Currently, I'm in advanced studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, and an international brother of mine from Pakistan offered the following. He's an infantry officer who's spent extensive time in NW Pakistan and UN peacekeeping missions. His brother is still fighting up there. It taught me that I still have a lot to learn.

"Mike, they're miscreants. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less....You call them jihadists, and you don't understand what jihad means. You've just infuriated 2 Billion muslims and given credence to their cause. Their simply miscreants."

Additionally, an excerpt from Greg Mortensen's 3 Cups of Tea:

“Osama, baah! Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.”

-Pakistani General (Ret) Bashir
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time

I think we still have a lot to learn. I will never use jihadist again.