How important is it that we define our terrorist enemies? Some believe that accurately defining our enemy isn’t worth the effort. One network commentator even ridiculed the idea.

Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (also a former member of Congress) says he finds this attitude disconcerting. As a young officer, one of the books on the mandatory reading list was The Art of War by Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. This is what he says about defining the enemy.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself and not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

You have to wonder if this politically correct desire not to label radical Muslim terrorism will contribute to our inability to successfully defeat terrorism. It is understandable why both President Bush and President Obama want to keep from painting all Muslims with a terrorist label. But these discussions veer into absurdity when we try to say with a straight face that the Islamic State is not Islamic.

Charles Krauthammer believes that this linguistic appeasement makes diplomatic appeasement easier. “This passivity—strategic, syntactical, ideological—is more than just a reaction to the perceived overreach of the Bush years. Or a fear of failure. Or bowing to the domestic left. It is, above all, rooted in Obama’s deep belief that we—Americans, Christians, the West—lack the moral authority to engage, to project, i.e., to lead.”

I hear from many Americans (both on radio and in person) who desire a leader who will speak plainly about the threat we face and set forth a strategy to make us safe. Perhaps that is why so many appreciated the speech by Benjamin Netanyahu before Congress last week. You can’t defeat an enemy you refuse to name.