While everyone seems to know that fascism is a bad thing, it’s clear not enough people know what it actually means. And while everyone knows Islam is a religion, not enough people know that it dictates the social and political aspects of a Muslim’s life as well as the spiritual. To judge whether the phrase “Islamic fascist” is a fair label you need to understand more about Islam than is generally taught or discussed in the secularized West, except maybe in prison, and you need to know something of the history of fascism even though we’ve been taught the ideology was extinguished 60 years ago.

On the left there is much indignation. Long before they transformed the meaning of “lie”, “torture”, “gulag”, “domestic spying”, “patriot”, and “redeploy” leftists had already redefined “fascist”. For them a fascist is anyone who favors law and order over unbridled hedonistic debauchery. Bush and Rumsfeld for instance.

That is Keith Olbermann’s point:

Earlier Americans always found their way to the light and we can too. The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense and this administration are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: the destruction of our freedoms…. This country faces a new type of fascism indeed.

Poor Olby. His freedom to broadcast a hateful and conspiratorial message every day is being impinged how? The video is surreal.

This Berkeley linguist would prefer to call them Islamo-creeps. They can’t be fascists. First of all because there are a few flavors that don’t agree precisely on the methods or urgency with which to pursue jihad. Second because the left had already sucked the meaning out of the word fascist back in the 60s. The linguist seems not to appreciate how different the German, Italian, and Japanese flavors of fascism were:

But like “terror,” and “evil” before it, “Islamic fascism” has the effect of reducing a complex story to a simple fable. It effaces the differences among ex-Baathists, Al Qaeda and Shiite mullahs; Chechens and Kashmiris; Hezbollah, Hamas and British-born Asians allegedly making bombs in a London suburb. Yes, there are millions of people in the Muslim world who wish the U.S. ill, and some of them are pretty creepy about it. But that doesn’t mean they’re all of a single mind and purpose, or that a blow against any one of them is a blow against the others.

There’s that leftist bugaboo again – it’s all so complicated. Notions like good, evil, right, wrong – these exist only in the minds of neocons and their fables. The left is trying as hard as they can to tolerate and embrace their exploited and confused Middle Eastern brothers. After all they might help topple the evil Bushitler someday! Whoops. Did I say evil? I meant dumb and greedy. The world is far too complex to make judgements about good and evil…but we can call political foes dumb greedy lying fascists all day long.

Before turning to saner sources let’s indulge in just one last opinion from the left. Yes it’s getting repetitive but you can always count on t r u t h o u t to reveal the leftist position in pure form:

Since, Mr. Bush, you have chosen to put the issue of fascism before the public, it begs a broader dialog on fascism’s role in our lives today. I accept the challenge to enter that dialog. Frankly Mr. Bush, many Americans refer to you as a fascist. There really isn’t any other way to state that than bluntly. Blowing up an airliner full of passengers is barbaric and completely unacceptable, regardless of the objectives of those involved, but it really doesn’t fit the definition of fascism.

From Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language:

FASCISM: A system of government characterized by rigid one party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism and militarism, etc.

That’s really the heart of the matter now isn’t it, Mr. Bush. One might wonder if you are troubled by by the specter of fascism in your inner thoughts when you cast the accusation wildly into the public discourse.

What would the people of Iraq say about fascism if asked? But then they haven’t been asked, have they – they’ve been liberated, of course. What would our founding fathers say about detention without due process, without end? Electronic surveillance of all Americans, without regard for the law? What is democracy if the citizens have no confidence in the integrity of their elections? Our military hurls five-hundred pound bombs all day and all night. They land on whom they land on. It is not an isolated act of madness, it is a coordinated act of state. All the while private corporations profit wildly.

Fascism, Mr. Bush, is not your strongest card. You should change the subject again.

Get a load of that tone. I wonder if he writes for Olby? The word arrogant comes to mind but that might only be because I’ve been reading too much leftist literature. They love the word arrogant. It’s pretty clear they’re just projecting. Anyway, yes, let’s have a dialog about fascism. Let’s start with that definition. In what ways does it describe the situation in the US? There are two major parties and many smaller ones. Opposition is loud, abusive, and unhindered. The economy is not centralized, despite the best efforts of leftists. And the US has inflicted its nationalism, racism, and militarism on whom exactly?

Like most thoughtful inhabitants of civilization I’m not sure fascist is quite the right word for the Islamos, but I’m pretty damn sure it applies better to them than it does to the Bush administration.

