From Wikipedia:

Mise en abyme has several meanings in the realms of creative arts and literary theory. The term is originally from the French and means, “placing into infinity” or “placing into the abyss”.

In Western art “mise en abyme” is a formal technique in which an image contains a smaller copy of itself, the sequence appearing to recur infinitely. The term originated in heraldry, describing a coat of arms which appears as a small shield in the center of a larger one. See Droste effect.

Terry Hastings is kind enough to pass along links to several WSJ articles on the US and the Middle East, including one excellent one from Andrew Higgins that is behind the paywall, entitled Anti-Americans on the March and subtitled, Inside the unlikely coalition of the U.S.’s sworn enemies, where Communists link up with Islamic radicals, then sub-subtitled Hezbollah, Chávez and London’s ‘Red Ken’

Much of the article is given over to discussing the strange bedfellowship of Godless Communism and Radical Islamofascism:

Religion, excoriated by Karl Marx as the “opiate of the masses,” has become a great mobilizing force—even for zealous atheists. The phenomenon extends beyond the Middle East to Europe, Latin America and Africa, too. Causes that a few years ago seemed moribund or at least passé—socialism, Third World solidarity, strident anti-Americanism—have been injected with the fervor, though rarely the actual faith, of Islamic radicalism.

“We are all here to fight American hegemony,” Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy chief, told hundreds of secular activists from around the world who gathered last month in a Beirut conference center. They were there to celebrate his Islamic movement’s “divine victory” over Israel this summer and cheer a broader battle against America’s vision for the world. Mr. Qassem was dressed in flowing robes and a cleric’s turban. Many in his audience wore T-shirts or badges featuring portraits of Che Guevara, clenched fists and other emblems of secular radical chic.

Some of Hezbollah’s biggest fans are in Europe. There, the hard left, demoralized by the collapse of communism, has found new energy, siding with Islamist militants in Lebanon, in Iraq and in a wider campaign against what they see as an American plot to impose unrestrained free-market capitalism.

”We are all Hezbollah now,” read posters carried through London this summer during an antiwar protest march. Earlier, London Mayor Ken Livingston, once known as “Red Ken,” invited a controversial Egyptian cleric to the British capital, arguing that his views have been distorted by the West.

Hezbollah shows that “resistance,” whether fuelled by religion or secular zeal, “can break governments and roll back the American project,” says John Rees, a former editor of the journal International Socialism and a leader of Britain’s anti-Iraq war movement. Hezbollah, he says, isn’t a terrorist outfit but a social movement seeking better living conditions for its supporters. ”It is better to think of it as an AFL-CIO with guns,” he says.

An American who traveled to Beirut in November to cheer Hezbollah, who identified himself as Bill Cecil, summed up the appeal of Islamism to non-Muslims: ”Your enemy is our enemy; your victory is our victory,” he told a conference. Mr. Cecil, an activist for a radical group in New York, later appeared as a guest on the breakfast show of Hezbollah’s television station, al-Manar. America, he told a veiled female presenter, is “not a democracy … but a dictatorship of giant corporations.” America “needs a government that provides for the people like Hezbollah helps people here.”

But for me the most telling snippet is this:

Sitting beneath a portrait of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara in his Beirut office, Khaled Hadadeh, the general secretary of the Lebanese communists, admits that Hezbollah and the Communist Party hated each other for years. “We started out in blood,” says Mr. Hadadeh, a Sunni Muslim by birth but now a firm atheist. Che Guevara, he says, “is our symbol, like Jesus Christ or Mohammed.”

Perhaps we can find a Photoshop artist to supply St. Che with a halo, or a crown of thorns.

“One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging open startled us awake and Che’s guards shoved a new prisoner into our cell. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. We could only gape. He was a boy, couldn’t have been much older than 12, maybe 14.

“What did you do?” We asked horrified. ”I tried to defend my papa,” gasped the bloodied boy. “I tried to keep these Communist sons of b**tches from murdering him! But they sent him to the firing squad.”

Soon Che’s goons came back, the rusty steel door opened and they yanked the valiant boy out of the cell. “We all rushed to the cell’s window that faced the execution pit, “ recalls Mr San Martin. “We simply couldn’t believe they’d murder him!”

“Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched execution yard with his hands on his waist and barking orders – the gallant Che Guevara.” Here Che was finally in his element. In battle he was a sad joke, a bumbler of epic proportions (for details see Fidel; Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant). But up against disarmed and bloodied boys he was a snarling tiger.

“Kneel Down!” Che barked at the boy.

“ASSASSINS!” We screamed for our window. “MURDERERS!! HOW CAN YOU MURDER A LITTLE BOY!”

“ I said: KNEEL DOWN!” Che barked again.

The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. “If you’re going to kill me,” he yelled. “you’ll have to do it while I’m standing! MEN die standing!”

“ COWARDS! – MURDERERS!..Sons of B**TCHES!” The men yelled desperately from their cells. “LEAVE HIM ALONE!” HOW CAN…?! “And then we saw Che unholstering his pistol. It didn’t seem possible. But Che raised his pistol, put the barrel to the back of the boys neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy.

“We erupted. We were enraged, hysterical, banging on the bars. “MURDERERS! – ASSASSINS!” His murder finished, Che finally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and BLAM!-BLAM-BLAM! emptied his clip in our direction. Several of us were wounded by his shots.”

To a man (and boy) Che’s murder victims went down in a blaze of defiance and glory. So let’s recall Che’s own plea when the wheels of justice finally turned and he was cornered in Bolivia. “Don’t Shoot!” he whimpered. “I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!”

This swinish and murdering coward, this child-killer, was the toast of the Oscars.