http://lobelog.com/malik-and-farook-mass-killers-not-jihadists/#more-32140

Malik and Farook: Mass Killers, Not Jihadists

by Emile Nakhleh
Rhetoric matters. The words our politicians and media ascribe to mass killers must change. Terms such as “radicalizers,” “radicalized,” “jihadists,” and “martyrs” must be erased from the global public space because they tend to give the killers an aura of religiosity and a sick form of spiritual affirmation.
Western governments, and Muslims governments for that matter, must jettison their traditional approach to countering violent extremism (CVE), which argues that terrorism in the name of Islam is a perversion of the religion, and focus instead on the despicability of mass murder. The so-called Islamic radical terrorists, once they commit murder, should be branded mass murderers and serial killers without any reference to religion, whether Islam, Christianity, or Judaism.
As long as politicians and the media continue to make references to Islam or any perverted interpretation of it in their coverage of bloody terrorist attacks, they inadvertently give credence to the religious interpretation, sick as it may be, used by terrorists to brainwash potential recruits. Abandoning the religious references reduces these violent acts to mass murder. Islamic radical terrorists must be deprived of the religious cover, whether obtained from Saudis, Pakistanis, or Islamic State fanatics.
President Barack Obama and George W. Bush before him realized the significance of rhetoric when talking about terrorism and Islam and responded accordingly, and correctly. They both distinguished between Islam and terrorism and stated publicly that their fight against terrorism was not a war on Islam. President Obama reiterated the same message in his address to the nation on Sunday evening.
When I was in the government, my analysts and I often counseled senior policymakers against using such terms as “jihadists,” “Islamists,” and “radicalized extremists” because repeating these terms satisfies the terrorists’ craving for religious justification of their heinous acts. We favored the use of such terms as “criminals,” “killers,” and “murderers.”http://lobelog.com/malik-and-farook-mass-killers-not-jihadists/#more-32140