Having dealt with that childish nonsense let’s now turn to more serious opinions. For example Michelle Malkin thinks the qualifier is misleading:

I stopped using the terms “Islamic fascist” and “Islamofascism” a while ago, though, because they obscure rather than clarify. The views held by the Muslim jihadis who want to destroy us are not marginal views held only by a minority of “Islamic fascists.”

I concur, but the Washington Times makes a good case, especially if you remember that Islam subsumes politics:

Fascism is a chauvinistic political philosophy that exalts a group over the individual — usually a race or nation, but in this case the adherents of a religion. Fascism also espouses centralized autocratic rule by that group in suppression of others. It usually advocates severe economic and social regimentation and the total or near-total subordination of the individual to the political leadership. This accurately describes the philosophies of Hitler, Mussolini, the leaders of Imperial Japan and other fascistic regimes through history. It also describes Thursday’s terrorists.

It very accurately describes the philosophy of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and many other stripes of Islamism around the world. All the elements are present. The ideology is chauvinistic, regarding non-Muslims as a lesser breed of expendable or contemptible dhimmis and infidels. It favors autocracy and severe social and economic restrictions, as did the Taliban. It demands the total subordination of the individual to the group — sometimes manifesting in murderously suicidal deaths like the fiery destruction Britain’s would-be bombers sought. This is not mainstream Islam, of course. It is a corruption of the faith.

I disagree with that last sentence. The Muslims who are at war with civilization are not motivated by a misunderstanding or twisting of Islam, they are motivated by its most fundamental tenets: the ideology of jihad and the imposition of sharia and Islam itself on the entire world. That these tenets can be traced all the way back to Mohammed and that they are deeply held by millions of fanatics only makes the threat to civilization that much more severe.

Daniel Pipes notes his trouble settling on a phrase:

The use of Islamic fascists should be seen as part of a decades-long search for the right term to name a form of Islam that is recognizably political, extreme, and often violent. I have already confessed in that I am on my fifth term (having previously used neo-orthodox, fundamentalist, and militant, and now using radical and Islamist). While Islamic fascists beats terrorists, let’s hope that a better consensus term soon emerges. My vote is for Islamists.

The difficulty Pipes and others are having is bringing themselve to say precisely what I just said.

If Islam is all about peace and tolerance then why is everyone afraid to criticize it? Hmmm, I wonder. Does it have anything to do with bombs and sawing off heads? Literal Islamophobia? Leftists never tire in their vituperation of Christians, Bush, Neocons, Israel, rednecks, corporations – and they never seem to suffer any recriminations for it. To them Freedom of Speech means tolerating the disclosure of any national secret the New York Times sees fit to print, but when it comes to tolerating a few Mohammed cartoons, well then it’s time to toss freedom out the window in favor of a sudden respect for decency and religion.

For the final say I refer you to just one of many examples coming straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth:

FN: And this sums up your vision of Jihad today? Is this the sum of your own approach to Islam and the problems affecting Muslims?

ABB: This is the Islamic view of things. We must never compromise, relent, give up, submit to our kafir enemies. We must always keep to the Islamic path, jihad in the name of Shariah, and never be apologetic.

So I agree that we must never be apologetic about being called ‘radicals’ today. Even during the time of the Prophet his enemies called him a madman! So being called a ‘radical’ is not as bad! We should not apologise for this, or compromise in our jihad. Today they call us ‘radicals’, tomorrow they will call us something else. These obstacles will always be there, because the kafirs fear us when we get stronger.

Remember that jihad is what brought Islam to power and built our community. There can be no Islam without jihad. Why, even if you want to build a Capitalist or Communist state you need to have a jihad; a jihad for capitalism or a jihad for communism. So why cant Muslims engage in a jihad for Islam and Shariah?

Oops. Does this radical know the infidels are listening? Does it matter?

That immigration helps the US economy is sometimes asserted, often assumed, and rarely questioned. I can see the cost outweighs the benefits where I live, so I’m glad to have found someone writing about the not so hidden costs of illegal immigration.

How Unskilled Immigrants Hurt Our Economy
Steven Malanga
A handful of industries get low-cost labor, and the taxpayers foot the bill.

