I have often criticised the language used in the somewhat laughably named "War on Terror" and terms like Islamo fascist.
In this article I dealt with how you can't have a war on terror because terrorism is a defined act and you are not going to remove it from every dictionary, whilst also pointing out that it is a political war as well as a military one and we need to win the political one.
I have pointed out that terms like Islamo Fascist serve the enemy by driving people toward them rather than us. (See this article here).
It seems that some while ago David Cameron took that up and started to question the language. Well now in the face of the current threat the government, or more specifically Jacqui Smith have stopped using stupid language that appeals to our core vote whilst alienating the very people we need to bring on side.
Remember this, asymmetric wars are primarily political, and as such language is very important.
For more on the War on Terror see here.
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I personally see nothing wrong with the term “Islamofascism”, the arguments against tits usage essentially boil down to it not being “very nice”, yet the political ideology and related actions that fall under such a term aren’t “very nice”, in fact they’re despicable. Fair enough some people prefer the slightly softer term “Islamism” but to all intents and purposes the outcome is the same; if it walks, talks and acts like a fascist then it probably is a fascist. And if that fascism is based on particularly warped view of Islam then the neologism of “Islamofascism” is valid.
It’s good to see former extremists like Hassan Butt and Ed Hussein coming out and debunking some of the facile apologist myths that bleeding hearts have created to try and explain away what’s been going on. Accepting the problem is the first step to solving it, and for as long as the apologists have been able to propagate their spin and deflection we’ve been unable to get everyone to accept the problem.
MJW, It is not the accuracy of the term that I am complaining about, nor whether it offends people, what concerns me is our use of language being used by the enemy to gain recruits.
You do want to win this don't you?
this is mostly a political war, and language is important. We need to be nutralising their people faster than they are recruiting them to win. Sloppy language helps them, not us.
mjw - You are wrong. The term 'islamofascism' serves to subconsciously reassure people that there is another type of islam, and this is incorrect.
Islam is an intolerant, controlling belief system and it is a proselytising belief system. Its mission is to force the entire world to islam.
Until the politically correct (thought fascism) media and commentators wake up to this fact and drop the term 'islamofascism',there will be a dangerous confusion in people's minds. One is not bad and the other good. They are the same thing, and they are dangerous to the health of free societies.
MJW, and Verity, you're both right, in a way.
It seems everyone in the country, other than the political, chattering classes, and left-wing pc idiots, know why we have a problem, and who is causing the problem.
As far as I am concerned the debate is settled, and I poke and prod in the hope that eventually they will discover that they have a reasoning brain. The longer I poke and prod, and the more I read well researched articles pointing to the problem, and the deliberate "hiding of the problem", the more I become convinced that the political elite, and their neophytes are taking a deliberate course of action, that can only be described as treasonous.
The political elite, in short, are becoming/have become, the enemy of the majority of the population, that voted for them.
"The Government of this country has lost confidence in the population of this country" springs to mind.
That said, I look for someone to be asking, in strident tone, perhaps on a broadsheet:-
So the latest Islamofascists/murdering scum/death cult perps, are all quacks. Well, who recruited them, who checked careers/training/background, etc.
More specifically, who checked on a doctor who "Qualified" in Iraq in 2004. Exactly what was his pre-qual experience, given the lack of medical facilities/drugs, etc in that regime, and were standards equivalent to our own. That question should be applied to all the suspect quacks at this time.
It could also be widened to include the role of the BMA, and NHS policies on checking certification and relevant experience, and then widened further to embrace a fuck-wit gov't policy that promotes this policy in the first place.
In short, "why the fuck are these people working here, specifically in quack jobs?"
Then we could progress the question further, and be entitled to say:-
Since our returning wounded from whatever battlefield are now left in the fetid hands of an incompetent NHS, staffed apparently by these pieces of crap, are the sweet noises of reassurance issuing from political worms nothing more than the lies we know them to be?
Exactly what level of care would they/are they, receiving from these pieces of death cult crap?
And finally (cough, smile) are any ministerial heads ever likely to take responsibility for their own actions/policies, and resign, or does musical chairs excuse them from that obligation?
Hundreds of our own young British doctors forced to go overseas to look for jobs (and they will thank God they were forced out to a new life in a democracy!) and islamic rubbish swilling around the wheeled feet of the mixed-ward beds in Britain's foetid hospitals will try to slither in.
Too many people have been persuaded by frightened governments - I include Labour and Conservative - that there are two kinds of muslims: nice ones and islamofascists.
Under islam, there can only be one type: aggressors and conquerors.
Verity, whilst it is odd that we are exporting doctors we have paid to train to import doctors from abroad, you talk a lot of rubbish about Islam.
