Jihadists, Islamists, and "Extremists" - What's in a Name?

Another U.S. threat assessment has been issued that refuses to identify the enemy threatening us, and instead defines the enemy only as "extremists." Today's annual threat assessment from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) fails to use the terms "Jihad", "Jihadist", "Islamism," or "Islamist" in identifying the enemy. The question must be asked how the U.S. can meaningfully assess threats, if it can't even identify the enemy. The term "radical Islamic" (used twice) and "militant Islamic" (used once) is the only term close to "Islamist", and such terms as "radical" and "militant" have very different meanings to different people. Predominantly, when describing the enemy, the DNI annual assessment today uses the term "extremist(s)" (used 18 times) or "extremism" (used twice). In effect, the DNI views that America is fighting a war against "extremism."

This follows last week's State of the Union message where the term "extremist" was the primary definition of the enemy, with the term extremism, extremist(s) used nine times in defining the enemy (see recent columns on this by Counterterrorism Blog's Andrew Cochran and by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the founder and Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy). Our national leadership continues to ignore political "Islamism" as defined in the 9/11 Commission report, and refuses to make the distinction, as per Dr. Jasser, between "personal spiritual Islam from political Islam," but instead addresses threats from ambiguously defined "extremists" as its primary concern. Read more ...

Source: Family Security Matters