Islamofascism Week

"Islamofascism nutbasket?" Love it! David Horowitz, are you there? Here is a YouTube moment on Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week."

Ignoring 'Islamofascism' hype

Last week, Islamofascism Awareness Week came to town. Yet, contrary to the campaign's promise that "the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever," our lives went on much as before. The week was a bigoted joke, an insult to the intelligence of college students, and we're proud most of our peers didn't take the bait.The purpose of "Islamofascism Awareness Week" is not awareness, but provocation. It's a stalking horse set up by David Horowitz, whose target is not Islamic fundamentalists or terrorists, but American liberals. The Web site of the "Terrorism Awareness Project," which sponsored the week, is filled with the language of confrontation. "The left is up in arms," the site notes, while colleges nationwide are "bracing for campus showdowns" as Horowitz's paladins seek to confront and expose liberals' support of the terrorists.

Islamofascism Awareness Week is WWIV Propaganda

Unfortunately, our College Republicans (CRs) recently participated in Islamofascism Awareness Week (IFAW), and unknowingly became associated with far-right extremist neoconservatives who directly desire Iran war. In anti-partisan fairness, I agree with CRs calling Hillary Clinton a b**** because she recently approved movement toward Iran war. I also powerfully believe in unrestrained free speech. If they can’t say b****, I couldn’t say Bush’s policies are antithetical to Christ’s Love philosophy, and thus anti-Christ.

Dennis Prager Stuns Them at UCSB

I made the drive up the coast tonight to see Dennis Prager speak at the University of California Santa Barbara. He was invited by the College Republicans, and he did not disappoint. This week is an emotional one for the college left - the bubble they live in has been punctured by an army of eloquent conservatives fanning out throughout the country to unveil a sensitive topic - Islamofascism. The crowd that packed Girvetz Theatre was amazingly behaved, and much of the credit for that has to go to Prager - he charmed the crowd into submission, and a wry smile came to his face when the last questioner of the night complained that she “didn’t like being manipulated.”

When consciousness is counterproductive

I’m really disappointed. Last week was Islamofacism Awareness Week, and nobody sent me a greeting card marking the observance.Surely someone behind this concept could have printed up some cards with a still photo from Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” on the outside, with desert headdresses Photoshopped onto all the Nazis’ heads.And then you open the card and it says, “They’re coming to get you. Happy Islamofacism Awareness Week.”Or, given the proximity of the observance to Halloween, just some pictures of jack-o’-lanterns with the Arabic head coverings would do.

The Problem With 'Islamofascism'

The Muslim World is not so homogeneous as to have its various fanatics and morally bankrupt governments lumped together with a single, clumsy word. This argument manages to both simultaneously split hairs in a shamelessly tendentious manner that would be immediately rebuked in any other context and miss the point entirely.
What is the common bond between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Why are the rights of the individual repressed in such similar ways? You cannot execute a female virgin in Iran. In order to be killed, she must be raped first by the Revolutionary Guard and then executed. Why does that not provoke outrage in Saudi Arabia? Why do both societies stone women to death for the crime of adultery? (Iran officially stopped this in 2002, but the practice continues unabated.)

Islamofascism speaker misses the point

There was an elephant in the room during Robert Spencer's provocative speech last Thursday night. Spencer, the director of the website Jihad Watch, spoke as part of "Islamofascism Awareness Week" and presented a simple but highly controversial argument: that Islam is a religion of violence and oppression. Citing passages in the Quran, Spencer suggested that the Islamic faith inherently condones misogyny, abuse of homosexuals, authoritarianism and the killing of non-believers. "I do not believe that Islam at its core is a peaceful religion," he said.But while there is little debate that segments of the Quran could be read as a justification for bigotry or abuse, what Spencer left unsaid - a glaring omission that many in the audience later commented on - is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims don't actually follow the passages that he cited. Throughout the Islamic world, there is little support for the notion that apostates should be killed, that non-Muslims should be taxed separately or that women should be mistreated. As with all religions, most adherents of Islam view the Quran as flexible and open to interpretation. While certain passages are embraced and followed carefully, others are tacitly rejected and ignored.In fact, there are numerous ways of reading and interpreting the Quran in its historical context. As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, suggested in a recent phone conversation that there is a "very broad interpretation of Islam across many different countries and cultures."