Because so much of our legal and illegal immigrant labor is concentrated in such fringe, low-wage employment, its overall impact on our economy is extremely small. A 1997 National Academy of Sciences study estimated that immigration’s net benefit to the American economy raises the average income of the native-born by only some $10 billion a year—about $120 per household. And that meager contribution is not the result of immigrants helping to build our essential industries or making us more competitive globally but instead merely delivering our pizzas and cutting our grass. Estimates by pro-immigration forces that foreign workers contribute much more to the economy, boosting annual gross domestic product by hundreds of billions of dollars, generally just tally what immigrants earn here, while ignoring the offsetting effect they have on the wages of native-born workers.

If the benefits of the current generation of migrants are small, the costs are large and growing because of America’s vast range of social programs and the wide advocacy network that strives to hook low-earning legal and illegal immigrants into these programs. A 1998 National Academy of Sciences study found that more than 30 percent of California’s foreign-born were on Medicaid—including 37 percent of all Hispanic households—compared with 14 percent of native-born households. The foreign-born were more than twice as likely as the native-born to be on welfare, and their children were nearly five times as likely to be in means-tested government lunch programs. Native-born households pay for much of this, the study found, because they earn more and pay higher taxes—and are more likely to comply with tax laws. Recent immigrants, by contrast, have much lower levels of income and tax compliance (another study estimated that only 56 percent of illegals in California have taxes deducted from their earnings, for instance). The study’s conclusion: immigrant families cost each native-born household in California an additional $1,200 a year in taxes.

Immigration’s bottom line has shifted so sharply that in a high-immigration state like California, native-born residents are paying up to ten times more in state and local taxes than immigrants generate in economic benefits. Moreover, the cost is only likely to grow as the foreign-born population—which has already mushroomed from about 9 percent of the U.S. population when the NAS studies were done in the late 1990s to about 12 percent today—keeps growing. And citizens in more and more places will feel the bite, as immigrants move beyond their traditional settling places. From 1990 to 2005, the number of states in which immigrants make up at least 5 percent of the population nearly doubled from 17 to 29, with states like Arkansas, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Georgia seeing the most growth. This sharp turnaround since the 1970s, when immigrants were less likely to be using the social programs of the Great Society than the native-born population, says Harvard economist Borjas, suggests that welfare and other social programs are a magnet drawing certain types of immigrants—nonworking women, children, and the elderly—and keeping them here when they run into difficulty.

So much for the argument that illegals pay their taxes. They pay taxes alright. Not nearly enough.

Regarding crime and the counting game Peter Gadiel told the House Committee on the Judiciary:

In 1986, Senator Edward Kennedy, then-Representative Charles Schumer, and other sponsors of amnesty claimed that “only” one million illegal aliens would be eligible for amnesty. In fact, due to fraud in administration, and underestimation of the number of illegals in the United States, over three million illegals were actually granted amnesty.

The investment firm of Morgan Stanley recently estimated that there are over 20 million illegals in the United States. Yet, at a recent meeting with DHS officials, 9/11 FSA Vice-President Bruce DeCell and I were told that Administration statisticians had “worked the numbers” and “only seven million” illegals would apply. That is approximately one third the Morgan Stanley estimate, oddly enough, the same fraction used by sponsors of the amnesty of 1986. The track record of the promoters of the 1986 amnesty in predicting the number of illegals who would be eligible tends to confirm what appears to be common knowledge to nearly everyone in the country today: the 20 million figure is closer to the mark.

In 1986, sponsors of amnesty also assured us there would be safeguards to screen out those who were a danger to our country. Their failure to honor that promise is as clear as their inability to predict eligibility numbers.

The 9/11 Commission itself showed us that the 1986 amnesty resulted in dead and injured Americans. It noted that two of the conspirators (Mohammed Salameh and Mahmud Abouhalima, aka Mahmud the Red) in the 1993 attack on the World Trader Center were illegal aliens permitted to remain in the US because of the 1986 amnesty. A third plotter (Mohammed Abouhalima, aka Abo Halima) was permitted to stay in the US for six years until just before the attack when his application under the `86 amnesty was finally denied. Despite the denial he remained in the US to help carry out the plot he had helped plan during the period he was “legal.”

Gadiel goes on to describe the actions taken by state and local governments to deal with illegal immigration, in spite of the concerted opposition of open borders advocates.

