1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3.) Identification of Enemies as a Unifying Cause
4.) Supremacy of the Military
5.) Rampant Sexism
6.) Controlled Mass Media
7.) Obsession with National Security
8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined
9.) Corporate Power is Protected
10.) Labor Power is Suppressed
11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14.) Fraudulent Elections
You are more correct than I am. However, a considerable number of Arab’s flooded into the training camps in the late 90’s and ultimately, with Bin Laden, changed the direction of the movement. I was remembering this mostly.
“In the past year, facing drought, military problems, a lack of international recognition, and sanctions, Omar has become increasingly isolated, and influenced by Arabs such as Ayman Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden’s No. 2. Omar’s rhetoric used to focus on rebuilding Afghanistan, and even on censuring Mr. bin Ladin. During the past year, his public statements have taken on a pan-Islamic tone found more among militant Islamists from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.”
Just one of many things found on Google.
I understand your point and basically it’s correct to a point, but then there was a shift.
I know this is a hijack but I have to call this is simply untrue…
Everytime the US has gone to war since Pearl Harbour they have done so with the knowledge that their enemies WOULD NOT treat captured US troops acordance the the Genava Convention (ask John McCain if you don’t beleive me). Yet the US military has always been proud of obeying the Rules of War with regard to captured combatants. I know there have been abberations in the heat of battle, but it HAS never been the policy of the U.S. government to disregard the Geneva Convention at any time in the past.
Which has nothing to do with whether or not captured terrorism suspects should be treated as POWs. They shouldn’t-- they’re criminal suspects. **Kanicbird **was responding to someone who played the POW card.
Puh-leeze. Some of the things on that list have nothing to do with fascism and most of the others aren’t unique to fascism. Fascism needn’t have anything to do with reilgion, and the bit about “sexism” is laughable. IIRC, someone started a thread a few years ago with that list, and it was thoroughly debunked. Once the hamsters wake up I’ll do a search and see if I can find it. I’m assuming you weren’t the one who started that thread. Were you…?
Eh. I prefer “jihadist.” Or Keppel’s “salafist-jihadists” perhaps. But just plain jihadist works well enough for me in context and avoids the historical baggage of the term fascism. Khomeinian Iran and the Taliban’s Afghanistan are best and most simply described as theocracies, not as fascist states, the one to me contradicting the other despite the superficial similarities. And as Sam correctly noted, while all jihadists are Islamists, not all ( or even most ) Islamists are jihadists.
In general I guess I agree with tomndeb and griffin on this one. Whether it is my own personal blinders or not, I find the broader definitions of fascism too wishy-washy stripped of its historical context. “Islamo-fascist” to me sounds sloppy and potentially obfuscatory.
I wouldn’t get too worked up about it, though. Semantics. And al-Qaeda by any other name would smell just as bad.
I do not think that Bush deliberately chose a substitute for Fundamentalist. I figure his speech-writer(s) simply fed him some neo-con boilerplate that was intended to drag up bad associations from the middle of the 20th century–just in case we forgot we were fighting the bad guys.
However, I suspect that moving away from calling them “Islamic Fundamentalists” is recognized by the PR handlers as a generally good thing, given that I have heard several Right-wing preachers fume about the “misattribution” of the word fundamentalism to various muslims. The Religious Right may currently self-identify as Evangelical, but they are aware that “Fundamentalist” was orginally their term and they do not like to see it associated with other groups (for obvious reasons).
And Islamo-fascist or Islamic Fascist is not a “better descriptor” than Islamist. It is longer to say or write and it is inaccurate. If we need to use more syllables, then identifying them with people who have decided to take a rigorously over-literal approach to employing scripture in the pronouncements of their religion under the pressure of modern forces of change is a more accurate term than one that aligns them with a political movement with which they have almost nothing in common.
I said better dscriptor than Islamic fundametalist, which is not only inaccurate, but inflammatory. “Islamist” is, of course, the correct term, but I wonder if many Americans know that that word means something different from “Islamic Fundamentalist”.
I’ve seen that list of fascist qualities thrown around a bit in my lifetime of reading and research. I don’t know what that list is supposed to describe, but besides the rampant sexism we in the US do wear that suit pretty well. Maybe it’s not classic fascisim, but we’re rapidly becoming something, and that something is a bit distasteful. History may well bear forth a new label for this point in US history…and it won’t be remembered as a high point for us.
I wonder if educated Arabs (descended from Ishmael) realize that God (the One in the Bible) promised all the land from the Mediteranean to the Euphrates (roughly) to the descendants of Issac? This could cause a great deal of sibling rivalry.
You mean there is more than one God? How can that possibly be? The idea blows my little mind. But we both digress.
Yep, lots of fascist-feel in this region. Strong leaders, no real elections, very very powerful pressures to conform. Someday get me off on a rant about what ‘freedom’ means in an Islamic sense. You wouldn’t recognize it.
As a thought experiment imagine idealized ‘good’ communism. Got the image? Noble workers who produce stuff just because they want to and who distribute their products to their brothers while singing the Coke Song. Got it?
Now do the same thing for the idealized ‘good’ Fascist state. A strong ruler who loves and looks after his people. He controls the economy, not for the sake of profit, or for efficiency, but for the good of the people. Communities who live in harmony, free of the confusion caused by people who practice different-ness. One people, united in race, religion, political belief and perhaps shoe size. A respect for traditional values, protection against outside concepts.
A rather idealized description of a lot of Arab regimes. However those middle eastern regimes are NOT the same thing as Al Qiada. Deposing those regimes is the main target of Al Qiada.
But that was a little to flppant. I would point out that UBL dislikes the current crop of leaders because they are not sufficiently fascistic. So that would make Saddam Hitler and UBL as Himmler.
Its more the gesture than the definition. Its kind of like insisting on “homicide bombers” in preference to “suicide bombers”, or “freedom fries”. Nothing is really altered. It only seeks to add an extra dash of antagonism and a self righteous frisson. After all, if our enemy is evil we must necessarily be virtuous, no?
“Facistic” is nothing to do with it, its their closness to america and lack of (as UBL sees it) piety he’s not happy about. He’s actually quite happy to critize them for being overly repressive (against his followers of course).
No, although no expert on Arabic culture, I am a close observer of it. It does have the flavor of Fascism about it. Perhaps I am making the case poorly, but Islamic societies value tradition and distrust innovation. They prize the strong leader and distrust the mass of the people. They value the group over the individual.