The real Islamphobia

9/11 in the US and Spain's later 3/11 convinced very nearly everybody but the truthers and the fringey left that Muslim terrorism was a much bigger threat to the US and the entire West than it is and licensed the American government to carry out numerous useless countermeasures many of which have been insanely expensive and some of which have been horrifically bloody.

Airport and homeland security.

The war in Afghanistan.

The war in Iraq.

Meddling in Libya, Syria, and Egypt.

And these last have been so inept and stupid that they have given rise to vast new opportunities for successful Jihad by creating violent chaos where there had previously been peace and order.

On the other hand, Anders Breivik convinced only the fringey left that the threat of popular hostility toward Muslims is much greater than it is, in the US and in Europe as well.

And so as I noted the other day the left is seizing the improbable occasion - while admitting it is improbable - of the Chapel Hill killings to lambaste organizations, websites, and individuals for inciting anti-Muslim sentiment.

It has been pointed out, evidently to no effect, that very few Americans have any exposure to the supposed Islamophobe propaganda.

But huge numbers of Americans are exposed almost daily to news of unrelenting and global Muslim violence, accompanied by nearly constant incitement to fear and dread.

Anne Applebaum is one of those who have it right about the danger posed to the West by Muslim terrorism.

Too bad she has it so wrong about Russia.

Anyway, this constant propaganda of fear and exaggeration of the threat to America, the West, and the whole world is the real Islamophobia.

Like this.

What Is the Point of This Week's Terror Summit?

WSJ on the terror summit

It is true that the threat exemplified by ISIS is Jihader Islam and nothing else.

It is true that while efforts of past and current American presidents to avoid saying or even seeming to say that the enemy is Islam per se are perfectly sensible if equivocal and not entirely candid, the tendency of the current White House to join the left in identifying the threat as "religious extremism" in general is cowardly, weaselly, and even ridiculous.

Does the president think the world today faces a threat from the Inquisition? From the Crusades?

Is that why this summit is even on the books?

And how Islamic can you get?

These guys are so Koranic it's impossible to deny the central place of Islam's holiest and foundational text in legitimating Jihad and other forms of barbarous violence.

What ISIS wants

Real Islamophobia lies not in recognizing the special, even global threat posed uniquely in our time by violent Islam and no other religion, primarily to Muslims but also to very nearly any non-Muslims within reach of Jihader attack.

Nor does it lie in recognizing the Jihaders' completely accurate claim to be followers of genuine and authentic, true-blue Islam rather than some perversion of it.

Real Islamophobia lies in greatly exaggerating the threat Jihaders pose to the Occident and in particular to the Western Hemisphere.

And on that basis insisting on even further useless, expensive, horrifically bloody, and doubtless counter-productive military action, along with other absurd, illegal, and even unconstitutional anti-terrorist and anti-Jihader undertakings.

That is the real Islamphobia.

And that is the real harm it has done and continues to do.