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 Gary Bauer’s Islamofabulism
A year and half ago, I began an email conversation with Gary Bauer of American Values. Back in the ‘80s, Gary was Ronald Reagan’s domestic policy advisor (which is a little like being George W. Bush’s ballet teacher), and he ran for president in 2000 as a rock-ribbed social conservative. He had the best video moment of the campaign when, while flipping pancakes at a granny dump in Manchester, NH one morning, he fell off the back of the stage and popped right back up like a center fielder snagging a diving catch.
I call our correspondence a conversation, but in reality, I bang out a couple paragraphs on some burning issue (the war, warrant-less wiretapping, gay marriage, etc) and he shoots back a line or two telling me, in effect, that I have my head up my ass - meaning it in the nicest possible way, of course.
Long before the MSM decided to notice and comment on the Right’s use of the term “Islamofascism,” I took Gary to task with the following missive:
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Gary --
"Islamofascism" is a misnomer. Or at least begs explanation. What does al Qaeda have in common with the fascists that your friend Michael Ledeen is so enthralled by? Nothing as far as I can see. They're theocrats, which makes them as dangerous and anti-democratic as fascists, but that's all. I can say that, you can't. Hence the misleading characterization.
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He replied:
Just, like the fascists of the 20th Century, the Islamofascists want to exterminate all people that are not of their race/beliefs. They readily admit that they want to "cleanse" the world of all Christians and Jews, just as the fascists wanted to exterminate all Jews.
Gary
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I could never figure out where the “mo” in “Islamo” came from – it may be an unconscious derivation from Gary’s strong objection to homosexuality. Or maybe it’s a response to the term “Christofascism.” Or perhaps it’s just a case of projection – the people who lied us into war, encourage war-profiteering by big corporations, tap our phones, push for a national ID card, advocate torture, and now want to take the first step toward martial law, believe if that if they’re pointing the finger, nobody will notice their jack-boots.
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I replied:
“…I take strong exception to your specious explanation for the use of the term, "Isalmofascist." Fascism is the "corporate state," invented by Mussolini and adopted by Hitler who heightened its racial component. It's an economic model to finance a militarist and expansionist government, using racial – not religious – hate as a propaganda tool. I understand that fascist is an effective suffix with which to denounce any group. Albert Einstein called Menachem Begin and Yitsak Shamir fascists, and even though they sided with the Nazis against the British Protectorate during WWII, it wasn't quite accurate.
For all its other unforgivable ideas and deeds, al Qaeda isn't overtly racist. In fact, a California kid named Adam Pearlman, whose father is Jewish, grew up to be its chief English-language spokesman. Anti-Semite is an odd term to label Arabs, since they're a Semitic people. The Sephardic Jews of the Bible were an Arab tribe. All Hebrews were, and if they can trace their lineage back to Abraham, they still are. The Judaeo-Christian-Muslim dynamic is a longstanding heresy within the Abrahamic tradition – sometimes collegial, sometimes not. It’s henotheism – my god is bigger than yours. That's all, nothing more.
Like it or not, religion is a smokescreen for al Qaeda's brand of Arab nationalism. This is a purely geo-political war. When and if we get some leadership in Washington that will put the American people's interests ahead of their contributors’, cronies’, and special interests’, we'll find a solution that won't require endless war…
His reply:
Jack, you are clueless, I am afraid. What it takes to win against Islamo-fascism is an end to the restraints placed on our ability to wage war by the Left.
Gary
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In any case, the Right seems to have changed the libel to “Islamicfascism,” which most Muslims still find insulting in the extreme. And further pissing off more than a billion people who just after 9-11 were more sympathetic to our cause than to bin Laden’s is as counter-productive to the so-called war on terror as the war in Iraq has proven to be. But Bush-Cheney did tell us from the outset that this would be “a long war,” and they’re doing their best to keep that promise.
~Jack McEnany
Also see: Gary gets it
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