Does Anyone at DHS Actually Speak American English?

From a Free Beacon report:

Government agencies should employ “American English instead of religious, legal and cultural terms like ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia,’ ‘takfir’ or ‘umma,’” states the June 2016 report by the Council’s countering violent extremism subcommittee....

The DHS report stated that to avoid a confrontational “us versus them” stance in public efforts to counter Islamic radicalization, government programs should use the term “American Muslim” instead of “Muslim American.”

In that language we call "American English," there's an important distinction between the noun and the adjective. The noun is supposed to refer to what the thing essentially is, and the adjectives usually refer to less important qualities. If the idea is to avoid an 'us versus them' stance, "Muslim American" suggests that these are people who are first and foremost Americans. "American Muslim" suggests that they are essentially Muslims, and only accidentally American.

Likewise, while plain speaking is good, it's difficult to discuss concepts without naming them. I don't see any reason to believe that anyone can become an expert at 'countering violent extremism' today without understanding concepts like sharia or takfiri behaviors. You can say, "It is wrong to try to replace a Constitutional system with a system of religious law," and that's fine. But it doesn't get at why this particular religious law is especially pernicious, or why it's popular in certain regions from which we draw our Islamic immigrants. Just what is driving the conflict disappears behind a veil, as if Catholics might be just as likely to forward a scheme of replacing the Constitutional system with church law.

Rather, it is exactly the fact that sharia can't be changed by human beings that makes it attractive in the lawless regions like Afghanistan or Somalia. In those contexts, sharia is a standard against which you can judge the behavior of the warlords. Otherwise, all you've got is "The law is what I say it is, and the taxes you owe me are what I say they are." The fact that no warlord can change the law is really attractive in those particular contexts.

That same unchangeable quality a real problem in our context. Sharia taken seriously declares that our entire system of government is illegitimate, indeed an offense to God. So too large parts of our way of life. And it can't be changed to accommodate us, not by anyone ever.

That's a huge conflict with the American way that isn't present in other systems of religious law.