Jihadis Get Short Shrift As Us Minds Its Language

And now from the people who brought you the phrase "axis of evil", a guide to non-inflammatory language for the Middle East.

The Bush administration has directed employees in the state department and other government agencies to recouch the way they refer to America's enemies. Islamo-fascist, once a favorite designation of neo-conservatives, is out - too much potential to offend Muslims, the new instructions say.

So too are the terms jihadi and mujahideen, which apparently err in the opposite direction by glamorizing combatants that the Bush administration would prefer to dismiss as terrorists and extremists.

"It's not what you say, but what they hear," said a memo prepared last month by the extremist messaging branch at the national counter terrorism center, which was obtained by the Associated Press.

The guide to better communication in the age of terror was approved for diplomatic use by the state department this week, and circulated to all US embassies.

Its 14 points include suggestions that US officials desist from strong reactions to statements from al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden. "Don't take the bait," it says. "We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world."

The advice is not binding, but it does seem to have won a convert in the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who has dropped references to "jihad" in her public speeches since last September.

"We should not concede the terrorists' claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam," the report said.

"We must carefully avoid giving Bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders the legitimacy they crave, but do not possess, by characterizing them as religious figures or in terms that may make them seem to be noble in the eyes of some."