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| Home Front: WoT |
| The War on Words |
| 2008-07-30 |
| During the past year, several federal agencies -- including the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the National Counter Terrorism Center -- have declared a war on words. Specifically, these agencies have issued memoranda discouraging their employees from naming the enemy in the War on Terror. The prohibition included words such as "jihad," "Islamist," "Islamofascism," and "caliphate," among others. It's not that the terms are inaccurate. Quite the contrary, as the agencies conceded, they often are used by the terrorists themselves. But they urged censorship all the same. Calling jihadists "holy warriors," as they call themselves, is accurate, but it risks glorifying them. Moreover, even when used accurately, words like "Islamist" might be misinterpreted by moderate Muslims -- who are henceforth to be known as "mainstream Muslims" -- and should therefore be avoided so as not to offend anyone in the Muslim community. The phrase "Muslim community" should also be avoided. To be sure, all the memos featured disclaimers stating that they were "not official policy." But the fact that they were distributed on agency letterhead suggested at least a tacit endorsement of their content. Taken together, the memos marked a victory for government-imposed political correctness over clarity in the War on Terror. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #1 Henceforth, the words or phrases ‘jihadist’, ‘jihad’, ‘Islamofascism’, ‘caliphate’, ‘Islamist’, ‘Islamic terrorist’ or 'intelligence community' will be replaced by 'those people' or 'their kind'. In addition, the words 'black hole' will be replaced by 'a black a hole'. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2008-07-30 14:22 |