http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14640535/site/newsweek/The 'Islamofascists'
Bush's new national-security offensive has been plagued by debate over what to call the bad guys.
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Sept. 11, 2006 issue - Last fall White House aides were grappling with a seemingly simple question that had eluded them for years: what should the president, in his many speeches on the war on terror, call the enemy? They were searching for a single clean phrase that could both define the foe and reassure Americans who were confused by a conflict that had grown much bigger than Osama bin Laden. But the answer was anything but simple. Some academics preferred the term "Islamism," but the aides thought that sounded too much as if America were fighting the entire religion. Another option: jihadism. But to many Muslims, it's a positive word that doesn't necessarily evoke bloodshed. Some preferred the conservative buzzword "Islamofascism," which was catchy and tied neatly into Bush's historical view of the struggle.
But when national-security adviser Steve Hadley called the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department, the experts nixed the idea of a single phrase for a war that was so complex. "There was a conscious desire not to use just one definitive word, because there wasn't a perfect word," recalls Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter at the time (and now a NEWSWEEK contributor). The result was a rhetorical mishmash. "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism," Bush explained, "others, militant jihadism; still others, Islamofascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam."
Five years after 9/11, and more than three years after invading Iraq, President Bush is still searching for the perfect phrase to define the enemy in the war on terror—and reassure Americans who will soon head to the polls. Other Republicans—including Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who is in a tough re-election race—have adopted "Islamofascism" as shorthand for terrorists. The term gained currency in the early '90s in reference to radical Muslim clerics, and was popularized after 9/11 by neocons.
Bush has used the term "Islamic fascists" sporadically, most recently to describe the alleged London bomb plotters last month. But the phrase was noticeably absent from his latest major speech on the war last week—which was part of a procession of campaign-style addresses by the administration's biggest names. This time he called the bad guys "a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology." It was hardly the kind of pithy slogan GOP activists could slap on a bumper sticker.
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