Flying JetBlue yesterday, I looked over to my seatmate's teeny-tiny TV to see O'Reilly blustering on, anchored by the tagline: "So-and-so doesn't think we should call terrorists 'Islamic Fascists.'" This was, no shit, the topic of conversation on Fox yesterday, and to judge by the gesticulations, it was a vibrant exchange of, er, ideas.
So much as I think the whole thing is funny, the "Islamo-fascist" formulation is a pretty pernicious bit of branding. The inclusion of fascism there seeks to redefine nomadic, diffuse enemies as traditional state actors, albeit ones lacking a state. Given that al Qaeda's goals mostly center on blunting or rejecting the influence of foreign actors in Arab lands, insinuating that their aim is to institute Mussolini's governing philosophy is yet another way of convincing ourselves that the threat we face is mundane and well-understood, and thus requires neither new thinking nor altered tactics. In other words, "Islamo-fascism" allows us to pretend we're at war, rather than engaged in a multinational, existentially important law enforcement operation, a view John Kerry held, was ridiculed for, and has now been joined by George Will in holding.
