Quote Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
A question; did the government ever insist on calling the IRA 'anti-Irish terrorists'?
Playing with words can be useful in a hearts and mind type conflict. For example, the UK government was careful not to talk of civil war for fear of legitimising the IRA. Arguably the war on terror rhetoric falls into this trap that the UK avoided.

Another verbal ploy the Conservative British government used was to popularise the term "Sinn Fein/IRA". This packaged the political wing with the military wing and caught on, at least on the mainland. I am not sure if it had any positive role in the province, but it was intended to combat the illusion that the two wings were separate. (I believe Sinn Fein figures like Adams and McGuinness had key leadership roles in the IRA.)

The problem with the current Islamicist terrorism is that it is much less centralised and more diffuse than IRA terrorism. For example, labelling it "Al Qaeda terrorism" might be attractive in that it seems precise and does not directly associate it with a mass religion. However, that would aggrandise a loose organisation that probably plays no real part in many of the atrocities.

For me, it's a challenge to find the right label that precisely identifies the nature and ideology of the relevant terrorists, without slandering a much wider population or associating the terrorists with something seen as virtuous by that wider population. Islamicist may be the best I can think of. However, this seems to be one of the terms the UK government is trying to stop people using, in which case I can't support them.

I agree with the government that talking of "Islamic" and "Muslim" terrorism is clearly inappropriate (as a thought experiment with the terminology "Christian terrorism" reveals). It's too crude and puts the backs up of the millions of people you need on side. Even the label "Islamic fundamentalist terrorism" is questionable, given that Islamic fundamentalism seems very prevalent among people in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc who are central to fighting the terrorists. "Islamicist" is not ideal, as it it verbally a little too close to something that is seen as very good by around a billion people on the planet. But I can't think of anything better at the moment. Avoiding labelling the terrorists at all just seems evasive and verging on the Orwellian.

And to put sensitive political correctness towards your enemy ahead of speaking plainly seems to be stupid.
I think the political correctness is towards UK Muslims, not the terrorists. The US does not have a very visible Muslim population, so perhaps it is not so clear to you. A US analogy with talking of Muslim or Islamic terrorism might be if the US government had kept referring to the Black Panthers as "African-American terrorists" or "black terrorists". Perhaps the label "Pan Africanist terrorism" might be analogous to the label "Islamicist terrorism".