The Redhunter

One reason why I don't buy the "legitimate greviance" argument is that the terrorism inflicted on us does not always correlate to any known grevience. Just two weeks ago two suitcase bombs were found on trains in Germany. The bombs "may be traceable to the Middle East", big surprise. Thankfully they were found before they went off. But what has Germany done to deserve Islamic terror? They did not participate in the invasion of Iraq, and indeed have opposed US policy at every turn since.

This past June a huge Islamic terrorist plot was foiled in Canada. The plot, which involved both bombs and the kidnapping of the Canadian prime minister, was against soley Canadian targets. Again, Canada did not participate in the invasion of Iraq, and most of it's newspapers, to say nothing of it's leaders, have spent a lot of time denouncing this or that American policy.

Further, if it's not one grievance it's another. Victor Davis Hanson goes through the "excuse after excuse" offered by the Muslims and their apologists. One time it was that we were "stealing their oil", then prices jumped to $75 per barrel. Another day it's American troops in Saudi Arabia. But, er, they're mostly gone now. Then it's aid to Israel. But Europe and the US give considerable amounts aid to the Palestinian Authority. StrategyPage takes a look at the history of Islamic terrorism, and concludes that "ruthless men have been using Islamic radicalism to create terrorists for a long time" and that "historically, a noticeable increase in violence by Islamic radicals occurred every three or four generations."

Lastly, there is is simply too long a history of anti-semitism among prominent Muslim leaders to believe that their grevience against Israel is simply based on land. Jonah Goldberg relates how the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini, made Nazi-like statements in 1942, well before the establishment of Israel or even the post-war influx of Jews into the area.

Also Not the Problem

"Islam" is not the problem. If it were, the war would be unwinnable. You simply cannot, and should not, attempt to destroy an entire religion.

Further, from what I see, the problem is in how the religion is taught in many places, and how it is used to promote violence and hatred. I'm not going to get into an analysis of the Koran, and don't think it necessary.

It is true, I think, that some religions lend themselves to fitting into the modern world better than others. Our Western models of democracy, secularism, and tolerance (true tolerance, not what the left teaches) are unimaginable without Christianity and other Western models of thought. It is very difficult to imagine these things rising out of Islam. But that does not mean that Islam and these things are incompatible. It simply means that they could not have been spawned or developed by the Muslim world. It does not mean that Muslims cannot adopt them.

What is "Islamofascism"?

A much better description of our enemy, and one that also tells us why they hate us, is "Islamofascism". The term, according to Roger Scruton, originated with Maxine Rodinson (1915-2004) "to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978." President Bush recently referred to our enemy as "Islamic fascists", which caught him as much grief as Ronald Reagan's use of the term "evil empire", which tells me he is on to something.

Stephen Schwartz, writing in The Weekly Standard, offers a helpful definition

In my analysis, as originally put in print directly after the horror of September 11, 2001, Islamofascism refers to use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology. This radical phenomenon is embodied among Sunni Muslims today by such fundamentalists as the Saudi-financed Wahhabis, the Pakistani jihadists known as Jama'atis, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In the ranks of Shia Muslims, it is exemplified by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the clique around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.

"Fascism", he says, " is distinguished from the broader category of extreme right-wing politics by its willingness to defy public civility and openly violate the law." This is precisely what the terrorists we are fighting do.

This said, "fascism" is still a very elusive term. Jonah Goldberg points out that "there’s still no accepted definition of fascism among students of the phenomenon. " Everyone uses it, but I've read a hundred definitions and still can't tell you exactly what it means.

Be that as it may, since "fascism" is something that everyone is against, it is as good a term as any.

Next up: A Problem In Islam