By Jason Criss Howk

As I sat yesterday interpreting the Quran into modern-English for my new book another cowardly mass murder took place at a NATO nation’s crowded airport.

The pace of terrorist attacks on innocents around the world is unsustainable. True, the numbers of lives lost are not large when compared to automobile or cancer related deaths but they are unsustainable nonetheless. We cannot let this pace quicken even faster by taking a leaderless approach to solving a global problem; or by refusing to call the enemy by name as if they are Voldemort and capable of tracking our location by its utterance.

The ideology of violent radical Islamism that is driving these terrorist attacks must be clearly defined and fought globally.

Our language must be precise so we can undermine this ideology and gain the vocal support of more peace-seeking Muslim leaders; both political and civic.

Humanity is not fighting Islam the religion or it’s followers who we call Muslims.

We aren’t facing jihadists or mujaheddin, for that would give them an Islamic title they desire.

We are in a fight with radicalized people that have cherry-picked ideas from Islam the religion and used them to excuse their violent behavior as they seek to fulfill the idea of recreating an Islamic Empire that adheres to the concept of Islamism. They want to build a new state that is ruled politically by a religious ideology that follows their twisted version if Islam.

If our president and current political leaders can’t use the correct terminology to identify the global enemy of humanity then what hope do we have in winning this war?

I wish I could say Istanbul will be the last major murderous attack by violent radical Islamists but until our political leaders can identify the enemy there is no chance in defeating it.