For these, the constituent members of the Open Borders Lobby, the suffering and death endured by Americans as a result of illegal immigration is just a cost of doing business. To its eternal shame, the Senate continues to do the bidding of that lobby, demanding that our borders remain wide open to illegal aliens and the criminals and terrorists among them. S.2611 exemplifies the Senate’s mindless support of that destructive policy.

Gadiel’s statement is worth reading in its entirety.

So where have our ever-vigilant watchdogs in the media been? The effects of this influx have been blatant. It is not exaggerating to call it an invasion. How has it gone on so long with no debate, no controversy?

Because the conventional wisdom on immigration assumes it to be beneficial, and because the media does nothing to correct this myth. And because of this anyone who openly opposes illegal immigration is accused of possessing one or more character flaws that explain their “irrational” beliefs. That’s why the most popular pro-illegal immigration arguments are: Xenophobe! Racist! Fascist!

Either we’re crazy or they’ve got nothing better than ad hominems.

Well then, assuming the latter, I haven’t forgotten that for every foul-mouthed race-fixated illegal immigration supporter there’s a businessman who simply favors laissez faire immigration. Since his argument amounts to “changes will cost me” I say, too bad, because no change is costing the rest of us even more. If Mr. Wall Street’s logic is valid then so is this response.

The following was broadcast on FOXNews earlier today:

Shepard Smith: Were there demands made?

Steve Centanni: Over the days they requested many things of us. They requested written statements about what I had done in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Kashmir where I’ve never been. Why we were there and what we were doing there.

Clearly these jihadis haven’t heard that to anti-war Westerners these are all completely different conflicts. The Palestinian problem has nothing to do with Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Islam. Jihad? World war? Whatever dude. We’ve got to prioritize. We all know the biggest threat to civilization is Wal-Mart.

We had to write and write and write and then we were forced to convert to Islam at gun point. And don’t get me wrong here I have the highest respect for Islam and learned a lot of really good things about it but uh we did… wouldn’t… it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns and we were… didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Have no fear. This is all a FOXNews ruse. As the anti-war Westerners have repeatedly informed us and as the jihadis must surely know by now, “There shall be no compulsion in religion.” Those stories about Mohammed ransoming hostages? Just stories.

For a minute there I thought Centanni was nervous enough that he might say something negative about Islam. Phew. Now that he has instead praised it everything should be just fine. The jihadis can go back to kidnapping and blowing up civilians, and the press can go back to reporting on their “plight”.

UPDATE: Now that they’ve converted Centanni and his cameraman should take some time to understand fundamentalist Islam’s sentiments on apostasy. It might not be very healthy for them, but perhaps they’ll report what they discover.

Hugh Hewitt interviewed General Abizaid, who clearly understands the enemy.

HH: What is their vision, the enemy’s vision of the world?

JA: Well certainly, if you look at al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, all you have to do is go on to one of their website. But you see it is to drive out the United States from the region, overthrow the regional powers, take over the Sunni Arab world first, and then the Muslim world, and install a Sharia type of government that would look very much like the government that they installed under the Taliban, when the Taliban ran Afghanistan. And if you want to know what that looks like, it’s executions in the soccer stadium, no rights for women anywhere, Sharia law strictly enforced, no music, you name it. And the people in the region really don’t want that kind of a future for themselves, or for their kids.

HH: And the vision of the Iranian revolutionary regime?

JA: Well, the Iranian revolutionary regime has a different sort of a notion, but it’s one that’s primarily a world in which Iranian influence and power call the shots in the Middle East, and done so under the current Shiia revolutionary precepts that you see played out in Tehran, which again, is very, very restrictive. Not as restrictive as what Osama bin Laden brings, but certainly more restrictive than the people like. When you ask Iranians whether or not they approve of this government, they’d just as soon get onto some other kind of government that’s more liberal.

He also had some advice we can only hope the public hears and heeds:

JA: I can only say that as I…when I go home and spend time where my headquarters is in Tampa, or when I spend time where I’m from on the West Coast, it’s hard to really notice that there’s much of a war going on, thinking that there’s a World War II level of effort going on in the middle of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa, is hard for most people to appreciate. I think it’s important that people understand the dangers of not contesting this area. If we let the extremists get embedded, if we let the extremists gain ground, if we let the extremists have time and resources, then I believe they’ll eventually insinuate their way into the mainstream. They could then gain territory, gain time, gain weapons of mass destruction. And over time, they’d move us to the war that we’re all, the big war that we’re all trying to avoid. So I can only tell you that what we’re doing out here is very, very important for our security. We were actually fighting these people well before 9/11, and it takes a little bit of time and effort, but people need to educate themselves about why we’re fighting who we’re fighting, and what it means if we back away from them.

