It's called 'jihad' for a reason

An insightful look into the rational of Jihad and what the term means to Islamists.
FROM TUFTSDAILY.COM:
It's called 'jihad' for a reason
By: Matthew Ladner
Posted: 10/23/07
Though uncomfortable and ominous, reality must be faced. Six years after Sept. 11, nine years removed from the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, and fourteen years since the first attack on the World Trade Center, the Western world is fighting a religious war.

While this battlefield is not ours by design, it is nevertheless the one that our enemies have chosen. Call them Islamofascists, radical Islamists, or simply terrorists. Regardless of the label, the forces threatening civilization from New York to Baghdad are clear in their cause: jihad.

A defense of Islam often offered-up by the politically correct and easily offended is an indictment of Christian violence during the Crusades. Yet, this does little to disprove the relationship between contemporary Islam and jihadi violence. Rather, it draws an illuminating parallel. Just as the atrocities of the Crusades reflected an epoch of Christianity marked by exclusionary rhetoric, fundamentalism and messianic terror, so too does the bloodlust of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Fatah-al-Islam and others speak to extremist undercurrents entrenched in present-day Islamic thought.
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