Sure, drop “Islamic fascism.” “Jihad” is more accurate, and it even has fewer syllables. From AP:
Washington: Democratic Senator Russ Feingold demanded that President George W. Bush refrain from using the phrase “Islamic fascists”, saying it offends Muslims and has nothing to do with terrorists fighting the United States.
“We must avoid using misleading and offensive terms that link Islam with those who subvert this great religion or who distort its teachings to justify terrorist activities,” Feingold said in a speech to the Arab American Institute.
The Wisconsin senator, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, said the label “Islamic fascists” makes no sense and doesn’t help the US effort to combat terrorism.
“Fascist ideology doesn’t have anything to do with the way global terrorist networks think or operate, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the overwhelming majority of Muslims around the world who practise the peaceful teachings of Islam,” Feingold
said.
[…]
Thus ends the stream of dhimmi buzzwords and catchphrases from Feingold, but here’s Zogby and Hooper to wrap things up:
Feingold’s comments drew applause from the Arab American Institute audience and praise from the group’s president, James Zogby, who argued that the term “Islamic fascism” scares Americans and inflames passions.
[…]
Ebrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group, said he hasn’t heard Bush use the term in a while, including the president’s speech on Monday night.
“I think it’s pretty clear now that the use of the term was counterproductive in winning the hearts and minds in the war on terror,” he said.
That is, if our battle cry in the “war on terror” is to be: “What do we have to do to make you like us?”