https://pjmedia.com/culture/ro....bert-spencer/2021/10

CounterPunch Blames Capitalism For Islamic Jihad Terrorism – PJ Media
pjmedia.com

CounterPunch Blames Capitalism For Islamic Jihad Terrorism – PJ Media

CounterPunch is a gang of hard-Left fantasists, but since their ideological kin run the world today, it’s worthwhile to look in on their fever dreams from time to time. On Friday, CounterPunch published an article entitled “The Privatization of ‘Jihad,’” alongside their usual fare: “If You Work in the U.S., You Don’t Know How Bad You Have It,” “Hungarian-Style Soft Fascism is the GOP’s Ruthless New Brand,” and the like.

The jihad article declares: “Modern jihad is exactly that—modern. It is not a revival of an ancient instruction from the Koran, nor is it even what the author of the Koran or its classical interpreters had in mind.” This confident and wholly unsupported statement is followed by the even more fanciful claim that modern jihad actually comes from the evil free market: “Instead, modern jihad as practiced by self-proclaimed Islamic organizations like Al-Queda [sic] and the Islamic State (ISIS) is a manifestation of this age of neoliberal capitalism.”

This “manifestation” apparently came about because “no longer is jihad carried out with an army of the Caliphate or even a state, but by a private group of individuals acting perhaps in concert, but just as likely as disconnected individuals angry at their lives and the society they exist in. Like those who shoot up high schools and those who murder dozens from hotel windows in Las Vegas or nightclubs in Orlando, the protagonist of this so-called jihad are symptoms of the economics and politics of their time and the atomized society of today.”