Spencer (And Other Critics) Respond

Robert Spencer, following the publication of my Brown Daily Herald article that criticized his comments during Islamofascism Week, has responded in a post over at his blog. Interestingly, a lot of the criticisms that I’ve gotten at Jihad Watch have to do with my alleged ‘misreading’ of the Quran. The Muslim holy book is much more violent than the Bible, many are suggesting, and therefore Islam is inherently based on violence and oppression.

If Not Islamofascism, What Name to Give?

The term, Islamofascism, is not acceptable. Fair enough! But how about a Stop Islamization of Europe rally, which one transnational European group, wanted to bring about in Brussels to commemorate 9/11 this year? The secular-liberal fabric of western societies ― from New Zealand to Australia to Canada to Europe ― are being aggressively Islamized by Muslim immigrants. To give a few examples: airports must have a mosque; canteens in jails must have separate quarters, cutlery and menu for Muslim inmates; school and university canteens must remove pork and even alcohol from their premises; and they must have separate public swimming pools or specific days of the week exclusively for them. A A poll in 2006 found some 40% British Muslims would prefer an Islamic Sharia law based governance to replace the secular-democracy, while another poll in 2004 found 61% Muslims want the Sharia court system in the U.K..

“Islamofascism”: The Failure of a Concept

The real (Americo-)fascists staged an early Halloween event last week, all dressed up as anti-fascists, made up as compassionate conservatives deeply disturbed by Muslim misogyny. They went door to door—or rather campus to campus—trick-or-treating, trying to scare. Their so-called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” undertaken by well-funded, extreme-right ideologues, featuring such cartoon characters as Ann Coulter and Rick Santorum and deploying student brown shirts to lead their way, was amusing in its childishness but like most Halloween events rather spooky. They want to scare. That’s the whole point.

The truth stirrer

The media storm broke a month ago, when Eagleton accused Amis of inheriting his father's racism, homophobia and hatred of women. It rumbled on for a further fortnight, when Amis admitted to occasionally feeling odd racist impulses, and then argued that some Muslim societies had not evolved as fully as countries in the West.
Nor should anyone expect Amis to disappear from the headlines anytime soon. His next book, The Second Plane, a collection of his writing about Islamofascism, will be published early next year. For his next novel, The Pregnant Widow, he promises "a couple of bombshells about what feminism has wrought". And no, he's not going to tell me what they are.

Viewpoint: Responding to Schazner

The best part of Schanzer's speech was his three-pronged list of solutions. His first piece of advice was starting dialogue about the nature of the issue, saying that a good starting point would be to identify the "enemy." This would have been great advice to hear before we invaded Iraq. Not only was Saddam Hussein not the enemy -- he was indubitably a harsh dictator, but ran a secular government that had nothing to do with 9/11 or al-Qaeda -- but his removal and more importantly the reconstruction of Iraq, is draining our military resources and taxpayers' money. In a serious irony, a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate said that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a "cause célèbre" for "jihadists" around the world. By dismantling the Hussein regime, we have also eliminated Iran's biggest rival in the region and replaced it with a fragile government that is Shia-dominated and, by extension, ally with Iran, a theocracy -- what some say is the center of "Islamofascism" -- and a significant financial supporter of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Islamofascism and 9/11, Bush's Neo-McCarthy Brainwash Tools

Islamofascism is the object perpetually attacked, with al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden mentioned over and over. What is never mentioned is how bin Laden was the CIA's man in Afghanistan under neocon idol Ronald Reagan back when we were fighting Russia's "evil empire". Last week Bush turned up the heat when he spoke about Iran and evoked the names of Hitler and Lenin at one point, stating that if the Democrats do not give him all he wants, in this case presto confirmation of attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey, that we may suffer the same tragedies as a nation that Germany and Russia did when those leaders were not stopped in time. All roads lead back to 9/11 and the specter of Islamofascism as represented by Osama bin Laden and 9/11.