Emphasis mine.

For anyone wanting a tactical analysis of the US military’s struggle with jihadis in painfully dry and wonky detail I can recommend Militant Tricks. Here follows my report of the book’s most salient points and some thoughts it inspired.

Amazon’s summary:

This book gauges America’s progress in Iraq and Afghanistan from a unique perspective—that of East-Asian battlefield deception. As both countries were part of the Mongol Empire for over 200 years, they are a perfect breeding ground for every sort of ancient Chinese trick—any one of the famous “36 Strategems.” In combination, those stratagems have the power to make a losing adversary think he is winning. They have done so before to America.

To see past the militant Muslim’s false face, one must look for the hidden intent behind his every initiative—whether martial or otherwise. Between September 2004 and September 2005, this book does just that for both theaters of war. For some readers, it will serve as an intelligence reference manual and be read a few paragraphs at a time. For others, it will provide an in-depth solution to the enemy’s so-far-successful formula and be read cover to cover. Militant Tricks reveals enemy information that active-duty Americans seldom see—that which is contained in the regional media and literature. When properly interpretted (by a student of Eastern tactics and mindset), that information may shed enough light on ongoing events to permit the salvaging of both wars.

While focusing mainly on events taking place in Iraq H. John Poole’s story weaves together lessons learned by the US military in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as the Israelis in Lebanon (1982-2000). After a hundred pages detailing incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan and another hundred reviewing these events in light of the 36 Stratagems the prognosis does not appear good:

Other Parts of the Joint Strategy

By early 2004, the Iraqi militants’ overall strategy had become clearly obvious: (1) curtail the flow of oil, (2) eliminate government-supplied social services, (3) isolate occupying forces, and (4) discredit/subvert local security forces. The first was done during commando raids. The second was accomplished with sabotage, assassination, and hostage taking. The third was achieved by using IEDs to limit the flow of supplies and tie occupying forces to thier vehicles or bunkers. The fourth was performed through repeatedly corruptiong or killing police and army personnel.

Something similar drove the Israelis out of Southern Lebanon and the Russians out of Afghanistan. Until someone finds a solution, this strategy will stalk the Third World.

Poole argues persuasively that Eastern-style “light infantry” are not in fact as inferior to US-style “heavy infantry” as so many Westerners in and outside the military seem to believe. The difference isn’t only one of weight, mechanization, or firepower. It is the tactics of Fourth Generation Warfare:

These techniques focus not so much on the enemy’s military capabilities (although these may be attacked) but directly against the will of the enemy to continue the war.

The crucial insight is that 4GW battlefields are not constrained to the time and space occupied by soldiers firing weapons. They include terrorism and sabotage. Fifth columns and mob violence. Peace demonstrations and elections. Jihadis have long recognized the value of dirty tricks. Mohammed himself ordered assassinations. Today’s jihadis will continue to exploit civilization’s gullible media, sleazy politics, and fragile economy as long as we let them.

“Shock and Awe” Is a Thing of the Past

In essence, the technologically deficient and financially strapped East has developed a style of warfare that requires no tanks or planes. It depends instead on surprise. That surprise is almost entirely based on the West’s preoccupation with firepower. To penetrate a Western base, the Easterner creates the impression of an indirect-fire attack. To blow up something within that base, he pretends to score a lucky mortar hit. The Muslim militant has taken this analogy one step farther. With the suicide bomber, he has created a precision munition.

The Vietnamese may have been financially strapped. The oil funded jihadis are not. They can buy any technology they need. They don’t use it for tanks and planes. Instead the jihadis leverage disruptive technologies – nets & jets, cell phones, TATP – to wreak destruction and chaos, to literally disrupt civilization. During and in the wake of the chaos they come to power, praising Allah’s greatness, posing as heroes.

Poole recommends that the US military train its own light infantry. Further, that this training should instill a more flexible doctrine of tactics, offensive and defensive, relying on stealth, deception, and surprise. Also that command should be more decentralized to enable smaller units to function more autonomously.

I’m afraid this won’t be enough. Until the ideology and history of jihad becomes better known amongst infidels the danger will go on, incompletely recognized and only partially countered.