‘Radical Islam’ Does Matter in Identifying Enemy, Experts Say

From The Daily Signal.com (June 16):

Using the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the Islamic State or other jihadist groups will not win the war, but is nonetheless relevant in identifying the ideology—not the religion—that America is fighting, experts said.

“I don’t believe the phrase “Islamist extremism” or “Islamist terrorism” is some sort of incantation that’s going to fix everything,” Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal.

“In fact, I don’t even think it’s the most important thing in this whole issue set. What’s most important are the policies that we pursue and the action that we take to defeat it, whatever you want to call it. But it does matter because we—Muslims, as much as other Americans—are engaged in a war of ideas as well as a war on terrorism.”

……………….

Lohman, who last December hosted a forum, “Muslim Voices Against the Islamic State and Islamist Extremism,” said the point is to understand the ideology.

“Islamism is a political ideology and it has to be taken on,” Lohman continued in the email. “If we physically dissuade terrorists from hurting people, we still have to stop Islamists from coercing people into their way of thinking by other means. Actually identifying the ideology is key to that, and unfortunately, that ideology is cast in religious terms. It’s like a Muslim civil society leader in Indonesia told me one time talking about the much more serious threat in her own country, ‘What difference does it make whether they are terrorists or not. They (Islamists) all want the same thing.’”  [read more]

I agree with Lohman. To solve a problem, you have to first define what the problem is. Just like during WWII FDR had no problem using the term Nazi. Using the term didn’t mean all Germans were Nazis only those Germans fighting for Hitler. The Isamists thugs know who they are and the peaceful Muslims who don’t support them know who they are too.

Obama and the Left have no problem calling republicans extremists or automatically grouping mass shooters as “radical right extremists” if they believe they are not Muslim. Then again Muslims are a minority so they are protected from the Left’s classification.  Heck, during the Dem presidential primary debate the moderator asked Hillary, Sanders, and the other guy whose name escapes me, if Republicans were the enemy. Not, mind you, an adversary (like in a sport) but an enemy. All three said yes. Well, the Left think politics is war. So, I guess that makes sense in a sort of warped way.