Comparing Jihadists to Communists/Nazis

Submitted by Michael Cavallo (United States), Oct 8, 2008 at 13:42

This excellent post has a careless final comment. Pipes estimates 150 million Islamists worldwide and supports the figure cogently, but then he states flatly that this is "more than all the fascists and communists who ever lived."

The only explanation I can imagine for this statement is that Pipes is totally official party memberships figures for the later group, but this would be highly misleading because it is a vastly narrower definition than he is using for Islamists. If one took a poll in Maoist China and asked if the responder favored Communism one would have had an affirmative response suggesting one billion Communists there alone. Even if one adjusted for a fear factor the number of sincere Communist and Fascist fellow-travellers during the 20th century would have vastly out-numbered 150 million. Mores the pity.

Pipes's excellent argument would be strengthened by removing the final throw-away line.

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