Kerry Stops Using “ISIL” To Describe Islamic State Because It Links Islam To Their Ideology, Now Using “Daesh”

Imam Kerry, Reporting For Doodie

From the Puff Ho:

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry is a distinguished diplomat with impeccable manners — but that doesn’t mean he’s above lobbing a well-placed insult when it comes to enemies of the United States. 

Kerry made clear earlier this week that he is committed to referring to the Islamic State as “Daesh,” a name that the group considers so degrading that it has threatened to kill anyone under Islamic State rule who uses it. 

The Islamic State’s opponents in the Muslim world have already embraced the name. “Daesh” is an acronym for the Arabic phrase meaning the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (though the last word can also be translated as “Damascus” or “Levant”), and it is thought to offend the extremist group because it sounds similar to an Arabic word for crushing something underfoot. 

Daesh in Arabic “sounds like something monstrous. … It’s a way of stigmatizing [the Islamic State], making it something ugly,” Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Huffington Post. 

Appearing Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss a new congressional authorization of military force, Kerry said the Obama administration sought an authorization “specifically against the terrorist group known as ISIL, though in the region is it called Daesh, and specifically because they believe very deeply it is not a state and it does not represent Islam.” 

Kerry’s justification for using the name Daesh is to undermine the Sunni extremists’ claims to statehood and leadership of the global Muslim community. 

This echoes the message put out by French foreign minister Laurent Fabius months ago. France, which has a sizable Muslim population and deep roots in the Muslim world because of its colonial history, began using the term Daesh in mid-September. 

“This is a terrorist group and not a state. I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists. The Arabs call it ‘Daesh’ and I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats,'” Fabius said at the time.