Yesterday, Muneer Fareed, head of the Islamic Society of North America, called for John McCain to cease using the terms Muslim or Islamic in describing–Mohammedan?–terrorism. Here’s Fareed, as quoted in the Washington Times:

You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine. But adding the word ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ certainly doesn’t help our cause as Americans . . . It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way.

In fact, it does no such thing. The modifiers “Islamic” and “Muslim” are critical in helping to identify the methodology, motivation, and personnel working against us. What does paint the moderate Muslim community “in a very negative way” is Fareed’s evident refusal to face up to a blunt fact: people calling themselves Muslims have waged a war against people they’ve labeled infidels.

The argument goes, of course, that terrorists who kill innocents in the name of Islam are not observant Muslims. Islam forbids such indiscriminate carnage. This is an argument that’s owed a great deal of respect, particularly if we’re looking for moderate Muslims to practice a version of Islam compatible with modern ideas of pluralism and human rights.

However, for a Western government to toe that line without reservation is an error. Which is precisely what England started doing about three months ago. The British government has now officially re-labeled Islamic terrorism “anti-Islamic activity”–so as not to upset people like Fareed.

The funny part of all this is that Bin Laden and company object to the “terrorist” part of the description: they consider themselves good Muslims! So, if you really want to be part of the even-handed multi-culti crowd, you can’t talk about either Islam or terrorism. Which, come to think of it, makes it easier to forget about this whole, distracting war thing and focus on the gun-toting zealots in our own society.