Welcome to the newest front in the War on Terror: semantics.

The uproar is over the use of the term "Islamic fascists," a phrase President George W. Bush uttered in an August press conference to describe the all-encompassing enemy waging war on the West. He and others had previously used the popular "Islamofascists" moniker to describe al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah and cohorts, but for whatever reason, Mr. Bush's tweaking of the term to "Islamic fascists" sparked a mini-furor.

Opposition to usage of the expression was largely limited to Muslim-American advocacy groups until Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., jumped into the fray with his own opinion Tuesday.

Speaking before the American Arab Institute in Washington D.C., Mr. Feingold said: "I call on the president to stop using the phrase 'Islamic fascists,' a label that doesn't make any sense, and certainly doesn't help our effort to build a coalition of societies to fight 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 practice the peaceful teachings of Islam."

That Mr. Feingold could so badly interpret a term that checks in at all of two words is quite remarkable, but he managed to do it. For his sake, a word-by-word breakdown is needed.

The word Islamic is self-explanatory; in this case, it denotes that members of the aforementioned terrorist networks all actively practice Islam.

Simple enough, but apparently such a designation is completely inaccurate to Mr. Feingold. Maybe he would suggest we instead call them Jewish fascists. Or perhaps Christian fascists. Heck, why limit ourselves to the Abrahamic religions? Let's decry the murderous Buddhist fascists under the command of Osama bin Lama.

Of course, al-Qaeda's Buddhist enrollment is lagging a little. To apply a basic lesson in logic: not all Muslims are terrorists, but all groups perpetrating terror acts against America, Israel and our allies are Muslim. Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezzbollah, all of them.

Yet the forces of political correctness would like to make it impossible for us to even identify who our enemy is. True, Hitler was never called a "Christian fascist," but his was a secular brand of totalitarianism. Islamic fascists are different. They rely on their faith as justification for waging jihad on non-believers. It doesn't represent the beliefs of most Muslims, nor the tenets of their religion. But it is a belief rooted in radical Islam, and with a terrorist network that crosses national boundaries and ethnicities, the "Islamic" designation becomes wholly accurate and fair.

Unfortunately, instead of fighting these groups, Mr. Feingold is more concerned about soothing the feelings of anyone who may be hurt when hearing that international terrorists happen to share the same faith — even if warped — as they do.

The second part of Mr. Bush's phrase is more complicated. But if it can be agreed that fascism entails authoritarian leadership, a singular devotion to the state and severe limits on freedoms of expression and behavior, then the term seems to apply to Islamic terrorists more than aptly.

Osama bin Laden and his cohorts have made clear their ultimate goal is the restoration of the Caliphate, the quasi-governmental religious entity that ruled large swaths of the Middle East, Northern Africa and even part of Europe in Islam's earlier days. In the Caliphate, freedom of speech — along with a litany of other freedoms we enjoy in the West — will be amply eroded under Sharia law. And the caliph will impose his authoritarian rule over the whole empire.

Of course, the Caliphate doesn't currently exist. So, Mr. Feingold might be right — the phrase Islamic fascists doesn't make sense. "Aspiring Islamic fascists" would work much better.

It's safe to say that's not what Mr. Feingold had in mind.

However, Islamic fascism isn't just a future goal. It has been realized, even if on a smaller scale than the Caliphate. And technically, it wasn't even achieved by a terrorist, lending further credence to the term 'fascism' as an accurate description of our enemy.

Since ascending to the Iranian presidency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who as head of a state isn't a terrorist himself but merely a sponsor of terrorism; see Hezbollah) has been busy imposing strict Islamic rule in the Khomeini legacy, throwing out secular university professors and building the technology to accomplish his oft-stated goal of wiping Israel off the map.

It's such genocidal ambitions, as opposed to a few people's feelings, that Mr. Feingold should be worried about. And while I'll take anti-semanticism over anti-Semitism any day, the former only acts to deny the clear existence of the latter, along with all the other ugly hallmarks of Islamic fascism.

Ryan Masse ([email protected]) is the editorial board chairman of The Badger Herald.