What is your solution to the issue? Shoot them all?
Benedict, you were brought up until the age of, if I recall correctly, eight, in Beirut. This does not mantle you in the cloak of "expert on islam".
If you read the works of some apostates - Aayan Hirsi Ali, who is an excellent, lucid writer - would be a good place to start, you will begin to understand the agenda of islam. It is world domination in the name of allah. You might also try Irshad Manji, a very entertaining woman who has no intention of leaving islam but believes it must undergo its Reformation moment.
Read the erudite and readable Fjordman. Daniel Pipes. Not a nut job between them.
Islam has always been about world domination in the name of allah,but they have only become emboldened by the cringing attitude of the West - beginning with Jimmy Carter - since 1979. You are in denial.
PS - What is my solution? Slash them back in the West. They have no business here and should not be here (meaning the West in general) in such large numbers. Set a top limit on the number of licenses for mosques. Embark on a programme similar to the French programme of giving a bounty for voluntary repatriation. No one wants them.
Plus, how about accepting the word of this LA pyschologist, a native Saudi who speaks flawless and apparently elegant Arabic. This is on al-Jazeera and she wipes the floor with the compere. The mullah, or whatever, who was supposed to be arguing with her decided discretion was the safest form of valour and simply shut up. It'g great! http://www.glumbert.com/media/japtetris
You may have to click to get the video larger, but it is there, larger. I don't know why it starts off tiny.
Verity, "Benedict, you were brought up until the age of, if I recall correctly, eight, in Beirut. This does not mantle you in the cloak of "expert on islam"."
Well, it is a hell of a lot better than scrapping around looking for the most extreme quotes you can find. It involved and still does, talking to real Muslims.
"If you read the works of some apostates - Aayan Hirsi Ali, who is an excellent, lucid writer - would be a good place to start, you will begin to understand the agenda of islam."
Islam is not like say Roman Catholicism. I t is like Christianity or Judaism in the sense that there are many many strands and sects of even the two major branches or Shia and Sunni Islam, so you assumption that Islam has a unified agenda shows your ignorance of the subject which is why I don't normally bother answering your comments.
"It is world domination in the name of allah."
Which is Arabic for God. Besides which Christianity spreads in the sense that it is a prothletising faith and has been spread at the point of a sword in the past.
"You might also try Irshad Manji, a very entertaining woman who has no intention of leaving islam but believes it must undergo its Reformation moment."
The issue here is this: Pre schism Christianity had one Church, post Schism it had two. Post reformation it now has many. Some are very "conservative" and some "progressive" in all sorts of different ways. (Judaism is the same with the differences between Orthodox, reform and so on, with sub strands and splits), Islam, shockingly, follows a similar model with again many subdivisions of thought and teaching even amongst its major branches. We have minor non authoritative Ayatollahs wanting a theocracy, like Khomeini, and Muqtada Al Sadr whilst more authoritative ones like the Ayatollah Sheik Ali Al Sistani teach a separation of religion and state. In the Sunni branch there is Sufism and Wahabism, with completely different world views and agendas.
So which bits need a "reformation"? Clearly Khomeini's view along with the Wahabi's needs to go, but Sistani and the Sufi's?
"You are in denial."
No, you are being selective about your evidence.
"PS - What is my solution? Slash them back in the West. They have no business here and should not be here (meaning the West in general) in such large numbers. Set a top limit on the number of licenses for mosques."
I have not checked but that looks a bit more extreme than the BNP.
"Embark on a programme similar to the French programme of giving a bounty for voluntary repatriation. No one wants them."
See the 1971 Immigration act.
"lus, how about accepting the word of this LA pyschologist, a native Saudi who speaks flawless and apparently elegant Arabic. This is on al-Jazeera and she wipes the floor with the compere. The mullah, or whatever, who was supposed to be arguing with her decided discretion was the safest form of valour and simply shut up. It'g great! http://www.glumbert.com/media/japtetris"
Japanese tetris? funny, but surely unrelated?
Japanese tetris - That was the address of the video I got off MEMRI. If you clicked on it, you would see it was an interview with Wafa Sultan and some mullah who was so intimidated by her he finally gave up and sat the rest of the programme out in a sulk. She is totally brilliant. And she is a successful doctor in LA. If the link doesn't work, let me know and I'll go back to MEMRI and try to refind it. There are English subtitles as she is speaking. Nothing to do with Japan.
Yes, thanks, I know about the different strands of islam. Duh. Irshad Manji is a practising Sunni who wants to see islam reformed. She has no intention of leaving her religion.
Jews aren't recruiters for their religion. Christians do proselytise - with words. The only religion that thinks conversion at the point of a gun is a valid way to persuade people to their faith, and believes in death for apostates is islam.
