Since a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, renaming Jihad to Man Caused Disasters would work wonders for our national security.
A new Department of Homeland Security report urges rejecting use of Islamic terms such as “jihad” and “sharia” in programs aimed at countering terrorist radicalization among American youth.
Under a section on recommended actions on terminology, the report says DHS should “reject religiously-charged terminology and problematic positioning by using plain meaning American English.”
Government agencies should employ “American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia,’ ‘takfir’ or ‘umma,’” states the June 2016 report by the Council’s countering violent extremism subcommittee.
Since when have government agencies ever used American English? But let's skip past the obvious jokes.
Using conventional language is fine if we're discussing local matters. On the other hand if we're involved in a conflict which is dominated by religious, legal and cultural terms like Jihad or Sharia, then ignoring that will leave us unprepared.
And that is exactly what happened in Orlando.
“I have been in this business for 30 years, and we all in law enforcement have talked about one of the theme parks getting hit by these terrorist killers. Never in all my years of training, and being involved in several investigative units, to include the FBI Task Force, would we have ever guessed a LGBT club be a target of an terrorist attack.”…
Of course not. If you pretend that Islamic terrorism doesn't exist and ignore its religious and cultural motives, you can't predict what the terrorists will do next.