Unaltered image from the Mitt Romney campaign web site page, “Defeating the Jihadists”

New entry to the Mitt Romney is Possibly Even Less Intelligent than the Current Occupant file: Romney, in his mindless rhetoric, again misused a word that arouses strong emotion among followers of Islam.

“In my view, the most crucial objective we have in Iraq is to make sure it does not become a safe haven for al-Qaida and other Jihad terrorists,” Romney said.

“Of course, if Barack Obama had had his way and pulled our troops out months ago, that’s exactly what would have happened.”

Let’s ignore for the moment Romney’s idiotic mischaracterization of Obama’s position and focus on his equally dillheaded use of “Jihad.”

As Buck pointed out, even the Department of Defense goes, “Doh!” when American opinion leaders misuse that term.

The two [Dr. Douglas E. Streusand and Army Lt. Col. Harry D. Tunnell IV of the National Defense University in Washington] believe the right words can help fight the global war on terror. “American leaders misuse language to such a degree that they unintentionally wind up promoting the ideology of the groups the United States is fighting,” the men wrote in an article titled “Choosing Words Carefully: Language to Help Fight Islamic Terrorism.”

Buck went on address usage for “jihad” specifically.

An example is jihadist. Most of us take jihadist or jihadi to mean an Islamic extremist who is fighting a holy war. But Steusand and Tunnell maintain that in Arabic jihad “literally means striving and generally occurs as part of the expression, Jihad fi sabil illah, striving in the path of God.” Which is considered a good thing for Muslims to do.

A person commenting on Buck’s post, who signed in as Nazim Haqqani, further clarified.

As the two DOD officials correctly state, by falling into the lexicon trap and referring to the those terrorist as jihadis; you are giving them undue legitimacy.

Jihad is akin to the Just war concept in medival Christianity (with its minor differences in normative traditions) and by lumping random acts of violence as jihad; you anger more Muslims, such as myself, and risk radicalizing those who feel their religion is under attack.

Romney has proven repeatedly he is not so sharp. The infamous dog on the car roof episode, the varmint hunting shenanigans, and all the flip-flops on whatever it is the Mormon thinks he thinks all lead to one conclusion: Romney’s a dumbass.

But as Jon once pointed out:

Romney is indeed a dumbass. Fortunately for him, being as stupid as a bag of hammers is no longer a disqualifier for the presidency.