Re my comment about forced repatriation, you say, "I have not checked but that looks a bit more extreme than the BNP." And? Maybe the BNP needs to go back and rethink.
PS- The interview with Wafa Sultan was on al-Jazeera. If you speak Arabic, you can probably get it, but without subtitles, off their site.
Verity, the link takes you to a Japanese game show and subtitles are not necessary.
You know about different strands of Islam? Well, which ones need reforming?
As for Christians, they used to convert people at gun point, and to be fair Islam does not at the moment, that there are nutters who may wish to is taken for granted.
As for the BNP not being extreme enough? Golly. So they won't get your vote then?
"As for Christians, they used to convert people at gun point, and to be fair Islam does not at the moment, that there are nutters who may wish to is taken for granted."
Oh, really? Tell that to Theo van Gogh. Tell that to Aayan Hirsi Ali. Tell that to Kenneth Bigley. Tell that to the gentleman whose first name I can't remember, but whose surname was Pearl. Tell that to Geert Wilders.
Re the clip - apologies. A friend sent me that Japanese TV show and I copied it to forward it, obviously forgetting I'd already copied something I meant to paste. Here is the formidable Dr Wafa Sultan.
http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
This clip has been viewed worldwide over a million times.
Verity, you have to realise I grew up in a war zone, where as you are ignorant,
""As for Christians, they used to convert people at gun point, and to be fair Islam does not at the moment, that there are nutters who may wish to is taken for granted."
Oh, really? Tell that to Theo van Gogh. Tell that to Aayan Hirsi Ali. Tell that to Kenneth Bigley. Tell that to the gentleman whose first name I can't remember, but whose surname was Pearl. Tell that to Geert Wilders."
I grew up in Muslim West Beirut, when the civil war kicked off, the Christians were killing 200 Muslims a day, solely on the basis of the fact they were Muslim. You have come up with 5 names (It was Daniel Pearl) which amounts to less than one hours religious murders when I was a boy.
However of those you mention, none were murdered because they refused to convert, one was murdered by a lone nutter, (Theo) one because he was British and one because he was American The other two I don't know about.
So, so far you have less than an hours killing, whoopie do.
Many thanks for the updated link. I will look at it when I have the time.
Benedict, sorry to see you in a pissing contest for "killing time".
What verity says is true.
Not withstanding your "Qualification time" as a youth, which, given your age must have personally been highly subjective, you sound particularly biased against the ethos of this country, or at least the ethos pre multiculturalism. Maybe you long for the killing fields of your youth, to glory once again in the bloodshed and pain.
It pains me to see someone whom I thought to be reasonably logical to express such sentiments.
There is no equivalence between whatever brand of todays mainstream christianity you care to mention, and whatever brand of Islamic teachings you care to mention.
First there is the political fixation of Islam, which cannot be separated from the religious in the islamic teachings: we have been down this path before, and you still fail to comprehend despite your claimed background?
Secondly there is the main objective of Islam, and the extreme methods to attain this objective, which are explained, recommended, and discussed at length in Islamic writings ie, world domination.
There are detailed explanations of taxes to be paid to be allowed to live for the unconverted, lessons on slavery, female/wive abuse, paedophilia, bigamy, halal slaughter (maybe we should set the "animal rights lobby" on these butchers) arranged marriages, (first cousin deformities), honour killings, Face masks, and on, and on. ALL THESE are explained as religious duties/requirements, together with the active pursuit of sharia law, and constant pushing of the envelope concerning court cases, - masks at school/work, separate prayer facilities, etc. All these are alien to the modern UK life, and have nothing whatsoever to do with religion, but much to do with control.
For a person who proudly displays his allegiance to a conservative political party to display an affinity, nay a liking, for such nonsense, and to take a hysterical counter position to someone who opposes the intent of islamic nonsense, just beggars belief.
FWIW, you should seriously consider renouncing your UK heritage and your political affiliations, they clearly do not resonate with your deeply held belief systems, return to where-ever, and chant nonsense 5 times daily from a minaret. That way you get followers who do not argue with you, and maybe you even get to issue a fatwa so you get to suck the tits of females in your workplace!
I must confess I am confounded by this blog. The Conservative forgives terrorism because he lived until age 8 in Beirut. One is simply astounded at the sympathy for islamic murderers (and putative murderers, given that they have a satisfying habit of blowing themselves up so don't actually execute the deed as planned).
But your advocacy is disconcerting, and that you didn't comment on the Wafa Sultan video, which has been hailed worldwide as extraordinary, on al-Jazeera gives me a creepy feeling and I don't want to come back here.
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