Regarding the dismissal of Stephen Coughlin, who was the Pentagon’s expert on Islamic law and who instructed military officers on the nature of jihad, Diana West questions the term “Islamofascism,” also spelled “Islamo-Fascism,” at her blog. The term was used by Frank Gaffney in his defense of Coughlin, prompting West to write:

“Islamofascism” is a made-up word that draws a politically correct curtain over mainstream, traditional Islam, in effect shielding the religion and its tenets from scrutiny when considering what drives our jihadist enemies–as they are the first to declare. Indeed, pulling aside that curtain to examine Islam’s tenets is precisely the point of Coughlin’s work. It is also what makes it both exceptional and crucial. There is something depressingly ironic that even among Coughlin’s staunchest defenders [specifically Frank Gaffney, in this context] we see the same PC punch-pulling his kind of analysis is designed to KO. It just goes to show how very much his work needs to be done.