A lazy, simplistic analogy

Recently, the former leftist turned rightist David Horowitz promoted something called "Islamofascism Awareness Week" on college campuses. The implication was that the academic left has so lost its bearings that it can no longer recognize its historic enemy, the old fascist wolf, under that beast's new disguise. Another apparent aim was to discredit scholars who insist on making careful distinctions among the various movements and ideologies that are grouped under the rubric of political Islam


On "Islamofascism"
Jamie Kirchick, October 29, 2007

Carlson and Dreier also take issue with the fact that "the term Islamofascism is offensive to Muslim Americans." Boo-hoo. There's nothing remotely offensive in the use of this phrase unless one is an intended target of its wrath, in which case, you're already offended by America's lascivious culture. Simply put, Muslims who are not themselves fascists -- who do not believe in the imposition of Sharia law, the stoning of women, the beheading of gays, the abolition of secularism -- have a duty to distinguish their peaceful Islam with that of the type that's trying to destroy Iraq and acquire nuclear weapons.

The Warped Mirror: The Islamofascism debate
Petra Marquardt-Bigman

For Israel, this is of course an important debate, because whenever Israel is criticized most severely, the threats posed to the country by Islamists are usually downplayed. Indeed, Israel is often blamed for giving the Muslim world much reason to turn to extremism, and the “blame-Israel”-brigade tends to subscribe to the simplistic notion that once Israel could be forced to address all Muslims grievances against the Jewish state, Islamist extremism would wither away. The fact that documents like the Hamas charter make it plain enough that one of the Islamists’ “grievances” is the very existence of Israel is often dismissed as inconsequential.

All this talk of Islamofascism, what is Zionism then?

This observer has pointed out time and again that the Zionists are out to ensure that the world remains polarized with two major sides of conflict of their very own choosing! With the Cold War out of the way and Israel losing its reliance on its “policeman role” of the West in the region, the best way to maintain the flow of American support for the renegade and mutant state is to ensure that there is a common enemy between the “civilized West” and the mutant synthesized Zionist state, with the enemy manifested by the “heathen” Islamic East. No one likes to suggest that the horrible acts, often labeled as “Islamic terrorism” and sometimes suggested as “Islamic radicalism” are justified by any means and least of all by Islamic doctrine or are even closely associated with genuine Moslems as these bigots are alluding. But to assume that all evil is rooted in Islam as is apparent by the literature being put to discussion in this Anti-Islam “awareness” effort is heinous and points to the hypocrisy of its sponsors.

O'Reillysaurus: A Dinosaur In Need Of A Tar-Pit

Krugman never says there's no threat of terrorism, he just doesn't buy into the White House's calculated use of the word Islamofascism which - just like the O'Reillysaurus cut and pasted in his attempt to create a Krugman-boogeyman out of hole-cloth - was created as a simplistic fraud to frighten people on to the Bush war-making wagon.
Perhaps, BillO, we should ask all the dead and injured you callously exploit how they feel about being manipulated for your own selfish fear-mongering, fabricated propaganda.

From "pointless" to intolerance: Islamofascism week
By Dana Al-Qadi, freshman in LAS, and Mohsin Alvi, sophomore in Engineering

Dan Streib ("Columbia and Islamofascism," Oct. 26) claimed that "Islamofascists" were "those who perverted the fine religion of Islam." At first glance, there seems to be nothing wrong with a word whose purpose is to set apart the bad guys. But when the underlying tones are recognized, the term sets a double standard exclusive to Islam, setting the stage for dangerous discrimination against Muslims. Throughout history, the political ideology of fascism has been religiously motivated. Hitler was raised Catholic and often said he was fulfilling God's work by carrying out mass extermination. But this prime example of fascism has not provoked the introduction of the term "Cathofascism" into our lexicon.


