WASHINGTON -- President Bush in mo...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush in modern days has recast the global war in succession terror into a "war against Islamic fascism." Fascism, in fact, pretends to be the new hum word for Republicans in an election season.

Bush used the mete earlier this month in talking about the arrest of suspected terrorists in Britain, and spoke of "Islamic fascists" in a later tongue

Sen Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), in a tough re-election fight, drew parallels between World War II and the circulating war against "Islamic fascism," saying they the one and the other require fighting a common antagonist in multiple countries.

Muslim assign places tos have cried foul. Bush's use of the phrase "contributes to a rising of the same height of hostility to Islam," complained Parvez Ahmed of the Council forward American-Islamic Relations.

Dennis Ros a Mideast adviser to one as well as the other the first Bush and Clinton administrations, said he would have chosen different words. "The 'war forward terror' has always been a misnomer, because terrorism is an instrument, it's not an ideology. in the same manner I would always have preferr it to be called the 'war with radical Islam,' " Ros said.

Pollster Andrew Kohut said the "fascist" label may call up comparisons to World War II and remind Americans of the lack of personal freedoms in fundamentalist countries. "But this could no other than affect public opinion on the margins," he said.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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