-- Luke
To say that the Manhattan and Pentagon bombers are 'fascists with an Islamic face' can help whip up a war-frenzy, but it solves nothing, apart from being a wrong-headed analogy. Pre-war fascism was based on both mass and corporate support, which they retained till it became obvious that they were going to be defeated. Likewise the European 'post'- fascists today: Haidar in Austria, Fini in Italy, Le Pen in France and their friends in Britain base themselves on a certain degree of popular support.
The groups that carried out the attack on the United States are reminiscent of another tradition. They are propagandists of the deed. They imagine that by sensational terrorist actions they can exert sufficient pressure to change the course of politics and history. It is pressure politics of the sort, which deliberately excludes any attempt to mobilize mass support. Someone once referred to them as 'liberals with a bomb'. They believe that the spectacle of murder and mayhem can effect change and usually they're wrong.
Who were they? How were they recruited? What made them decide to sacrifice their own lives and thousands of others? Here the answers are obvious. The question is not what Osama Bin Laden thinks of the state of the world. His former employers in the CIA are well versed as far as he concerned. The question is how he recruits middle-class graduates in Saudi Arabia and Egypt to his cause. For it is they and not the illiterate bearded fanatics in Afghanistan who carried out these monstrous actions. Here a quick viewing of Bin Laden's video messages to his followers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt makes his appeal obvious. What he says (and I've seen one of them) is that the Gulf War was a crime against the people of Iraq. He and Hitchens agree on that. Secondly he denounces the continued occupation of Palestine and Western complicity with the suffering of the Palestinians. Hitchens would agree with that as well. Thirdly he denounces the corrupt and hypocritical Arab regimes and venal political leaders who refuse to re-distribute wealth.
He refers to them as bloodsuckers living off the oil that is a 'common property'. Here, too, I think, Hitchens would be in agreement. Of course, Bin Laden's solution is a nightmare Pax Talibana throughout the world of Islam, which few Muslims or non-Muslims want. But his appeal for educated young men in the Middle-East lies in what he demands and therefore our response must surely be to insist on political solutions that drain away support from terrorist groups. When the IRA attempted to blow up the British Cabinet in Brighton, the British state, horrified though it was, did not declare war on Ireland. In fact, soon afterwards it began to search for political solutions.
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