Spinning at The Globe
By FrontPage Magazine

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’s speakers could never get away with painting Islamists with as broad a brush as Hedges paints Southern Baptists. And what truly separates us from his ilk is that we do not want to. All IFAW speakers noted a minority of the world’s Muslim population accepts “Islamofascistm” and longed for them to accept a moderate, pluralistic Islam in its place. None felt there was anything “inevitable” about a clash between all Muslims and all others.
However, since Islamofascists are the perpetrators of the War on Terror and Western “infidels” are their targets, only Islamofascists can end this war – and they won’t. A clear assessment of these organization’s goals and theology are necessary to strengthen American resolve to protect her own freedoms and continue fighting the terrorists in their chosen battleground: Iraq.

A lazy, simplistic analogy

If language is a window on the world, a deliberate smudging of that window will make it harder to see the world clearly and comprehend it. So it is with the highly ideological term "Islamofascist," a label that is being wielded as a blunt weapon in a left-right debate and has been carelessly bandied about by some presidential candidates.
Recently, the former leftist turned rightist David Horowitz promoted something called "Islamofascism Awareness Week" on college campuses. The implication was that the academic left has so lost its bearings that it can no longer recognize its historic enemy, the old fascist wolf, under that beast's new disguise. Another apparent aim was to discredit scholars who insist on making careful distinctions among the various movements and ideologies that are grouped under the rubric of political Islam

Islamo-Fetishism
By James O. Goldsborough

Deprived of traditional issues, Republicans have turned to the neo-conservatives, who gave us Iraq, for their new theme. They call it Islamofascism, and there is a competition among them to see who is its stoutest foe. Democrats, they claim, are soft on the thing they call Islamofascism.Being soft on something or other has been a stalwart GOP theme for years. Harry Truman was soft on Bejing, Jimmy Carter soft on Moscow and Bill Clinton soft on Belgrade and Baghdad. But let's not forget that until Bush brought them out of the closet, neocons accused Republicans themselves of softism: Ronald Reagan was soft on the Soviet Union. His successor, George H.W. Bush, was soft on China and the Arabs.

Islam and Islamofascism
Larry Houle - 11/8/2007

How could any person be ‘proud’ to follow a man who was a pedophile, endorser of clitoridectomy, slave trader, rapist, polygamist, punched his child bride and endorsed whipping/beating women and ploughing them like fields, stoned women to death, flogged his slave women for fornication while he had sex with slaves himself, propositioned women and passed them round to friends, denied women equal inheritance, or equality under the law etc forever and abused and denigrated them in every way--not to mention his general sadism to others, mass murder, beheading captives, massacres, terror, torture, owning slaves and raping them, looting and pillaging, amputations, flogging, thievery, lying, hate, megalomania--- unending horror.All Muslims believe the Koran is the Eternal divine word of God – the Eternal laws of God. All Muslims believe that God authored the Koran and a copy of the Koran is in heaven. The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just "fundamentalists," the uncreated word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places forever; its ideas are absolutely true and beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the very word of God, and hence blasphemous. A Muslim's duty is to believe it and obey its divine commands without question.

Islamo-Fetishism
By James O. Goldsborough


Islamofascism is as meaningless a term as "axis of evil," or "war on terrorism" -- other neological inventions that substitute slogans and fear for fact and reason. Who or what exactly is an Islamofascist? Al Qaeda, Hamas, Taliban, Wahhabis, Salafists, Syrians, Iranians, Shiites, Sunnis, Pakistanis, all of the above? What about Turkey's PKK? One sees the problem: These groups and governments see Islam in different ways and none unites the principal characteristics of fascism -- power, industry, organization and desire for world conquest.
By hiring Norman Podhoretz, one of the original neocons, Rudy Giuliani has injected this absurd notion of Islamofascism into the presidential race. The other Republicans, led by Romney, have joined the chorus. They have Iran principally in their sights, an "Islamofascist" country that Podhoretz, and presumably Giuliani and the others, would have bombed long ago.Iran's theocratic government is loathsome in Western eyes, but hardly bent on world conquest. Iran's desire for nuclear power, which dates to the time of the Shah, is understandable in a world of diminishing carbon fuels and rising oil prices, and it is legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Last month Egypt indicated it, too, was going nuclear. Western nations would like to prevent Iran from converting its nuclear power program into bombs, and the burning question is how to do that -- whether to "war-war" or "jaw-jaw," in Churchill's formulation.

