October 17, 2007

Denying Reality

The Holocaust happened, yet even today there are Holocaust Deniers. The Soviet Union stood for decades implacably committed to the defeat of the West and the conquest of the world to Soviet-style communism, and for decades it made military advances. Some denied the threat existed. Others were useful idiots whose naivete or complicity helped the enemy.

Islamofascism, likewise, exists, and has declared its intent - and begun making moves - to establish a global 13th-Century-style Islamic caliphate based on sharia law. It is absolutely bent on destroying the state of Israel. And yet there are those who deny that there is any such thing as an Islamofascist threat.

The writer of the piece at Lean Left makes a huge mistake, though, in generalizing that "Islamofascism" is really just "hatred of brown-skinned non-Christians" by politically right-wing Christians.

On the contrary. Those of us who believe Islamofascism exists and is a real threat supported the liberation of some 25 million Afghanis from its grip - the Taliban were manifestly both radically Islamic and fascist - and also supported the liberation of some 50 million Iraqis and the continued military efforts to keep them free of domination by al Qaeda in Iraq, which also is manifestly both radically Islamic and fascist.

While the writer at Lean Left portrays "Islamofascism" as a "meme cooked up by right-wingers" - and primarily right-wing Christians who hate Muslims - you will find significant support in the Christian Right in America for U.S. efforts over the years to protect the Iraqi Kurds - who are Muslims.

9/11 makes it obvious there is an Islamofascist threat. It is silly to argue otherwise. It is also silly to play math games, as Lean Left does, and claim that even with the 9/11 attack factored in that Islamic-based terrorism doesn't kill many Americans.

Does the writer at Lean Left really think that, had we not responded to the 9/11 attack, it would have been a one-off deal? That al Qaeda would not have launched a next attack, and a next attack, and a next?

Lean Left says, "The likelihood of any given American being harmed by a terrorist attack, in terms of historical trends, is vastly smaller than the risk of many perfectly ordinary harmful events that we take for granted. Even taking 9/11 into account, terrorism is at the bottom of any list of significant harms to US citizens."

Let's consider that logic for a moment and apply it to another historical event, 60 years earlier, about which the Lean Left blogger might have written:

"The likelihood of any given American being harmed by a Japanese attack, in terms of historical trends, is vastly smaller than the risk of many perfectly ordinary harmful events that we take for granted. Even taking Dec. 7, 1941, into account, the Japanese military is at the bottom of any list of significant harms to US citizens."

Likewise, the September 11 attack was not an outlier - rather, it was a sudden increase in the pace of killing of we "infidels" by the Islamofacists. That it has not continued is because we chose to fight back, militarily and with enhanced intel and law enforcement efforts.

To be sure, we can debate the exact extent of the threat from radical Islam and the proper response to it. We can even debate whether the threat is truly "fascist" or merely some other form of oppressive tyranny. Does it really matter if the enemy are "Islamofacists" or "Islamonazies" or "Islamocommies" if the end result of them winning is we're dead or forced to live under sharia law?

No. But we have to call the threat something - if only to make clear that the threat isn't from all followers of Islam, merely from a radical, tyrannical subset group within the Islamic world.

Lean Left would prefer to portray right-wingers who talk about Islamofascism as just bigoted against brown-skinned non-Christians because it makes it easier to attack right-wingers and Christians rather than talk about the true nature, goals and capabilities of our enemy. But the charge is both absurd and, to tell the truth, offensive in the extreme.

P.S. Oct. 22-26 is Islamofascism Awareness Week on college campuses across America.