"An Islamist Threat Like the Nazis"Regnery Publishing will obvioulsy publish just about anything. A new book they're releasing by a Washington Times reporter is called "The West's
Last Chance." Supposedly, we face a Europe that is on the cusp of being conquered by shadowy Islamist (isn't that Islamofascist? get your talking points right!) forces. Supposedly this threat is every bit as menacing as Hitler. Okay, so Osama Bin Laden and a bunch of terrorists that we don't know or see is somehow as threatening as three allied
Fascist COUNTRIES? I mean, we put down Italy, Germany and Japan in WWII. So now we're worried about a rag-tag band of extremists? They're a threat to CIVILIZATION?
How about this? They're nothing to be scared of. They're like dogs-their bark is far worse than their bite.
They cannot project power. They cannot invade a nation. They cannot occupy a nation. They can't overthrown a government (even if they were to kill all the members of Congress, the President and all otherassociated people, we have continuity of government plans). They, in short, possess no power but to alter the national psyche. Books like
this only make the myth of their "great power" greater.
Terrorists are nothing to be afraid of. We should certainly try to capture them and bring them to trial. We should do all we possibly can to marginalize them and point out their impotence; however, we must not place upon them this mythical all-conquering power. The United States is still a great power, and we would do better to emphasize that than the dubious ability of the terrorists to do anything other than create limited mayhem. Even in Iraq, where there are thousands of terrorists, they cannot dislodge our military---we must CHOOSE to leave.
INSERT RANT ABOUT HOW YOU WILL NOT DIE FROM TERRORISM HERE.
This type of thing is how the Republicans have managed to scare the entire population. This book doesn't get to too many people, but it and others like it create the image that the world is far more dangerous than it is. The reporting in the Washington Times, reprinting sections of the book, gives the conservatives something to splutter over.