Islamic Fascists

That's right. President Bush said "Islamic fascists."

Do you have a problem with that?

I don't.

Some do. The usual suspects.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. Muslim groups criticized President Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a "war with Islamic fascists," saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions.

U.S. officials have said the plot, thwarted by Britain, to blow up several aircraft over the Atlantic bore many of the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

"We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counterproductive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group.

Reuters -- the news outlet that refuses to call a terrorist a terrorist, the news outlet that puts out doctored photos on its wire -- once again is citing CAIR as if it's a credible, mainstream organization.

It's not.

Read about CAIR.

Read more here and here.

I believe that CAIR is engaged in "ill-advised" activities and should not be given credibility as a legitimate Islamic advocacy group.

"We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslims," he told a news conference in Washington.

"We urge him (Bush) and we urge other public officials to restrain themselves."

Really?

Restrain this.

Let's quit pretending that there isn't a religious element to this war.

Bush didn't say anything about a war with Islam. We are at war with Islamic fundamentalists, militants, fascists. That's the reality.

Peace-loving Muslims (not CAIR) should direct their anger and concerns at the Islamic fascists who plotted to bomb 10+ commercial airliners in the hopes of killing thousands of people.

Those terrorists are the enemies of the Muslims who don't adhere to that twisted philosophy, the Muslims who want to live in peace, work hard, raise their families, and be happy.

...Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told MSNBC television the phrase reflected what he called Osama bin Laden's own vision of leading a totalitarian empire under the guise of religion.

"It might may not be classic fascism as you had with Mussolini or Hitler. But it is a totalitarian, intolerant imperialism that has a vision that is totally at odds with Western society and our rules of law," Chertoff said.

Call a spade a spade. Call an Islamofascist an Islamofascist.

Many American Muslims, who say they have felt singled out for discrimination since the September 11 attacks, reject the term and say it unfairly links their faith to notions of dictatorship, oppression and racism.

No, no, no.

The terrorists have linked their faith to things far worse than "dictatorship, oppression and racism."

Islam is linked with slitting the throats of flight attendants with box cutters, flying planes into the World Trade Center, encouraging children to kill themselves in order to kill others, committing barbaric acts like beheadings, and striving to achieve the stated goal of annihilating Israel.

We cannot ignore reality.

It's awful that Islam is linked with such horrors, but it's being intellectually dishonest to pretend that the religion has no role in the terrorism.

It does.

Islam has been hijacked. OK. That means that the good people need to wrestle the controls from the hijackers and retake their faith from the bad people.

"The problem with the phrase is it attaches the religion of Islam to tyranny and fascism, rather than isolating the threat to a specific group of individuals," said Edina Lekovic, spokeswoman for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.
There are millions that support what Lekovic refers to as a "specific group of individuals."

That makes it sound like it's just a handful of people and Bush is trashing an entire group. He's not. Bush is being very specific about the group of Muslims that he's referencing -- the Islamic fascists.

I'm sorry that there are Islamofascists, but there are.

She said the terms cast suspicions on all Muslims, even the vast majority who want to live in safety like other Americans.

No, the terms only cast suspicions on terrorists and their sympathizers, the ones who believe in blowing up innocent civilians on planes.

Bush upset many Muslims after the September 11 attacks by referring to the global war against terrorism early on as a "crusade," a term which for many Muslims connotes a Christian battle against Islam. The White House quickly stopped using the word, expressing regrets if it had caused offense.

Bush was using the term "crusade" in its secular sense. Muslims should have realized that.

Mohamed Elibiary, a Texas-based Muslim activist, said he was upset by the president's latest comments.

Again, this guy should be upset with the terrorists. He should be angry with the ones that scream "Allahu Akbar" when they're flying planes into the WTC towers or beheading a hostage.

"God is great!"

Bush didn't introduce religion into this. Blame the terrorists for making the murder of the infidels a religious calling.

I'm sure it's horribly painful to have your faith twisted and used to justify evil.

I sincerely feel for all those suffering because of the Islamofascists. Their victims aren't just the infidels -- Christians, Jews, and any other non-Islamic people. They kill Muslims too, using them as human shields and then using their corpses as props. They cast shame on the Islamic faith. It's terrible, but it's true.

We can't simply dismiss the reality of the religious component that fuels the terrorism. And likewise, we can't dismiss the reality that there are good people and bad people who claim allegiance to Islam. We must make those differentiations, rather than pretending they don't exist.

I think it's wrong to get upset about the term.

Instead, get upset about what the Islamofascists are doing. Get upset that Islamofascists were ready to blow up ten planes packed with innocents.

Bush didn't back away from using the "Axis of Evil" term because it's fitting, totally appropriate.

Similarly, he shouldn't back off using the term "Islamic fascists" either, because, sadly, it fits.