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Salon has just posted a super-smarmy interview with "liberal hawk" Paul Berman, who espouses the Christopher Hitchens line that "Islamofascism" is the deadliest threat facing the world today. Forget that we're talking about mostly Stone Age countries riven with tribal and nationalist infighting, and forget that what he calls Baathist (pan-Arab) and Islamist tendencies are utterly opposed (he describes them equivocally as "rivals/cousins"). Yes, henceforth these people will unite and goosestep together in one great, monolithic nation that will make the Ottoman empire look like a high school chess club. That is, unless we stop them. And by "we" Berman means George Bush, even though he whines that the interviewer is "trying to pin him down" in expressing support for the Iraq takeover. He spits venom at antiwar protesters, comparing them to the French socialists who ignored the Nazi threat, and asks a loaded question: How horrible must they feel seeing photos of tearful Iraqis embracing their "liberators"? (Duh, don't you think those are precisely the images Bush & Co want us to see?) Berman thinks protesters should stop demonstrating and start agitating for more democracy in Iraq. It rattles the brain that he's so focused on stopping fascism abroad he can't see it growing at blitzkrieg pace in his own country.
Ironically, those alarm bells are being rung much more loudly by the hard, libertarian right than the "help others even if it kills them" left. An essay in the Moonie-owned Washington Times, by archconservative Paul Craig Roberts, actually compares Bush to Hitler! Here, at least, is someone who is worried about the Administration's use of forged evidence as a pretext for war.
I'm following all this on the Internet because I can't bear the TV coverage. I don't have much to say that other weblogs aren't saying more eloquently, except, if you're reading this outside the USA:
Sorry, not all of us agree with the current government. We're having a little "Nazis taking root" problem and hopefully we'll have it fixed by the next election.