"Violent extremist" formerly known as jihadist

James Zumwalt:

The popular American singer and songwriter, Prince, emerged as a very successful artist in the 1980s. In 1993, a contract dispute with his record label — under which the name "Prince" had been trademarked — caused him to change his name to an unpronounceable symbol. As such, he became known as "[Symbol] — The Artist Formerly Known As 'Prince.' "

In 2000, as the contract ended, the unpronounceable symbol and "Formerly Known As" moniker were dropped — his name reverting to "Prince" again. From a legal and marketing standpoint, it was a clever maneuver, enabling him to maintain high visibility for the name "Prince" while claiming not to be "Prince."

Despite this name-gaming process, the public readily knew him as "Prince" regardless of what other label was attached. However, a recent U.S. government decision to undertake a similar name change effort is not so clever.

A document titled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication" published last month by the U.S. government's National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) urges officials to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as "Islamic" or "Muslim" or use terms such as "jihad" or "mujahideen." The rationale: Such words tend to "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism. "Avoid labeling everything 'Muslim,' " the document reads. "It reinforces the 'U.S. vs. Islam' framework that al Qaeda promotes." Instead, such terrorist groups should be characterized as "violent extremists," or "totalitarian and death cult."

NCTC explains "a large percentage of the world's population ... subscribes to this religion [and] ... unintentionally alienating them is not a judicious move." Also discouraged are words such as "Islamist" and "Islamism" as "the general public, including overseas audiences, may not appreciate the academic distinction between Islamism and Islam." NCTC concludes, even though such terms may be accurate, there is a "strategic" concern about officials using them.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security representative asserts avoiding the word "Islam" in the same breath as "terrorism" is by no means a "watering down [of] what we say" and is "in no way an exercise in political correctness." However, that exactly is what it is.

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The false premise in the government's attempt to police language is that the enemy is motivated by what he is called, when in fact he calls himself a jihadist and he is motivated by his own religious bigotry. Muslim religious bigotry is the driving force behind our enemies war efforts. Trying to avoid that so as not to offend Muslims who are not bigots is not an effective way to deal with the challenge. We should instead be encouraging the non bigoted Muslims to be more assertive in condemning the jihadist. They are the ones who are denigrating their religion.

Oliver North in his column on the groups formerly known as jihadist says:

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Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security policy paper -- drafted with the help of anonymous "influential Muslim Americans" -- not only makes the current struggle more difficult but also is riddled with outright falsehoods. The document states, "The civilized world is facing a 'global' challenge, which transcends geography, culture, and religion." That statement defies reality. We didn't label al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jemaah Islamiyah and Mahdi Army murderers (to name just a few of the groups I have seen in action) Muslim holy warriors; they did. We didn't call their savage suicidal bombing campaign an Islamic jihad; they did.

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Muslims can't ignore the war being waged in the name of their religion by changing the description of the enemy.