The below story is the second part of a series on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s DEI newsletter, “The Dive.” You can read part one, “Biden’s Top Intelligence Agency Says Crossdressing Makes Man ‘Better Intelligence Officer,’ Internal Docs Show,” here.
(Daily Wire) An internal newsletter sent by diversity, equity, and inclusion officials in the Biden administration’s top intelligence agency warns personnel not to use “problematic phrases” when discussing Islamic terrorism and foreign adversaries such as China, an internal document obtained by The Daily Wire reveals.
The unclassified newsletter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, called “The Dive” and exclusively obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Daily Wire, argues in its cover story that the intelligence community needs to focus on “changing terminology related to counterterrorism,” because “words matter.”
“This article is about one of our goals: disentangling Islam from words and phrases used to discuss terrorism and extremist violence,” writes the author of the article, whose name was redacted from the document released to The Daily Wire. The article declares that it’s trying to remove “certain phrases to identify international terrorism threats that are hurtful to Muslim-Americans.”
“Some of the problematic phrases include, but are not limited to: ‘Salafi-Jihadist,’ ‘Jihadist,’ ‘Islamic-Extremist,’ ‘Sunni/Shia-Extremism,’ and ‘Radical Islamists.’”
The article is part of the newsletter created by ODNI’s Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Office and sent out to personnel throughout the Intelligence Community, which includes the country’s most powerful executive agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as intelligence components within each branch of the military.
Among the other articles featured in the newsletter was the personal testimony of a man who enjoys dressing like a woman and says that crossdressing and his gender identity make him a better intelligence officer.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and U.S. Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan, said the newsletter is another example of misplaced priorities by the Biden administration.
“The Biden administration putting DEI above national security concerns is a tragedy waiting to happen,” Cotton told The Daily Wire after reviewing the newsletter. “Our intelligence agencies should spend their time finding terrorists, not worrying about whether they will offend them.”
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. Army veteran who fought in the elite Green Berets, said the guidance in the newsletter is “totally insane.”
“It is a return to the same Obama Administration head-in-the-sand approach to Islamic extremism that led to Obama calling ISIS the JV team,” Waltz said. “The same people are now running the Biden Administration, so it is no surprise they are making the same mistakes.”
The newsletter was published just months after Islamic Hamas terrorists murdered roughly 1,200 Israelis during the October 7th terrorist attack. Meanwhile, the United States has experienced three consecutive year-over-year increases in border encounters with those on the terror watch list amid an unprecedented border crisis that’s resulted in about 9 million nationwide encounters and 1.7 million estimated gotaways since Biden took office.
The newsletter states that the DEI office took guidance from the Muslim community when considering alternative terms.
“We took great efforts to engage with the Muslim community, academics, and members of our constituency across the country,” it reads. “In July 2023, we invited a renowned Islamic scholar, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf of Zaytuna College, to speak.”
It went on to pull from Islamic history to provide intelligence personnel with an alternate term to use to describe Islamic terrorists. “The term Khawarij means ‘outsiders’ and references a group of individuals in Islamic history who rebelled against Ali ibn Abi Talib — one of the rightly guided caliphs after the Prophet Muhammad’s passing,” it says.
