Peter Costello has stated that the war against Islamic terrorists will last for half a century http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/50year-terror-war-warning/2006/08/19/1155408071304.html. David Ignatius over at Real Clear Politics has an excellent article about who it is that we are fighting http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/what_are_islamic_fascists_anyw.html
In his view, there are similarities between the factors that led to the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s and the forces driving Islamism today. He quotes Ernst Nolte's "Three Faces of Fascism” saying that Fascism is "resistance to transcendence.'' By that, he meant that fascism was a rebellion against the liberating but destabilizing transformations of modern society. He also notes that the fascist revolt against "transcendence'' was driven in part by rage against the perceived corruption of the European elites, who were thought to have grown rich during the booming, inflationary years of the 1920s at the expense of the hard-working middle class. The final malign motivation in Germany was shame and indignation over the nation's defeat in World War I. Fascism gave ordinary people an explanation of what had gone wrong in their lives -- and someone to blame.
Sounds very much like the arguments put forward by the Islamists, and as Ignatius notes:
Today's Muslim radicals, like the Nazis in Germany, gain support by promising dignity for a people who feel shamed by defeat in war. That's the appeal of Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah: The Arabs feel they have suffered 40 years of military humiliation from Israel. Nasrallah offers the tonic of defiance and, for the moment at least, a sort of victory. That makes him a hero, even though he brought on the ruination of Lebanon.
Altogether, I feel that it is a powerful argument. The question is then how can other Muslims react to this?
