Six Years On, Recasting 'Islamofascists' and 'Jihadists'

Oct. 27 2008, Published 7:07 a.m. ET

The U.S. government will no longer be referring to terrorists as "Islamofascists" or "jihadists," and the reasons are unlike anything you'd ever expect. It has occurred to some government eggheads that these religiously loaded terms are "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers, or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims." So from now on, the bad guys will be tagged with simple descriptions like "violent extremists" and "terrorists," which "define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy." If this ploy actually has any effect whatsoever in diminishing the standing of Al Qaeda in the Muslim world, it's believed that U.S. officials will try to take the clever ruse a step further by publicly referring to Israel as "Islamabama" and the occupation of Iraq as "Operation Allahu Akbar." Counterterrorism Blog