Have you ever wondered why Obama didn’t call the “underwear bomber” an Islamic extremist?

Go to the White House website and do a search for the following terms (keep the quotes if listed):

1. “Islamic extremist”
2. “Islamic terrorism”
3. “Muslim terrorist”
4. “radical Islam”
5. jihad

Ok, I’ll save you some trouble – you won’t find anything (except one meaningless reference to jihad). Considering that we’ve had two well known attacks on US soil (Fort Hood & Christmas Day), I expected to find something referring to the terrorists as Islamic, especially since both were Muslims who were trying to kill Americans in the name of Allah, and both had strong connections to Islamic terrorist groups.

hmmmm.

The other day I was searching for information on Rashad Hussain, Obama’s newly appointed envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and came across a PDF document he had written back in 2008. Before I quote it, if you watch Obama’s video announcement of Rashad Hussain to the OIC below, you’ll hear Obama say that Hussain is a close and trusted member of his white house staff. I only mention that as a pointer to their relationship before this announcement.

As I was reading Hussain’s 2008 document called “Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy”, I began to see a common thread between what I was reading and the stance the Obama administration has taken on their labeling of the Islamic terrorists acts under his watch. Here is part of the Executive Summary:

First, rather than characterizing counterterrorism efforts as “freedom and democracy versus terrorist ideology,” policymakers should instead frame the battle of ideas as a conflict between terrorist elements in the Muslim world and Islam.

Second, policymakers should reject the use of language that provides a religious legitimization of terrorism such as “Islamic terrorism” and “Islamic extremist.” They should replace such terminology with more specific and descriptive terms such as “Al-Qaeda terrorism.”

Third, the United States should seek to build a broad and diverse coalition of partners, not limited to those who advocate Western-style democracy, and avoid creating a dichotomy between freedom and Islamic society. Such a coalition should incorporate those who may have political differences, so long as they reject terrorism.

So there is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist anymore. Huh. I’ve never known Obama being afraid to label his political enemies before, like Fox News. And we certainly don’t want to tout American freedom and democracy as the enemy of radical Islam, even though it is. We wouldn’t want to hold up a banner of freedom and democracy to the Muslim world as ideal, now would we. We certainly aren’t doing that to the citizens of Iran.

Interestingly, if you go back and watch the video above, you’ll hear almost this exact language that’s in this document coming from Obama’s lips. Funny, I bet I know who wrote the speech he is reading.

There is much more in the document if you care to read it all, but I just thought I’d point out a few things that caught my attention.

Also, be sure and read the CNS News article today on how Rashad Hussain has been a terrorist sympathizer in recent past who tried to cover it up.