All I’m saying is that you can’t expect a national government to take into consideration interests of foreigners. The US government does not represent Iraqis or world Muslims, it represents US population, or rather a segment of the US population.

Inevitably, it acts to advance interests of this segment of the US population and, to a degree, the US population as a whole, but nothing else.

It is possible, of course, that these interests will, from time to time, overlap with interests of the Iraqis or Muslims, but that would be highly unlikely, purely coincidental, and subject to change at any moment.

Islamophobia and governmentphobia are two sides of the same coin.

soru

http://countrystudies.us/spain/22.htm

In spite of the regime’s strong degree of control, Franco did not pursue totalitarian domination of all social, cultural, and religious institutions, or of the economy as a whole. The Franco regime also lacked the ideological impetus characteristic of totalitarian governments. Furthermore, for those willing to work within the system, there was a limited form of pluralism. Thus, Franco’s rule has been characterized as authoritarian rather than totalitarian.

soru

The longest one – in Spain – didn’t bother anybody from 1936 to 1975, for 40 years. People weren’t free and socialists were persecuted, some killed, but nothing like tarantula. Then Franco died and they moved on. Just a phase.

If you invaded Spain in 1970 they’d most likely be fighting you, the invador, not Franco.

The point is to try and understand what’s dangerous and what’s not.

Someone with a tendency towards arachnophobia (the irrational fear of spiders) might try to overcome that by deliberately seeking out and playing with spiders in order to build up their tolerance.

In itself that’s no bad thing, but it would suck if they got bit by a funnel web as a result.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venomous_funnel-web_tarantula

soru

(someone’s gonna accuse me of saying all muslims are spiders now…)

As a populist social movement prior to gaining government power, fascism displays different characteristics.

Wheras if you were right, it would have to say:
as a fascist must by definition be in control of a state, this is not the place to discuss Hitler’s politics prior to 1933, the Italian theorists of the 1920s, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_fascism

soru

As for ‘western phenomenom’ – quite right. Go walk around on the streets of baghdad, and look at what clothes people wear, what cars they drive, the shapes of their buildings, the uniforms the police and army wear, the guns the kidnappers use, and the computer they use to post their ransom demand onto the internet.

Do you think it is possible there is a little bit of western influence on current arab society? Since, say Napoleon invaded egypt?

soru

No, actually, common sense would dictate that there’d be Saudi, Iraqi and Egyptian fascists; that is unless your common sense tells you that ‘fascism’ is a primarily Western phemenon, which would be a quite reasonable common sense presupposition too.

But if you want to use ‘Islamofascism’, than, as the anti-racist warrior, you’d have to have Christianofascism and Judeofascism.

Or, alternatively, just provide some links to the people who called for a war to invade Iraq and turn it into Iran II. Find me some links to people who supported the invasion and predicted anything vaguely resembling the current situation.

There are British fascists, American fascists, Russian fascists, Finnish fascist, Japanese fascists, Argentinian fascists, and Belgian fascists (don’t think there are any Canadian fascists, but I could be wrong). A fascist movement is like an airport, something every country that goes through a certain level of development will end up with.

So, common sense would seem to dictate that there be islamic fascists, and if, as well as planning a path of national destiny through conquest, they quote scripture in the way only a few fascist movements from primarily christian countries did, that makes them islamofascists.

But to a racialist, racial and ethnic differences are the most fundamental, if some people of a different ethnic or racial background behave differently from you or I, the differences must be ethnic or racialist, can never be political.

Consequently, they start throwing round the term ‘islamofascist’ for everyone of that racial, ethnic or religious group.

Racism always reveals itself in the language used.

soru

Fair enough.