By Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times
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“Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims who practice their great faith peacefully,” Mr. Schmidt said. “But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is.”
A coalition of American Muslim groups is demanding that Sen. John McCain stop using the adjective “Islamic” to describe terrorists and extremist enemies of the United States.
Muneer Fareed, who heads the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), told The Washington Times that his group is beginning a campaign to persuade Mr. McCain to rephrase his descriptions of the enemy.
“We’ve tried to contact his office, contact his spokesperson to have them rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community,” Mr. Fareed said. “If it’s not our intent to paint everyone with the same brush, then certainly we should think seriously about just characterizing them as criminals, because that is what they are.”
An aide to Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who is counting on his pro-Iraq war stance to attract conservative voters, said the senator from Arizona will not drop the word.
Steve Schmidt, a former Bush White House aide who is now a McCain media strategist, told The Times that the use of the word is appropriate and that the candidate will continue to define the enemy that way.
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“Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims who practice their great faith peacefully,” Mr. Schmidt said. “But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is.”
Mr. McCain often uses the term “Islamic” to describe terrorist enemies. The two remaining Democrats in the presidential field, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, generally shun such word usage.
President Bush also avoids the term, prompting criticism from some conservative pundits, who say the White-House-coined phrase “war on terror” does not sufficiently identify the enemy. Mr. Bush used the term “Islamic fascists” several times in 2006 and was criticized by Muslims.
I expect President Bush is no less a realist then McCain, but after only a brief time of using the word Islamic to describe the Muslim terrorists, he wilted under pressure and ceased doing so. I expect that pressure came not just domestically, but from so called American Muslim allies such as Saudi Arabia.
So far, McCain has only to face domestic pressure from activist American Muslims to avoid using the root word Islam in any form to describe Muslim terrorists and their vast support infrastructure.
I do not think you can take it as a given that McCain, if he wins the Presidency, will be as unyielding to pressure from Muslim activists to cease using the word Islam or any derivative that describes the terrroists.
Time will tell.
While Clinton and Obama duke it out for the Democratic nomination, one can fairly assume they do not want to offend any potential ethnic block of voters that in such a tight race could mean the difference between winning and losing the nomination.
Once the Democratic nominee is determined, I expect there will be one reason less to avoid using the word Islamic to describe Muslim terrorism and terrorists.
“Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims who practice their great faith peacefully,” Mr. Schmidt said. “But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is.”
Someone needs to inform McCain that there is no such thing as “moderate Islam” any more than there is MODERATE LAND OF ISRAEL, or MODERATE TORAH BORDERS, or MODERATE TEMPLE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE TEMPLE MOUNT, OR MODERATE JESUS CHRIST GOING TO THE CROSS, or, MODERATE CHRISTIANITY.
There is NO MODERATION in war between religions, except in the case of the democratic gay god that preaches tolerance out of a gay bible and would invite Hamas to place a stick of dynamite while they bend over to reveal their peace dildos stuck inside their smiling butt cheeks!