NeoconWatch II: silent on McCain’s move to the left, condemning of Wilders’s exposure of Islam

(Note: To correct a possible misimpression, McCain in his speech did not use John Kerry’s phrase “global test.” Substantively, however, he touched all the notes of the Kerry foreign policy. In particular, he plainly suggested that we should never take action in our defense without getting the approval of others. See paragraphs 5 though 8 of his speech.)

Almost 48 hours after Sen. McCain gave his speech in which he adopted a John Kerry-esque, “global-test” foreign policy, Powerline, which is normally right on top of any important development in the world of politics, has not said a single word about it. Nor has the blog of Commentary. Nor has National Review Online (except for a couple of insubstantial passing comments at the Corner two days ago). However, in the midst of this Soviet-like silence in the “conservative” establishment, Scott of Powerline takes the time to attack Geert Wilders’s movie Fitna which became available on the Web yesterday:

Though the footage is familiar, the film is disturbing. In the film Wilders attributes the murder and violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam to Islam and the Koran. The film therefore does not distinguish between Islam and Islamism, asserting that the distinction is false.

This is false. The movie does not say anything about the Western construct “Islamism,” so how could it say that the distinction between Islamism and Islam is false? The movie simply shows various verses from Koran, and the behavior of Muslims in carrying out those verses.

Get the doublethink in this paragraph:

The film would not be worthy of note were it not for the fear and threats of violence that the its release has generated. The Iranian regime that commits mass murder in the name of Islam has condemned the film as “hideous” and called on European governments to block the showing of the film. Or else, I guess.

So Scott says that Fitna is of no value because in showing how Muslims commit mass murder in the name of Islam it doesn’t throw in the false concept of Islamism. But then Scott, without batting an eye, mentions the Iranian regime “that commits mass murder in the name of Islam.” Which sounds to me like a confirmation of the movie. But no. Because the movie is not framed in the dishonest slogan, “Of course, only a tiny percentage of Muslims are Islamists who kill in the name of Islam,” therefore the movie’s portrayal of Muslims who kill in the name of Islam is false and unworthy of note.

For Powerline, a movie about the Islamic conquest of the Near East in the 7th century and the destruction of its thriving Christian and Jewish civilization would be false and unworthy of note, if the movie failed to inform us that the conquest was the work of “Islamists” who were only a tiny percentage of the Muslim population.

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Steven Warshawsky writes:

Excellent post re Powerline’s review of Fitna.

In my own experience, I have found that even staunch conservatives (patriotic, pro-gun, pro-life, anti-welfare state, etc.) have real difficulty condemning Islam. As you have explained so often, this reflects the liberal nondiscrimination principle that has been beaten so deeply into all of our heads (especially those of us who live in “blue” states and attended “elite” colleges) that even most conservatives do not realize how it affects their thinking. But the more educated people become about Islamic history and doctrine and the reality of life in Muslim societies—and the more people are confronted with the internal contradictions in their thinking about the problem—the more they are starting to open their eyes to the existential danger we are facing. I see this happening among my own circle of conservative friends and acquaintances.

James M. writes:

” … the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding … “

Typical liberal evasion. To see what Islam is like, simply look at Muslims do when they have control of a country or region. Every Muslim country and every Muslim “community” in other countries is causing problems for its non-Muslim neighbours. The only thing that differs is how severe the problems are. The guardian of Islam’s central shrines is a police-state and exports its “extremist” version of Islam all over the world. There is no liberal Muslim state: all of them are misogynist and “hateful” by Western standards, let alone liberal ones. Yet liberals facilitate the growth of this anti-liberal force in the West. I think adolescent psychology is at work: liberals are like teenagers trying to spite their parents by snuggling up to a black-sheep uncle. For parents read “Christianity and Western civilization”; for black-sheep uncle read “Islam.”

LA replies:

Yes. This is a major aspect of the Western left-liberal psychology. When young people become alienated from their parents or society, they look for some Other to romanticize, finding sympathetic qualities and superior goodness in that Other. But the motivating impulse is not a rational belief in goodness (if it were, they would not excuse and cover up the negative and threatening aspects of the Other), but an irrational reaction against one’s own.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 28, 2008 09:24 AM | Send