Name game

International leaders recently gathered in Washington for the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism. Some criticize President Obama for calling it “Violent Extremism;” they charge he is too concerned about relations with Muslim states or “too soft” to call out Islam. 

This was an important debate, ten years ago.

The critics are over a decade late to the semantic debate over how to define and defend the world from violent extremism. General Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, representing the views of the U.S. military, led the charge in the Bush administration in 2004, to refer to U.S. efforts more accurately as a struggle against violent extremism, not a global war on terror or a conflict with Islam. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld joined in, urging President Bush to use the phrase “violent extremism.” Karen Hughes, charged with public diplomacy and communications for the Bush White House, urged the president to stop referring to “Islamic extremism.”

The term was inaccurate, as most of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world were neither violent nor extremists, it alienated Muslim allies and made it harder to forge an alliance or a strategic communication message, and it legitimated the terrorists’ claims to be representing Islam. Rumsfeld noted in one of his infamous “snowflake” memos that the cost/ benefit ratio was working against the U.S. as long as the extremists continued to radicalize new recruits. Bush agreed, after initially suggesting his own more idiosyncratic formulation in a 2004 speech.  “We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.”  Dana Milbank of the Washington Post teased that the acronym for this phrase would be “SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW,” which would not fly even in acronym-loving Washington.  By 2005 the Bush administration adopted the term violent extremism, although Bush himself continued to mix his metaphors.

For those who demand a religious reference to the specific type of violent extremism sweeping the Middle East and North Africa today, the correct term is salafi jihadists, as detailed by Daveed Gartenstein Ross. Salafi jihadists are a minority group with a minority view; they want to return to their halcyon views of a pure 7th Century Islam, and they believe they have a religious obligation to do this by war.  The term “Islamic” extremism is not accurate, and the accurate term “salafi jihadism” is a mouthful, so experts use the term “violent extremism.” In 2005, when President Bush started calling the fray the “struggle against violent extremism,” liberal pundits were not pleased.  The phrase was “putting lipstick on a pig,” they claimed, trying to cover over the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a name change. Today it’s the right wing that objects to the very same syllables, this time because it is Obama who uses them.  In social science this is known as cognitive bias, accepting information only from sources you like and dismissing information from disliked sources. 

Enough. 

When both the Bush administration and the Obama administration agree on something, we ought to take notice.  It might just be the voice of truth in the midst of hyper-partisan politics. Both administrations agreed that the problem is the violence. The word “violent” comes first in order to focus and prioritize attention and mobilize action.  Due to free speech, extremists may say hateful things, but are only prohibited when advocating violence. Others prohibit hate speech, including our ally Germany. Pakistan, and other countries with blasphemy laws, criminalize any perceived criticism of Islam. Both the Bush and Obama administrations vigorously worked against blasphemy laws, because violence is the problem, not unpopular speech. 

Both administrations agree that the U.S. should prevent radicalization and recruitment.  They should.  How does terrorism end? If terrorism is advertising discontent, terrorism ends by addressing the discontent and stopping the advertising. According to the RAND Corporation, 83 percent of the time terrorism ends through patient political and law enforcement work to roll up terrorist networks, undercut their narratives, and address the political and social contexts on which terrorists seek to capitalize. Rarely, only 7 percent of the time, do military means end terrorism. This is why the generals repeatedly testify to Congress that there is no military solution to ending violent extremism. Ending terrorism means preventing the flow of new recruits to violent groups. 

Let’s get over the bias and get on with the work.

Cusimano Love is a tenured associate professor of International Relations in the Politics Department of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.