The Associated Press: Evangelicals' Issue: Radical Islam: "'The war against Islamofascism is in many respects a 'values issue,'' Bauer wrote. 'That may seem like an odd statement at first glance, but, as I have often said, losing Western Civilization to this vicious enemy would be immoral.' From one perspective, branding 'radical Islam' as a family values issue is yet another example of the broadening of the evangelical agenda. But next November, it also could energize one of the Republican Party's key voting blocs, much like anti-gay marriage measures did in 2004."

“Islamofascism”: The Failure of a Concept
by Gary Leupp / November 1st, 2007
The Louisiana politician Huey Long declared in the 1930s that “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism” and “in the name of national security.” I don’t think we’re there yet, but there are some fascist-like forces mobilizing, and they’re doing so in the name of protecting American Judeo-Christian civilization from a phantom they’ve conjured up called “Islamofascism.” (Variants include Islamo-Fascism, Islamo-fascism, Islamic fascism, etc.)

Evangelical leaders hope 'radical Islam' threat will awaken weary voting bloc

"It's the ultimate life issue," said Rick Scarborough, president of the Texas-based conservative Christian group Vision America. "If radical Islam succeeds in its ultimate goals, Christianity ceases to exist."
That might sound alarmist, but Scarborough's words illustrate how many conservative Christian leaders view matters of national security as a battle between good and evil - nothing short of a clash of civilizations.

More religion won't stop fundamentalists
November 20, 2007

Is Islam threatening Christianity? Well yes, as are fundamentalist Christians threatening liberal Christians, invading their camps with evangelical zeal and imposing stricter views but, importantly, without murdering them.
Fundamentalist Islam is a particularly virulent strain of deadly evangelism. Secular reasoning and law enforcement is the correct antibody.
More religion is not the answer; it is the problem because victorious religious zealots always impose laws favoring themselves.


Ohio State Does Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week Right
By Patrick PooleFrontPageMagazine.com Tuesday, November 20, 2007

You have to admire the sheer brilliance of the organizers. To my knowledge, no other university or college participating in Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (certainly not in the Big Ten, at least) offered their community a chance to see an actual Islamofascist in action. Participants in the CAIR/MSA educational forum, ironically entitled “Interfaith Relations – the Muslim Perspective”, were invited to observe Badawi for an up-close and personal study of the North American species of Islamofascism.
Sadly, I was not able to attend the festivities, but a subsequent press release by CAIR quoted CAIR-Ohio president Asma Mobin-Uddin in her description of their Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week event: “The opportunity to listen to Islamic scholars like Dr. Badawi was a great opportunity for the community to become educated, and it gave people the change to ask questions about things they may have heard about Islamic teachings.”



Report: 'Islamofascism' blinds U.S.
Published: Nov. 28, 2007 at 4:52 PM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The term "Islamofascism" dangerously obscures important distinctions and differences between groups of Islamic extremists, says a counter-terror think tank."Since Sept. 11 conservatives have continually lumped various groups and countries together … into one threat that they term 'Islamofascism,'" according to the National Security Network, a group of left-leaning former U.S. officials and experts in counter-terrorism and national security."The reality is much complicated," reads their report issued Wednesday. The groups and nations that make up the "Islamofascist" threat include al-Qaida, al-Qaida in Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian government institutions that they control, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Republic of Iran

