Make no mistake about it, what happened last week in Britain was a huge victory for the good guys. Nine-Eleven, Part Deux was deferred thanks to- of all things- a tip from a British Muslim tired of seeing what was being done in the name of his religion. Add to that the heads-up nature of Scotland Yard in making these key arrests. Perhaps the over-arching lesson from last week’s anti-terror raid is to never lose sight of the nature of the enemy we face. But that shouldn’t include mischaracterizing them.

President Bush and his allies in America and around the world deserve to be supported in their continuing vigilance in the fight against militant Muslim terrorists dedicated to our destruction. However, they should also be called out when they use talk show terminology to describe that struggle. The day after the raids, President Bush referred to the enemy we face as “Islamic Fascists,” a phrase popularized by foreign policy experts like Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. Hannity, Savage, and others use this term to try and invoke World War II imagery and thus oversimplify this global conflict. These hosts believe their audience is incapable of grasping the essence of the conflict, and hope that by comparing militant Islamic terrorists to that old, familiar enemy, listeners can simply regard it as World War III against the new incarnation of modern evil.

While these hosts are oversimplifying a complex enemy for the patronizing benefit of the audience, they are doing so inaccurately. Fascism and Islamic terrorism are two completely different animals because of clear differences in the very nature of each. Fascism glorifies the state and shuns religion while militant Islam knows no state in their unspeakable acts in the name of Allah. Fascism exists in the open with objectives that are clear and oft-spoken. Militant Islam exists in the shadows, perpetually hiding, keeping the rule of law guessing. Perhaps most importantly, people knew who the fascists were in Germany, Italy, Japan, and elsewhere. They wore uniforms, they carried and waved flags, they told you they were fascists. In Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the cops from the robbers (to the benefit of the latter).

Yes, America and the west are at war. Yes, the enemy we face is both powerful and unspeakably evil. Yes, this is a global struggle on multiple fronts that may not be over for many years or even decades, and our very civilization and culture hang in the balance. However, talk radio’s apparent nostalgia for the 1940’s – and the adoption of such by our leaders- will accomplish nothing. Al Qaeda and their cronies around the world are no more fascist than any other anti-Semitic global military force bent on dominating the world and destroying differing cultures found in history- before or after 1945. Treating this conflict as our grandfather’s war will ensure that we do not have grandchildren ourselves.