Posted on 03/07/2009 5:42:18 AM PST by Ravnagora
For the past year, there’s been a concerted push within the U.S. government to ban frank talk about the nature of the Islamist enemy. It began with the Department of Homeland Security, then moved to the National Counter Terrorism Center and the departments of State and Defense. Already in May 2008, I heard an excellent analysis of the enemy by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas Mahnken in which he bizarrely never once mentioned Islam or jihad.
I’ve been wondering how this change in vocabulary actually occurs: is it a spontaneous mood shift, a group decision, or a directive from on high?
The answer just arrived, in the shape of a leaked memo dated March 2 from Jennifer Janin, head of the Urdu service at the Voice of America. The directive can be found in its entirety at “Urdu Language Style & Guidelines #3.” Addressed to the Urdu radio, television, and web teams, as well as to the director and program manager of VOA’s South Asia Division, her diktat insists on no connection being drawn from Islam to politics. In gist:
Islamic terrorists: DO NOT USE. Instead use simply: terrorist.
Islamic Fundamentalism/Muslim Fundamentalists: AVOID.
Islamist: NOT NECESSARY.
Muslim Extremists: NOT NECESSARY. Extremist serves well.
Urdu is a dialect of Hindustani written in Arabic script found mainly in Pakistan and India and spoken almost exclusively by Muslims; it is mother tongue to about 70 million people. One can understand why euphemisms appeal in so far as VOA competes for market share with other news outlets and wishes not to insult or alienate Muslims. But VOA is not a commercial station with a bottom line and shareholders.
Founded in 1942 as part of the Office of War Information, it is funded by the American taxpayer and speaks on behalf of the U.S. government. It must not pander to increase its ratings at the expense of its integrity. Urdu-speakers need to know the real American discourse on Islam, not Janin’s bowdlerized version.
In her defense, Janin might argue that she is merely picking up on Barack Obama’s emphasis on “respect” for Muslims, but there is no public indication that “respect” means pretending that Islam is not a central public issue facing Americans. Indeed, on occasion, Obama has been very clear that it is. A pungent example came one year ago in Philadelphia, on March 18, 2008 when, in the course of a major speech, Obama repudiated as “profoundly distorted” the “view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”
“Perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam”? It does not get much stronger than that. One wonders how might Janin’s new regimen translate this – probably as the “perverse and hateful ideologies of radical extremism,” which is both inaccurate and unworthy of a credible news service.
______________________
It was NEVER abut a fight against Jihadists, especially after February of 2002 when the Bush Administration A) Declared the “Axis of Evil” (which did not include any Sunni Islamist elements) and B) began beating the drums of war against Iraq/Saddam Hussein (a SECULAR, not Islamist, dictator).
But the earliest indications that the response to 9-11 was going to be painted in Political Correctness was when President Bush took off his shoes and went from Mosque to Mosque declaring how Peaceful Islam was!
If Bush had stayed TRue to the ..”YOu are with US, or you are with the TERRORISTS” ... this whole thing would be in Mop up mode.
It’s more evidence of how leftists control the narrative by being PC nazis.
The most egregious aspect is that this is of course funded by our tax dollars.
You would have a better chance getting your point across if you didn't lie quite so boldly.
He absolutely did. He went into several DC-area Mosques, barefoot, in the days shortly after 9-11, and declared Islam is a Religion of Peace.
It’s not me who doesn’t believe the claim...if you want to find out for yourself if it’s true, please do your own research.
If you choose not to believe it, then have a good day.
I’m not positive, but to the right of the president it looks like GROVER NORQUIST....the muslim convert who ‘brought home the muslim vote’ for Bush and penned the amnesty pushed by Bush/McCain as well as the ‘kiss muslim butt’ policy of the WH. And he wasn’t concerned about poor Mexican peasants.
Your claim of "President Bush took off his shoes and went from Mosque to Mosque declaring how Peaceful Islam was!" is still incorrect. Try again.
This is as close as you are going to get.
"The face of terrorist is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace, they represent evil and war."
You are twisting words. Like I said BDS is alive and well.
” Every move by the President is documented. You should have no problem finding a reference to back up this claim. If you do find one I will apologize but I don’t think you can. “
Yes, it’s all documented. How did you miss it? The poster awaits your apology.
http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/media_center/leaders/TNR_110101.htm
[snip[snip] During the 2000 campaign, Norquist urged Karl Rove to focus on the Muslim vote—pointing to, among other things, the thousands of Muslims in the key state of Michigan.By all appearances, the Bush campaign heeded Norquist’s advice. In an admirable departure from the usual Republican script, Bush frequently integrated mosques into his platitudes about churches and synagogues. In the second presidential debate, Bush vowed to repeal the use of secret evidence, just as Norquist had promised. Bush even named Saffuri as the campaign’s National Advisor on Arab and Muslim Affairs.
When Bush won, Norquist credited the Muslim strategy. “Bush’s talk about outreach and inclusion had extraordinary results—the Muslim community went 2-1 for Bill Clinton in 1996 and almost 8-1 for Bush in 2000,” he told The Washington Times. (That statistic is almost certainly untrue, and Bush actually lost Michigan, the state where Muslims are most heavily concentrated.) Or, as Norquist put it in the Spectator, “George W. Bush was elected President of the United States of America because of the Muslim vote.”
Read the transcript. “Islam is peace” is WORD FOR WORD part of the transcript.
Read the transcript.
Hey, you called me deranged, and then when I backed my claim with evidence, you chose to ignore it.
Are you one who thinks Bush was a conservative too?
I’m a kaffir, but in Bosnia whenever I entered a mosque, I took off my shoes. Everyone does. But it was craven surrender (ISLAM means ‘submit’) of George H W Bush to bow to the wahabis in Arabia and helicopter out to a US warship to celebrate Christmas. That’s when he was revving up the sheeple to “take out” Saddam Hussein: “It’s Hitler re-visited; it’s unprecedented” [sic]. Same script with Bush-Baker, Pope John Paul II, and Slick Willy (he of the crooked willy) in setting up Milosevic to “take out”. For the shlockumentary “Death of Yugoslavia” Britain’s best composer of soap opera background music was hired to create the mood music. —”He’s evil: listen to the music” —Homer Simpson.
jihad bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.