Report: 'Islamofascism' blinds U.S.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The term "Islamofascism" dangerously obscures important distinctions and differences between groups of Islamic extremists, says a counter-terror think tank."Since Sept. 11 conservatives have continually lumped various groups and countries together … into one threat that they term 'Islamofascism,'" according to the National Security Network, a group of left-leaning former U.S. officials and experts in counter-terrorism and national security."The reality is much complicated," reads their report issued Wednesday. The groups and nations that make up the "Islamofascist" threat include al-Qaida, al-Qaida in Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian government institutions that they control, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Republic of Iran.In reality, the report says, "These various groups and countries have different intentions and capabilities, often work at cross purposes and are in some cases ideologically opposed to each other."Escalating tensions across the region between Shiites and Sunnis only emphasize their divergent interests and intentions.

Attacking Muslims under the veil of free specch is wrong
Chris Shortsleeve
Issue date: 12/3/07 Section: Opinion

A few weeks ago, something called Islamofascism Awareness Week came to almost 100 college campuses across the United States. Organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, this speaker series was intended, in its own words, to "alert Americans to the threat from Islamo-Fascism and focus attention on the violent oppression of Muslim women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other Islamic states." A simple survey of modern Middle Eastern history will show that the number of Muslim women killed by American empire and its puppet regimes is more than the most egregious Muslim patriarchs could ever hope to accomplish with all the stones in Arabia. In Iraq alone - a country terrorized for decades by the American-backed dictator and former CIA agent Saddam Hussein - civilian casualties as a result of current U.S. occupation and U.S.-led sanctions that preceded it are now over one million.Yet, white racists like Horowitz, who have no interest in the liberation of the Middle East, repeatedly whine about the veil and the lack of freedom in Muslim societies. This Horowitz-led diatribe against "Islamofascism" is not a good faith attempt at solidarity with Muslim women suffering under patriarchy, but a shallow, opportunistic demonization of an entire religion and culture, all for the ultimate purpose of justifying American imperialism in the Middle East. These people do not feel anything for the women of Islam. They preach from a pulpit of bones.

O’Reilly and Beck get chummy over Islamofascism.
Yesterday evening, right-wing talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly teamed up on the O’Reilly Factor. Beck criticized the University of Florida for admonishing the campus College Republicans for airing the film Obsession, which students promoted with posters stating, “Radical Islam Wants You Dead.” O’Reilly and Beck agreed, “They missed 9/11 in Gainesville”:
BECK: And in the — when they played it, they put out a flier all around the campus that said militant Islam wants you dead. Well, the university came out with a statement and said how dare you say that? That’s hate speech. That’s completely inaccurate. I mean, Bill, would you agree…
O’REILLY: Well, they missed it. They missed 9/11 in Gainesville. You know they missed it. That was the only city in the country that didn’t get the broadcast around the world.
BECK: Right.
O’REILLY: I don’t know why, but they are looking into the technical problem.


Islamofascism: Why It Is Fascism and Why Hating It Isn't RacistNicholas M. Guariglia -

12/8/2007 This is getting a bit tedious, but for as long as there are those who decry antifascists as something they are not, there must be those who forcefully defend the spirit of antifascism. A few weeks ago, student groups across some 200 universities aligned with commentator David Horowitz, amongst others, to declare Islamofascism Awareness Week. Such “cause-awareness” charades –– global warming/cooling awareness, the danger of giant man-eating squirrels/how to save endangered giant man-eating squirrels, etc. –– where do-gooders sit around a table and discuss how they “feel,” usually leave me with a feeling of exasperation. But for this, I will concede: defending liberal Western munificence against foreign clericalism is no small gig.This task, however, seems to begin with two fallacies leveled against the democratic resistance. The first untruth being that Islamist fanaticism is an aberration, not commonplace abroad; a political equal to its religious counterparts, not authoritarian; its followers simply misguided distorters of actual Islamic instruction, not the enforcers and heeders of literal Islamic text. The second lie, perpetrated by relativists and multicultural therapists, would be that challenging this despotism, in all its forms, is somehow indicative of racism; that hating a belief is the equivalent to hating a people. These two falsities should be confronted at the very start, and at their very core.Let’s start with the latter, and, I propose, the indisputable: Islam is not a race. Even its harshest critics, if they limit their criticism to doctrine and to those only who follow it, are not to be labeled bigoted or racist. Religion is an idea, a belief system not immune from mockery or even detestation, and abhorrence for it is perfectly ethical (and legal, at least in this country). Succumbing to political correctness would have me now declaring impartiality for all the monotheisms, claiming an equality for each theology. I am all for equal-time ridicule, but not today.

