Rhetoric better than bullets

There’s a discussion going on, apparently, about John Kerry and others who have begun calling that ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State thing Daesh instead. I guess it’s the acronym in Arabic, and it pisses off the members of that particular band of thugs. Which goes in the “plus” column. But as it turns out, it’s just the Left trying to be politically correct, as usual, according to two pointyheads in the Washington Post;

Kerry and other Western officials have taken to using the Arabic acronym Daesh. Why? It’s a reaction to reports that Islamic State fanboys fume when people use the Arabic acronym for the group instead of its fuller name. It’s also an effort by Westerners to distinguish between Islam and the Islamic State. As French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius explained, “I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a similar argument using another version of the Islamic State’s acronym. “As Muslim leaders around the world have said, groups like ISIL – or Daesh — have nothing to do with Islam, and they certainly do not represent a state,” he said. “They should more fittingly be called the ‘Un-Islamic Non-State.’”

I guess what you call it is more important than killing all of the thugs, so we don’t have to worry about what we call it. But, you know, being Liberals, they have to over think everything to no logical benefit for anyone. Form over substance.

The pointyheads compare it to Harry Potter novels;

The first is what Harry Potter fans would recognize as the Voldemort Effect, wherein the books’ protagonists fearfully refer to the villain Voldemort as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to avoid attracting his attention. Refusing to say the name of the Islamic State does something similar by enhancing the allure of the Group-That-Must-Not-Be-Named in radical quarters.

Refusing to utter the Islamic State’s name also needlessly complicates the religious fight to discredit the organization. Muslims understandably feel that their religion is being hijacked. But there’s something odd about an American president or Secretary of State opining on what is and isn’t legitimately Islamic. Shouldn’t it go without saying that a murderous extremist group isn’t what Muslims are all about?

Yeah, I don’t know – I guess I’m going to need some more Muslims tell me what to think about it rather than risk offending someone. Personally, I’d rather the pointyheads come up with way to wipe out the organization than talk about what we should call them. I’d have liked that they were on the side of victory, you know, seven years ago when we needed them.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

Category: Terror War