The Obama administration has done away with the term “radical Islam.”
President Obama and others in his administration refused to use the term during a White House summit on combating what they preferred to call “violent extremism,” The Washington Times reports.
On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson defended the administration’s position, saying the terrorists do not deserve to be labeled as Muslims.
“It seems to me that to refer to ISIL as occupying any part of the Islamic theology is playing on a battlefield that they would like us to be on. I think that to call them some form of Islam gives the group more dignity than it deserves,” he said.
No matter what the extremists are called, Johnson said, ISIS – or ISIL – is a serious danger.
“From my perspective, whether it is referred to as Islamic extremism or violent extremism, what it comes down to is ISIL is a terrorist organization that represents a serious potential threat to our homeland that has to be addressed militarily and through a whole-of-government approach,” he said.
