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Sep 8th, 2006, 03:58 AM
That editorial was pretty stupid.
Why go through all that trouble to defend the use of a politically expedient buzzword that was deployed only to assuage criticism that the "war on terror" actually has a focus on something other than a general methodology, particularly when that word serves only to obfuscate the true nature of political Islam? Why use a word that holds a specific historicity in ancient Rome and later as an influential idea in 20th century Europe when the apparent links between these two movements are the result of wholly different historical situations? (for example, strict interpretation of the Koran and subsequent implementation of such in government can be traced to the emergence of the wahabbist movement which, like the protestant reformation of europe, dispensed with the more mystical aspects of religious practice and emphasized more practical, concrete applications of scripture.)
Talking about Islamic fascism is even less productive than talking about "Nazi fascism"; at least in the latter case the suffix possibly aids in small part an understanding of Nazism as such by placing it within an intellectual and political era influenced in part by fascists.
The whole thing also plays into a tendency among many people to equate any current threat with that of 1940's Europe, a problem which made war inevitable.
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