Washington Times: It's fascism Contributed by Bill Faith
On Thursday, President Bush said this week's foiled plot to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic is part of a "war with Islamic fascists." Immediately, Muslim activists condemned the president's use of the phrase, with one group declaring it "counterproductive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism." As the newspaper that first put a variant of this term into public circulation in the United States, we'd simply say this: The Muslims who tried to blow up these airplanes are in fact fascists. This might be worrisome to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose raison d'etre is raising the specter of anti-Muslim backlash. But that doesn't make it untrue.
Fascism is a chauvinistic political philosophy that exalts a group over the individual -- usually a race or nation, but in this case the adherents of a religion. Fascism also espouses centralized autocratic rule by that group in suppression of others. It usually advocates severe economic and social regimentation and the total or near-total subordination of the individual to the political leadership. This accurately describes the philosophies of Hitler, Mussolini, the leaders of Imperial Japan and other fascistic regimes through history. It also describes Thursday's terrorists.
[.]
Contributed by Bill Faith on August 13, 2006 at 03:46 AM in , |