The U.S. State Department has approved a new guide to the language embassy officials and others should use "in conversations with Muslims and the media," according to an AP report. The report, "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication," offers specific directives, such as: don't use terms such as "jihadist" or "holy warrior" because it legitimizes bin Laden's followers, but also don't use terms such as "Islamo-fascism," which offends everyone else by associating Islam with fascism.

Bloggers are responding with their views:

HAhmed , a Brooklyn native who blogs his views on Islam and other topics, exclaims:

Wow… i cant believe it took them this long to figure this out… Nonetheless, it is great that the US Government has finally realized this and will i’A incorporate this into their language. Not only may these misappropriately used words (jihad, mujahideen, etc.) promote extremists to take on these misconstrued conceptions of these words, but also - it brings about a popular negative (yet false) meaning causing Western Muslims to sway away from using. Jihad (struggle), and Mujahideen (those who struggle) are positive, great words, and we should all be proud to be true mujahideen!

In a somewhat different register, Jeffrey Imm of the Counterterrorism Blog thinks the U.S. is being wishy washy and that:

This pattern of U.S. concessions to global Islamism bears the clear and unambiguous message of the U.S. government's "surrender" to the global forces of Islamism. In effect, the current U.S. administration is telling Islamists that America is already tired of fighting, and that Islamists can go about their efforts to control the world as long as they do it peacefully.

Here's the interesting part: if 2 commentators can't even come close to seeing terms such as "jihad" in the same light, what makes anyone think that the terms have only one connotation (either good or bad) among 1.5 billion Muslims?