Who are we fighting, again?

Bush made some more headlines last Thursday when speaking about the recently foiled terror plot out of the UK. I was going to post something about it right away, but I decided to wait until it got debated in the blogosphere a little and see what kind of international response might be. Anyway, in case you missed it:

"The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

Mussolini must be turning in his grave. The Italians were the origional Fascists, after all. Those within the party actually considered themselves fascists, and proudly referred to themselves as such. Of course, the Italian Fascist movement ended, and today the term is used as an epithet more than any other connotation. So it would be expected that there would be some questions about Bush's choice of words, especially in light of his connection with Islam. Sure enough, my wait for some international response ended when the Saudi government released a statement :

The Saudi government "called on everyone to realize that terrorism has no religion or nationality", said a cabinet statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

It "warned against hurling charges of terrorism and fascism at Muslims without regard to the spotless history of Islamic civilization", the statement said.

"What Islam is being accused of today, like fascism, is primarily a Western cultural product," it added, calling for close international cooperation to combat terrorism.

That statement didn't address Bush specifically, although it would be implied due to the timing. I suppose we could debate the 'spotless history' part, but it is obvious that there was some offence taken to the connection of Islam to fascism. The Jordanians, on the other hand, didn't beat around the Bush (pardon the pun):

'BUSH'S FREQUENT STATEMENTS AGAINST MUSLIMS CLARIFY THE FACT THAT HE IS SUFFERING FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEX AGAINST MUSLIMS. HE HAS BEEN ADOPTING THE ZIONIST OPTIONS WHICH HAVE THE UPPER HAND ON HIS ADMINISTRATION AND DECISION-MAKERS AS IT HAS BECOME VERY CLEAR FROM THE STANDS OF THE US ADMINISTRATION IN LEBANON, IRAQ, PALESTINE AND AFGHANISTAN AND OTHER PLACES'.

Sorry about the CAPS, but that's the way the news was reported. Anyway, those people apparently don't agree with Bush on this one. There were negative reactions from Muslim groups on the home front as well. Is this Jordanian right? Bush has actually been pretty careful to keep 'Islam' and 'war' out of the same sentence in the past. In fact, he's gone so far as to call Islam a "religion of peace" (or RoP, as my friends at LGF like to say). Perhaps he's been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh lately. Limbaugh, Hannity, the LGF crowd and others are applauding Bush for finally calling our enemy what it is. If you put aside cultural sensibilities and wartime rhetoric, is the phrase even accurate?

My conclusion? I think it could be chalked up as yet another example of why we're here. The way I see it, his use of the term Islamic fascist may have been thrown out there under pressure from Bush's various base members once it began to sink in that a war on 'terror' left you with an undefined enemy. They needed something more tangible (albeit slightly) but just as scary. Who likes fascists, after all? In reality, he seemed to have done more damage to relations with the Muslim world than given understanding to the enemy we find ourselves engaged with. Osama & Co. want to spread the idea that America has declared war on Islam, and here we have Bush playing right into it. Without clearly explaining why he refers to the enemy as 'fascist', he only gives the jihadis more fodder for their propaganda. Perhaps, in Bush's effort to better define the enemy, he's actually helping create new ones. On the other hand, he could be intentionally fanning the flames of conflict, while keeping the culture of fear alive by describing an enemy just as vaguely as before. Or, it was just another stupid comment from our great leader. Take your pick.

Posted by ChenZhen at August 15, 2006 12:06 AM