Attacking Muslims under the veil of free specch is wrong

A few weeks ago, something called Islamofascism Awareness Week came to almost 100 college campuses across the United States. Organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, this speaker series was intended, in its own words, to "alert Americans to the threat from Islamo-Fascism and focus attention on the violent oppression of Muslim women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other Islamic states." A simple survey of modern Middle Eastern history will show that the number of Muslim women killed by American empire and its puppet regimes is more than the most egregious Muslim patriarchs could ever hope to accomplish with all the stones in Arabia. In Iraq alone - a country terrorized for decades by the American-backed dictator and former CIA agent Saddam Hussein - civilian casualties as a result of current U.S. occupation and U.S.-led sanctions that preceded it are now over one million.

Ron Paul and the War on Islamofacism

And Bin Laden knew this. This is what he was talking about when he talked about "bleeding America to death" http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060905-7.html (I can't believe the White House has this on their website and doesn't get it). In short, Terrorists can only defeat the United States by--FEAR which leads to overreaction, overspending, and in the process creates more terrorists who believe the incredibly extreme propaganda promoted by Bin Laden and crew because they have seen the "horrors" of the United States with their own eyes. Dr. Paul is the only person who supports a policy which could actually rid the world of these "Islamo-Fascists" in the long run (or at least return them to a size and threat level which no American could fear). We are the United States of America. If a kid came up and punched you, would you pull your leg back as far as possible and try to kick its head off? If you missed, you'd hurt yourself in the fall far worse than the kid's punch hurt you. If you hit, you would incite the rage of his parents, his community, and even the population as a whole that otherwise would be disconnected from this act until they found out what you did. Compared to us, terrorists are just little kids. The best way to deal with them is to let them know what they did was wrong (tell their parents, or kill the terrorists who actually did this in our case--not overreact and bring people into the battle that have nothing to do with it) and laugh about it and move on.

What is Islamofascism?
A simplistic term designed to mask the complexities of the Middle East

I can't remember the first time I heard the term "Islamofascism," but I can remember the first time I knew it was going to stick. It was Oct. 6, 2005, and President George W. Bush was delivering a speech. In it, he said, "Islamic terrorist attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamofascism."
From that moment, if not before, the media took Bush's ball and ran with it, where every new stumbling block in the Middle East could be reduced to one word — Islamofascism. Bill O'Reilly couldn't get enough of it. Rudy Giuliani was glad to finally have a verbal substitute for "9/11." And Rush Limbaugh hadn't been so happy to have a new word to repeat ad nauseam since "Clinton" in the 1990s. Yes, for the neoconservatives, most of whom didn't have much of a purpose in life since the end of the Cold War, the new menace on the horizon finally had a name, and they intended to use it.
The problem is Islamofascism doesn't really mean anything. Trying to reduce the complexities of Middle Eastern politics into a single, jingoistic phrase is not only impractical, but a disservice to the American public. Explains conservative columnist Joseph Sobran, "Islamofascism is nothing but an empty propaganda term. And wartime propaganda is usually, if not always, crafted to produce hysteria, the destruction of any sense of proportion. Such words, undefined and unmeasured, are used by people more interested in making us lose our heads than in keeping their own."
Sobran is correct. Take for example the recent assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Every pro-Bush talking head was screaming "Islamofascists" before the woman's body was cold. Bhutto's supporters and family were blaming Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf was blaming the "extremists." But who are the extremists? Who are the Islamofascists?

