"Islamofascism"

Christopher Hitchens has probably done more than any intellectual to popularize the term "Islamofascisim," but as he explains in an article posted on the History News Network, he didn't invent the label. The article is his latest attempt to justify his usage in the face of liberal criticism, and it isn't an impressive performance. He really has hardly more justification for throwing the word around than his antagonists who would call the Bushies or neocons fascist. His arguments are basically the same as theirs: the jihadists are fascistic because they're violent and illiberal. By that standard, we could go back in time and apply the fascist label retroactively to any vicious regime -- Genghis Khan as "proto-fascist," for instance.

Hitchens himself realizes that fascism has something to do with a theory of the state, so he offers some tentative comments along that line toward the end. This results to little more than assuming that bin Laden's dreamed of Caliphate must necessarily be fascist in nature. Since bin Laden appears to want a revival of the Caliphate of golden-age Islam, Hitchens would have to list the Ummayyids, Abbassids, Ottomans, et al as proto-fascists. He'd be better off not bothering. Enemy of religion that he is, you'd think he'd be happy using the "theocrat" label. That might signify ultimate evil for him, but the real reason anyone uses the word "Islamofascist" is that they want to recruit liberals into their war. It's a way of telling liberals that the Islamists are their enemies, not just the enemies of neocons, imperialists, or Zionists. Since most liberals won't deny the inherent enmity between them and theocrats of any kind, the further reason to talk about "Islamofascism" is to argue that Islamism is a problem unto itself that must be crushed without reference to context or larger geopolitical concerns.

People who object to the war on terror as currently waged generally do so because they think their leaders are doing nothing to prevent a recurrence of terrorism, i.e., nothing to change the conditions that inflame Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere. The dissidents suspect that to do nothing along this line is to endorse all the policies that have provoked the terrorist response. Hitchens himself has never endorsed those policies uncritically, being no friend of Zionism, for instance. But his hatred of religion makes him believe that nothing is more important than crushing the jihad as soon as possible if not by any means necessary. But if he thinks the terrorist impulse can be snuffed out simply by slaughtering Muslims, he has his work cut out for him, and I don't like his chances.