New and improved

So, if you're face-to-face with a jihadist, you no longer call him that. It's Mr. Violent Extremist, if you please. That's according to new guidelines from top federal anti-terrorism offices.

Out are "jihadist," "mujahedeen" and "Islamo-fascism." In are "violent extremist," "terrorist" and "totalitarian."

Far as most folks are concerned, if you bump into Osama bin Laden you can call him anything you like. Just be sure to call the Pentagon and ask for the Predator hotline, pronto.

The notion behind the new lingo is to make the war on terror more effective by making the pro-American, pro-Western case more persuasive, and less off-putting, to the Muslim world. Terms like "jihadist," according to an Associated Press report, "may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates."

That's because "jihad," for example, while understood by many Americans to mean "holy war," encompasses a larger and more benign meaning in Islam -- the struggle to do good. Associating a terrorist with the concept grants him or her undeserved religious respectability. Suicide-bombers and the shadowy groups that dispatch them are outside mainstream Islam -- or should at least be treated that way -- and making that point is how to isolate them.

Don't like the strategy? Taking on the planet's billion-plus Muslims doesn't seem a likelier one. And so far the anti-terror war, despite many tactical successes, hasn't had enough overall movement in our direction.

The new approach may help. Besides, "Islamo-fascism" -- all the rage in Bush administration circles a while back -- never fit this foe well. The past century's Fascist movements were secular and modern. Not Osama's thing at all. Totalitarian and murderous -- those are the words for his ilk.