Fearing Fear Itself

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 29, 2007

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”
Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?
For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

"real target behind the “Islamo-Fascism” rhetoric appears to be Islam itself"

By Charles C. Haynes

First Amendment Center

Halloween arrived early this year in the guise of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” held Oct. 22-26 on hundreds of college and university campuses across the nation. Scary speakers like Ann Coulter fanned out to warn students about the lies organizers say are being taught about the war on terrorism in institutions of higher learning.

The “protest week” is organized by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an organization dedicated to promoting the ideas of, well, David Horowitz (a 1960s leftist who now describes himself as a conservative).

If the purpose were only to wake Americans up to the threat of extremists who commit terrorist acts in the name of Islam, then who could object? I suspect, however, that most of us are already fully awake to the terrorist threat – including the many Muslim Americans now serving in our armed services, as well as the many Muslim soldiers fighting with them in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the real target behind the “Islamo-Fascism” rhetoric appears to be Islam itself. Horowitz is convinced that the “academic left” censors the truth about the Islamic roots of terrorism and thereby creates “sympathy for the enemy.”

That’s why many of the week’s campus events don’t focus on terrorism, but rather on topics like the “oppression of women in Islam.” And that’s also why the featured speakers are not experts on terrorist groups. They are, instead, people like author Robert Spencer, who argues that Islam is “the world’s most intolerant religion,” and Coulter, who refers to Muslims as “rag heads” and describes the Quran as “tied to a Stone Age culture.”

To the extent that political correctness on college campuses chills debate about the true nature of the terrorist threat, I’m all for replacing empty clichés such as “Islam is a religion of peace” with an open and honest discussion about the history and teachings of Islam. As a student of world religions, I’m well aware (as are most Muslims) of the extremist voices within Islam today and in history. (Similar voices are heard in the history of every world faith.)

But my own study of Islam convinces me that a fair, scholarly assessment of Islamic theology, history and civilization would refute the canard that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant. And it would expose al-Qaida and other terrorist groups as preaching a perversion of Islamic teaching.

Beyond demonizing Islam, it’s hard to understand what Horowitz, Coulter, Spencer and company hope to accomplish with their campus protests. If they are genuinely interested in defeating Islamist terrorists, why don’t they reach out to the vast majority of Muslims who share their rejection of extremism instead of pushing them away with blanket condemnations of their religion?

As journalist Peter Bergen points out in this week’s New Republic, “the American Muslim community has overwhelmingly rejected the ideological virus of radical Islam.” This explains, he argues, why we have been spared “the scourge of home-grown terrorism.”

Just when we least need to inflame religious differences and most need to work together as American citizens, along comes “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” with its not-so-subtle hostility toward the Islamic faith.

Far from waking people up to terrorism, these campus events are likely to cause a spike in hatred toward American Muslims, already a growing problem in many parts of the nation. To make matters worse, the anti-Islam rhetoric will be a propaganda boon to al-Qaida, already busy working to convince Muslim youth that the West is at war with Islam.

Explain it to me again, Mr. Horowitz: How, exactly, does attacking Islam advance the fight against terrorism? 10-25-07

Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. 22209. Web: firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail: chaynes@freedomforum.org.

Why they call it 'Islamofascism'
Dan Gardner, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, October 26, 2007

At least since the days of Oswald Mosley and the Spanish Civil War, "fascist" has been the preferred slur of campus revolutionaries and other leftists of limited vocabulary. But something curious has happened in the last few years.

Among conservatives, "Islamofascist" has become the standard label for those who butcher in the name of Allah. Practically unknown prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, the term was first embraced in the nether regions of the blogosphere before it seeped into the mainstream. President George W. Bush used it only once, in 2006, but Rudy Giuliani, the Republican with the best shot at succeeding Bush, has made it a crowd-pleasing fixture of his stump speech.

There is even an "Islamofascism Awareness Week." On now, this creation of neo-conservative David Horowitz will have Ann Coulter and other right-wing luminaries attend consciousness-raising sessions -- as the new left called them when the new left was new -- at universities across the United States........