"Islamic fundamentalism is fascistic"

Jay in England also sent this link to an editorial in Monday's Daily Telegraph. He said the author, Janet Daley, tends to be on the liberal sides of things, so this is a rather surprising piece.

Here are some excerpts, though you really ought to read the whole thing:


'Fascistic' is the right word for Islamic fundamentalism

by Janet Daley
(Filed: 14/08/2006)

The anti-war-on-terror lobby has had a bad week. Not that it hasn't kept its end up. Oh no. Faced with a threat so devastating that it seemed more like a world-domination plot from a Superman comic than a hard-headed act of war, there was nothing for it but to fall back on semantics.

George W. Bush was pilloried for referring to "Islamic fascists" by, among others, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. Using that kind of language "on the ranch in Texas" did not help, he said, to make society "a good, neighbourly place".

I don't know what the ranch in Texas has to do with anything, but Dr Sentamu seems not to understand the difference between describing Islamic fundamentalists as fascistic, and saying that all Muslims are fascists.

And more:

Similar confusion seemed to prevail in much of the broadcast media. I heard one television interviewer ask a Muslim spokesperson if he thought that Mr Bush's "name-calling" had any point.

Name-calling? This makes it sound as if he had said: "Al-Qa'eda are a bunch of big fat poops."

The word "fascism" means an extreme totalitarian system that suppresses human rights and democratic freedoms.

Islamic fundamentalism is fascistic in the precise, technical sense of the word.

Absolutely the truth.

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