You might find this book interesting: David J. Jonsson,
Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad: The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance.
As for the Basque and the Irish movements, they both came out of 19th century Romanticism, which focused on national identities, the revival of dying "national" languages (such as Gaelic, Basque and Catalan), and a rejection of industrialization. While the Irish movement was actually encouraged primarily by Anglo-Irish writers, in País Vasco and Catalonia, many of the proponents of this were clergy, who saw it as a return to the old days of rural life, the tiny, peaceful village, etc., etc.
In the case of ETA, this Basque nationalism attached itself first, strangely enough, to the conservative cause during the Carlist Wars (a fight over succession) in Spain, but later, because Pais Vasco is an industrialized region, became increasingly involved with leftist unions and other similar leftist activities. By the time of the Spanish Civil War, Pais Vasco was famous for being very left wing. After the war, the Basque movement revived in ETA, which was violent from the start, and devoted itself to killing people in Franco's government. The Socialists and all the left went easy on it for that reason, because they saw it as an ally, but after the Transition (after the death of Franco), when the Socialist Party got into power, they found they had created a monster they could not control. In the subsequent decades, they never repressed it as firmly as they should have, with the result that the overtly Marxist organization still exists and has killed more than 1000 people in Spain alone. And it has internationalized, going first to Spanish speaking countries, where its leaders could hide out and raise and launder money.
The goal of ETA in Spain is to separate País Vasco from Spain and establish a separate country, run along Marxist lines by the political wing of ETA.
In the case of Ireland, there actually was an oppressor, and even after the Irish Revolution, Irish Catholics in the North continued to suffer from legal and other restrictions, and they initially saw the IRA as something that would protect them. This, of course, was far from the truth, and the IRA essentially devolved into a combination of criminal enterprise and Marxist cadre.
Both ETA and the IRA collect the "revolutionary tax" (extortion) in their respective areas, work with other terrorist groups who are opposed to the West and capitalist democracy, and dominate through terror, assassinations, torture and kangaroo courts that "try" anyone who objects to their activities.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. On your recommendation, I read an account by the author Jonsson of the second Cairo conference. I must say that I am nonplussed by the extraordinary departure from reality by both the leftists in the Islamists. It is as though two deranged psychotics In Bedlam were talking at each other in parallel universes.
One is tempted to snap off an opinion which says that such deranged worldviews cannot long stay in parallel course but must collide and, in fact, must each implode in time. That is tempting and reassuring but there is no historical basis for that according to the author. Leftism has shown its resiliency in surviving the French Revolution, the gulags, Mao, and the fall of the wall. Clearly, it is not going to go away soon. After more than a millennium, Islam is not about to disappear either despite the fact that it obviously swims in a sea of unreality.
According to the author, it is more likely that the world of the Western Enlightenment will succumb before the other two. It seems that we will be a very lucky indeed if our grandchildren can lay claim to an enlightened civilization.
It seems we must try to hold the line and divide the left from Islam and then cleave Islam into irreconcilable parts. Finally we must find what is a relatively sane in the Muslim world and set it against the crazies, for it is an asymmetrical war of attrition fought on television screens that they aim to wage and that is a war we cannot win. In fact, we are just playing into their hands now in Iraq.
I hear so often on these threads injunction by a well-meaning conservatives to kill more terrorists in Baghdad. Nothing could be more hopeless or self-defeating. It is the strategy of shoveling flies. Somehow, we have got to get Muslims fighting on our side even if they think they're fighting on theirs. Meanwhile, we must try to hold the West together, and right now that seems more like attempting to herd cats.
