Recently, Bush has equated Communism with radical Islam.
Is the comparison apt?
In a series of recent speeches to the American people, President Bush has sought to equate the current terrorist threat with the 20th-century menace of communist totalitarianism. His case is that the terrorist challenge is global in scope, “evil” in nature, ruthless toward its foes, and eager to control every aspect of life and thought. Thus, he argues, the battle against terrorism demands nothing “less than a complete victory.”
In making this case, the president has repeatedly invoked the adjective “Islamic” when referring to terrorism and he has compared the “murderous ideology of Islamic radicalism” to the ideology of communism.
Is the president historically right in his diagnosis of the allegedly similar dangers posed by Islamic extremism and by totalitarian communism? The differences between the two may be more telling than their similarities. And is he wise to be expounding such a thesis?
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