US Military Report—“Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words”

Maybe there is a Sanity Clause?

Read the internal report, “Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words” here, the original link having been provided by the astute military correspondent for the Washington Times, Bill Gertz.

From the report:

The onus is on Muslims to disprove within their own communities that those who under take source-prescribed warfare (JIHAD), are patently incorrect in their actions in accordance with all norms of social behavior…

In the end beyond citing jihad as a uniquely Islamic theological prescription, there is little to suggest that a systematic, or otherwise demonization of Islam or all Muslims by the USG (US Government) will or has occurred.

From “The Legacy of Jihad”

Jahada, the root of the word Jihad, appears 40 times in the Koran—under a variety of grammatical forms. With 4 exceptions, all the other 36 usages (in specific Koranic verses) are variations of the third form of the verb, i.e. Jahida. Jahida in the Koran and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries—from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazzali), to ordinary people—meant and means “he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like”, as described by the seminal Arabic lexicographer E.W Lane. Indeed, Lane’s, An Arabic English Lexicon (6 volumes, London, 1865) is still used to this day by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars for definitive Arabic to English translation. Thus Lane, who studied both the etymology and usage of the term jihad, observed, “Jihad came to be used by the Muslims to signify wag[ing] war, against unbelievers.”