Never thought I'd do it, but I've finally emailed NPR

I don't know why it is, but I can never properly begin a letter. Even on a day like today when I've spent countless hours in deep thought, made a tremendous, life-changing decision and have lost track of my attempts at finding a moment of mental peace in which to say what it is I need to say, I'm still left with a flood of disorganized information and commentary.

So please bear with me a bit, I'm going to do my best to make this worth your while.

NPR has served as an invaluable source of information for me since I was in high school. It has also been agonizing for me to listen to because I so frequently feel inclined to call in but can never break away from work to do so. Today has been a classic example but I'm sitting down and forcing myself to write this because today I've decided that I'm going to enlist in the Army. I don't expect to change anyone's opinions, but I do feel a need to say my piece before I'm too busy acting on my decision to make time to write anything which remotely resembles this.

What I'm specifically addressing is the discussion I heard today on Talk of the Nation, Robert Paxton's take on the term "Islamofascism" and the reactions expressed to President Bush's recent public statements on the war in Iraq – how all of these topics converge almost a century ago with one man: Amin Al-Husseini.

In 1917, Husseini returned to his birthplace of Jerusalem fresh from his active participation in the Armenian Genocide and set to work fomenting what is today the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He incited riots against Palestine's Jews, he murdered and intimidated secular Muslims and Islamic clerics who stood up for what one of your guests today referred to as "the true nature of Islam." By the start of the second world war, Husseini had allied himself with Hitler and was even able to raise a Muslim division of the SS.

During the course of World War II, Amin Al-Husseini advocated the extermination of Germany's Jews (rather than their exportation), and as the commander of Muslim troops in Bosnia ordered the deaths of 22,000 Jews, 40,000 Gypsies and 200,000 Orthodox Christian Serbs.

After the war, Husseini helped found the Arab League and lived out the latter days of his life in Egypt.

In Amin Al-Husseini was born both the Wahhabist radical Islam we see expressed in al Queda and the Pan-Arab nationalism of (as an example) today's Ba'athists. Take a moment to examine the rhetoric of either movement and Husseini's ideological fingerprints quickly flood to the forefront; brutal authoritarianism, racism (often expressed to the extreme of genocide) and Arab/Islamist nationalism.

So, first, to Mr. Paxton, I would offer Dictionary.com's definition of "fascism:"

1. a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

2. the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.

3. a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

While, obviously, the full spectrum of terrorist organizations we confront today is far more complicated and nuanced than any of us have time to discuss, how does the above definition NOT apply to al Queda or Ba'athism? So, how is one necessarily incorrect in applying the term "Islamofascism" (especially in light of definition three)?

Secondly, I recall Osama Siblani inviting us all to debate and to look past the recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and to what Israel has done in the past five or ten years. Well, I have to ask him to look back 90+ years and to how an Arab created this entire conflict out of his own fanaticism and bigotry. Why should we in this nation and this world hold Israel accountable when an Arab started this entire mess?


Ultimately, I'm not here to cast blame. Past a certain point, it's stupid and wasteful to hold others to blame for misdeeds which have long vanished into the past. We all have our weaknesses and we all can think back to times when we have wronged others. More importantly, we all have the option to take a moment of self-examination and change from the wrong path to a better one.

I ask all of you... what are you for? What are you against?

Not just in the simplistic terms of "the war" or "Bush" but in your fundamental values.

Are you for Democracy or against it? Should the genders be equal under the law or not? Do you like having your choice of religion or would you like it mandated to you? Do you think your (or anybody else's) race is reason enough for your massacre or do you think would-be killers needs a better justification than that? Is the intentional killing or endangerment of non-combatants EVER justified?

I've answered all these questions for myself and I find I have no choice but decide that I will stand against Iraq's insurgency, I'll stand against al Queda and I'll stand against anybody else who declares themselves the enemy of this nation.

It's not that I think we're flawless (we are, after all, as human as they come), but I have to look at everything I think is right and how Pacifism as failed to accomplish ANY of it in the face of determined authoritarianism and I can only conclude that it's time for me to fight.

Peace to you all.