President Bush has stated many times that this country and it's allies are not at war with a religion, but with a belief system.
religion or belief system, aren't both led by religious leaders?
Aren't the religious leaders the ones fomenting the violence and the jihad?
They must be behind it. For otherwise they would order their followers to stop the jihad and arrest the jihadists.
If jihadists are independent of Muslim religious leaders then how is that consistent with 'Islam has been hijacked?' If jihadists have hijacked Islam, then they control its religious leaders. How can that be? It can only be they (Jihadists and leaders of Islam) are in cahoots.
Anyway I appreciate your attempt to defend Islam from being painted with a jihad brush. But the sad fact is that to win the war will require replacing every Muslim religious leader that has had ties to Jihad. That means basically a war against despots who wear religious clothing and occupy religious positions. So no matter what the truth is, replacing these despots will be viewed as a war against Islam.
A tremendously insightful essay on how it is really put together was given last year by Haim Harari:
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jul04/harari.htm