Fox News "Medical A Team" member Keith Ablow thinks "it's time for an American jihad."
Ablow issued his summons in a column he penned for Fox News on Tuesday. Noting that definitions of jihad include "war or struggle against unbelievers" and "a crusade for principle or belief," Ablow calls on the U.S. to wage a domestic and international jihad to remind Americans and citizens around the world that America is, by definition, exceptional and perfect and noble. Ablow's jihad entails a mixture of quasi-fascist, jingoistic propaganda; messianic crusades to force other countries to adopt U.S. institutions and political practices; and the installation of puppet regimes around the globe. What could go wrong?
Given how superbly America's political institutions are functioning right now, Ablow argues that "if every nation on earth were governed by freely elected leaders and by our Constitution, the world would be a far better place." Instilling this basic principle, Ablow writes, requires nothing less than a concerted propaganda campaign, beginning with the education of the country's youth.
"In grade schools we would teach the truth that the founding of our nation and its survival in the face of communism and fascism weren’t just good luck or good planning, but preordained by our commitment to the truth about the essential nature of man," Ablow prescribes.
Meanwhile, we should "unabashedly fund pro-democracy movements" around the world. (I wonder if we've ever tried that before.) We must also "double the budgets of the CIA and our Special Forces" and "seek to fund an international mercenary force," because history so clearly demonstrates that covert U.S. action and militarism foster stability and establish flourishing Jeffersonian democracies.
And lest you think that Ablow's jihad is all about ordering around the Iraqs and Vietnams of the world, he suggests that we encourage U.S. politicians to "seek dual citizenship in other nations, like France and Italy and Sweden and Argentina and Brazil and Germany, and work to influence those nations to adopt laws very much like our own." Of course, our global mission will also involve the invocation of what Ablow calls our "God-given right to intervene" in global hot spots, and it's self-evident to the Fox doc that U.S. intervention will inevitably improve the lot of those countries in which we embroil ourselves. Culture, history, context -- these matter little. This is America, after all.
Ablow's transparently ridiculous and frighteningly jingoistic prescription for an "American jihad" is, of course, precisely the kind of thing that catches fire among right-wing demagogues and media personalities. And lo and behold, this morning, hosts of Fox and Friends invited Ablow to discuss his plan to spread our national character" to "every nation on earth." Watch the clip below, courtesy of Media Matters:
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