The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'

Old column by Eric Margolis, but I'm reposting as a refresher for the slow learning red-staters around these here parts. Realize that Margolis brands himself a conservative, but rejects NeoCon-ism. Yet regardless of his political affiliation, real or imagined, the words he pens bear a striking resemblance to reality, unlike so many other vapid screeds.

The latest big lie unveiled by Washington’s neoconservatives are the poisonous terms, `Islamo-Fascists’ and `Islamic Fascists. They are the new, hot buzzwords among America’s far right and Christian fundamentalists.
...
The term `Islamofascist’ is utterly without meaning, but packed with emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy Dr. Goebbles, and the latest expression of the big lie technique being used by neocons in Washington’s propaganda war against its enemies in the Muslim World.
...
This ugly term was coined - as was the other hugely successful propaganda term, `terrorism’ – to dehumanize and demonize opponents and deny them any rational political motivation, hence removing any need to deal with their grievances and demands.
...
It is grotesque watching the Bush Administration and Tony Blair maintain the ludicrous pretense they are re-fighting World War II. The only similarity between that era and today is the cultivation of fear, war fever and racist-religious hate by US neoconservatives and America’s religious far right, which is now boiling with hatred for anything Muslim.
...
Under the guise of fighting a `third world war’ against `Islamic fascism,’ America’s far right is infecting its own nation with the harbingers of WWII totalitarianism.
...
The Muslim World is replete with brutal dictatorships, feudal monarchies, and corrupt military-run states, but none of these regimes, however deplorable, fits the standard definition of fascism. Most, in fact, are America’s allies.
...
Claims by fevered neoconservatives that Muslim radicals plan to somehow impose a worldwide Islamic caliphate are lurid fantasies worthy of Dr. Fu Manchu and yet another example of the big lie technique that worked so well over Iraq.
...
However, there are plenty of modern far rightists with neo-fascist tendencies. But to find them, you have to go to North America and Europe. They advocate `preemptive attacks against all potential enemies,’ grabbing other nation’s resources, overthrowing uncooperative governments, military dominance of the world, hatred of Semites (Muslims in this case), adherence to biblical prophecies, hatred of all who fail to agree, intensified police controls, and curtailment of `liberal’ political rights.
...
They revel in flag-waving, patriotic melodrama, demonstrations of military power, and use the mantle of patriotism to feather the nests of the military-industrial complex, colluding legislators and lobbyists. They urge war to the death, fought, of course, by other people’s children. They have turned important sectors of the media into propaganda organs and brought the Pentagon largely under their control.
...
And now they are furiously whipping up war fever against Syria and Iran as a last desperate effort to keep themselves in power after the debacles they created in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Lebanon.

The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'