Islamic Fascists or Communists?
In a press conference on 11/15/05 Defense Scretary Donald Rumsfeld decided to name Islamic Jihadists as "Islamo-fascists" yet President George Bush in his recent Veterans Day speech called them "Islamo-communists."
Words mean something. Except to these guys. They will say anything to try to get Americans to believe them, even when their words are contrary to each other. To people that understand words, fascist and communist are the exact opposite on the political line, communist to the extreme left, fascist to the extreme right. The use of these terms is purposeful because the average person immediately thinks of communism as to Stalin and Fascism as to Hitler.
Communism and fascism had things in common though. They both were essentially dictatorships of large government bodies. And they used fear to rule over the people of their nations. They both were essentially Godless as well.
How different to Jihadists they are. Jihadists don't run nations or governments, thus can't rule with fear over peoples of nations. Also it's not a dictatorship, although they do have leaders at the top like any organization does. And certainly belief in God has much to do with their thinking.
The fact is that the Bush crowd doesn't want to use the word Jihadist as a stand alone word. Why? Because they think of their words as being heard all over the world, including the Muslim world. Jihadist to the Islam world is not usually thought of as "evil." That word means taking a stand against invasion, in one sense. So the Bushies tack on words they perceive as sounding "evil" such as communist or fascist.
But one wonders if the Muslim world might take some offense at this evil-ization of the word Islam even for moderate Muslims. Consider if some Islamic moderate leader decided to characterize American far-right Christian fundementalist as "Christo-fascists" or "Christo-communists." I would imagine that even Americans that are not fundementalists might take some offense at this evil characterization.
So now I will contradict my earlier statement. Words do mean something to the Bushies. They use them in anyway they want even to the point of redefining them. President Bush's speech was a written speech, so his use of the term Islamo-communists was calculated by someone in the White House. To the Bush Administration this is "tough talk" or "fightin' words."
In conclusion, I'd be interested in why the Bush Administration can't even decide whether Jihadists are communists or fascists. And further I'd be interested in hearing them explain in detail why they've added those two words and then explain what the comparison are to actual communism or fascism regimes of the past and Jihadists of today.
Words mean something. Except to these guys. They will say anything to try to get Americans to believe them, even when their words are contrary to each other. To people that understand words, fascist and communist are the exact opposite on the political line, communist to the extreme left, fascist to the extreme right. The use of these terms is purposeful because the average person immediately thinks of communism as to Stalin and Fascism as to Hitler.
Communism and fascism had things in common though. They both were essentially dictatorships of large government bodies. And they used fear to rule over the people of their nations. They both were essentially Godless as well.
How different to Jihadists they are. Jihadists don't run nations or governments, thus can't rule with fear over peoples of nations. Also it's not a dictatorship, although they do have leaders at the top like any organization does. And certainly belief in God has much to do with their thinking.
The fact is that the Bush crowd doesn't want to use the word Jihadist as a stand alone word. Why? Because they think of their words as being heard all over the world, including the Muslim world. Jihadist to the Islam world is not usually thought of as "evil." That word means taking a stand against invasion, in one sense. So the Bushies tack on words they perceive as sounding "evil" such as communist or fascist.
But one wonders if the Muslim world might take some offense at this evil-ization of the word Islam even for moderate Muslims. Consider if some Islamic moderate leader decided to characterize American far-right Christian fundementalist as "Christo-fascists" or "Christo-communists." I would imagine that even Americans that are not fundementalists might take some offense at this evil characterization.
So now I will contradict my earlier statement. Words do mean something to the Bushies. They use them in anyway they want even to the point of redefining them. President Bush's speech was a written speech, so his use of the term Islamo-communists was calculated by someone in the White House. To the Bush Administration this is "tough talk" or "fightin' words."
In conclusion, I'd be interested in why the Bush Administration can't even decide whether Jihadists are communists or fascists. And further I'd be interested in hearing them explain in detail why they've added those two words and then explain what the comparison are to actual communism or fascism regimes of the past and Jihadists of today.
posted by jon at 4:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home