MY RESPONSE TO TARIQ ALI'S "THE NEW EMPIRE LOYALISTS"

http://ghandchi.com/126-TariqAli.htm

The following is the URL of Tariq Ali's article entitled "The New Empire Loyalists: Former Leftists Turned US Military Cheerleaders are Helping Snuff Out Its Traditions of Dissent":

http://www.counterpunch.com/tariqempire1.html

I think Tariq Ali is another one like Noam Chomsky who thinks anybody who is opposing Islamic Fundamentalism is supporting US imperialism, and this guy too tries to put the critics in a defensive position. The truth is that the likes of Noam Chomsky still do not get it that Islamic Fundamentalism today has the same role as Communism of the previous era. BTW, in the previous era, they did not get it that Communism had the same role as fascism in the era before that one, and they attacked real intellectual giants like Karl Popper, who saw the issue long before all the sacrifices! Their critic of the US and the West, which is OK, has blinded them about these so-called underdogs, and they try to put the others, who see the problem of Islamic Fundamentalism, in defensive, by any means, now trying to show them as CIA and US lackey. So much like the time of the Soviet Union and the way these pseudo intellectuals attacked whoever challenged the Left. Repeating the tragedy again and becoming the apologists of Islamic Fundamentalism and seeing it as underdog of the third world, rather than seeing it as the fascism of the third world, which it is.  Sigh! I think the ones who are really doing the courageous work of a real intellectual are people like Steven Emerson, and not these apologists of hezbollAh, under the cloak of fighting US imperialism.  See Steven Emerson's excellent book "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us".

I feel authors like Tarig Ali do not write clear and crisp and all they do is safsateh  and just like Noam Chomsky, they are the ones misleading the Iranian intellectuals. Karl Popper was attacked a lot more than me in his time by the ones who sat in the West and spoke intellectually in support of the Soviet System, as an underdog; just like those New York intellectuals before them, who supported Nazism in the 30's as an underdog, in the New York coffee shops. Now that Soviet Communism has fallen and Lenin's mass murder of Tsar's family, and other political atrocities of Communism are out, the ones who attacked Popper are silent. His battle with Communism then, was like the battle of the ones like Steven Emerson and Rushdie today, who are fighting fascist Islamism of our times.

And the likes of these guys have not written a word in support of Rushdie.  They have helped the attackers of Salman Rushdie by changing the focus of the debate to whether Rushdie's work is a great literary work, whereas the issue is the fascism of Islamic Fundamentalists who are threatening Rushdie to death.   Those who have not written a line to support Rushdie, in all these years, during all these death threats and attacks on him, should be ashamed of themselves, rather than blaming others.

Why being so ambiguous? My view very clearly is that Islamic Fundamentalism today is equivalent to Communism of the last half century and all the talk of it being third-world resistance is nonsense. My point is that Islamists' fascist oppression of their people is equivalent to the oppression of remaining Communist states like Vietnam, North Korea, China, etc and actually this is the growing one, just like when fascism was dying down at the end of 40's, and Communism was rising as the main force of dictatorship in the world.

What is *the* view of this author about Islamic Fundamentalism? Clear and crisp? I think this is the fundamental problem that makes the likes of him to side for unconditional lifting of sanctions on Islamic Republic of Iran, without wanting to make it conditional on human rights, when even the last report of UN representative depicting the reality is available in front of their eyes:

http://www.iran-emrooz.de/asnad/capitora801218.html

The Islamic Republic system has been the main propagator of Islamic Fundamentalism in the last quarter century and is thriving thanks to its sarneyzeh inside Iran and thanks to its apologists outside Iran.

I hope the supporters of Tariq Ali's article do not repeat the known issues about US imperialism in Vietnam, etc, instead of discussing the issue of Islamic Fundamentalists' fascism. The topic is not about US, and noting US crimes, instead of discussing the above topic, is either ignorance, or it is insincere, just like the way the Soviet apologists did it for 50 years, that whenever democrats asked them about the atrocities of the Soviet Union, they would talk about US imperialism, rather than answering about the Soviet System, for which they were the apologists.

Sam Ghandchi, Publisher

IRANSCOPE

http://www.IRANSCOPE.com

March 20, 2002

RELATED ARTICLES
http://www.ghandchi.com/index-Page13.html

P.S. And here are some more notes I would like to say about Noam Chomsky and similar positions:

Featured Topics
http://featured.ghandchi.com


SEARCH