ARHGGHHKK. . . choking on my own rage. . .
By First, read this post.
Now, tell me what an Islamo-fascist is.
I’m waiting.
I don’t have all day. . .
Actually, that wasn’t true. I do have all day. . .
Heads up. There is no such critter. Back in the Cold War, we could point to someone and say “That is a communist.” The target of our pointing might well agree with this designation. Back in World War II, we could point to someone and say “That is a Nazi.” Again, some Nazis might proudly accept the identification.
Who are we at war with now? Well, if you listen to Don Sensing or Michael Ledeen or even Christopher Hitchens, we’re at war with the Islamo-fascists. Guess what? We cannot win a war against a creature that does not exist.
There are several movements in Islam that oppose the United States for a variety of reasons. Saddam Hussein was a secular Baathist. Iran is a Shiite theocracy. Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban were revolutionaries. Placing all of these eggs in the same basket is roughly akin to suggesting that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were the same sort of critter in 1941. Sure, they look kind of alike, and they do kill lots of their own people, but they really seem to hate each other. . .
This has an impact beyond rhetoric. Britain and France tried to treat the USSR and Nazi Germany as identical in 1940, and almost ended up at war with both. Later, the British came to the understanding that both were awful, but that the Soviet Union was fundamentally less threatening and easier to work with. This is why we won World War II; because the Red Army destroyed the Wehrmacht. Now, conservative commentators (and Christopher Hitchens, although I’ll let you decide whether the addition is necessary) seem to want to unite our enemies against us by painting all of them with the same brush.
It was a wise thing for Churchill and Roosevelt to cultivate ties with the Soviet Union in 1941. It allowed us to defeat Germany. It was a wise thing for Nixon to cultivate ties with China in 1971. It helped further fracture the Soviet camp. It is desperately unwise to treat all the various factions of Islam the same; even those factions that oppose us have different goals and strategies. The United States won World War II and the Cold War by exploting differences in the enemy camp. Now, we seem to be trying to make sure that there are no such differences.