash against U.S. policy. Third, the term implies that any
means to gain the ends of destroying this enemy are warranted,
reinforcing use of the most drastic tactics in this fight — including
torture.

It is clear that the neoconservative advocates of Islamo-fascism wanted
to link radical Islam with the Nazis and Hitlerian (though not Italian
or Japanese) fascism and of course the image of a latter-day nuclear or
biological holocaust. Fortunately, our adversaries are not Hitler. And
unlike the Nazis, these extremists lack a central, unifying ideology,
come from many diverse movements and so far have not been inclined to
develop a political theory for seizing political power.

There are many varieties of Islamic extremism — Wahhabis, Salafists,
Taliban and other sects of mostly Sunni, although with some Shi'ite
elements. Al Qaeda is a subset and while some may consider us at war
with Osama bin Laden, we are surely not at war with Saudi Wahhabis who
are fundamentalist in outlook without necessarily being dangerously
radicalized. Hence, any smart strategy must be based on this
understanding and on dividing and conquering rather than lumping all
the villains together as Islamo-fascists. Second, American policy has
taken a lambasting under this particular president, sparked in large
measure by the invasion and occupation of Iraq and what the Arab and
Muslim worlds see as a policy of unilateral and unconditional support
of Israel, despite President Bush's public embrace of a two-state
solution for Palestine and Israel. Islamo-fascism serves to rile up
added anger against the United States, applied as it is so
promiscuously.

Finally, to many Americans and Europeans, Hitler was unbridled evil
whose concentration camps and extermination policies against non-Aryans
were the most obscene crimes against humanity. While we did not torture
captured German prisoners, even the dreaded SS and villainous storm
troopers, and treated them under the Geneva Conventions for lawful
combatants, we do not extend that privilege to suspected and
apprehended terrorists. Although this administration assures the nation
and the world that America does not use torture, there is no question
we did and some question what sorts of interrogation methods are in
place today. Labeling the enemy as a terrorist and Islamo-fascist to
boot gives rise to the legitimacy and even the necessity for using
extreme methods in gaining intelligence from these detainees regardless
of the law, the court of world opinion even with its limited impact and
the values on which this nation has rested for over the past 231 years.
With Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay very much unforgotten, the use of
Islamo-fascism is more than an irritant doing damage to America's
reputation and perception abroad.

As he has stuck by the term GWOT, the president probably will not
abandon use of Islamo-fascism in characterizing the enemy. After all,
he is a man famous for staying the course. However, if this nation is
really serious in obtaining successful outcomes in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Iran and against the truly radicalized and dangerous elements of
Islam, we must realize that names and ideas count. This one is both a
bad name and a worse idea.