ISIS, IS, ISIL or DAESH

An urban land mine by any other name will smell as sweet.
- M. Jack

Even have one of those days?  You're raking the leaves in the front yard, minding your own business and maybe wondering why your neighbor's leaves end up in your front yard instead of his, and why the lazy so-and-so doesn't get them raked up to the curb so the city leaf pick-up, funded by your tax money and staffed by union labor that's probably earning around $80 an hour - and your reverie is broken up by that old, familiar smell.


Doggie doo-doo.  Some sonuvabitch! let his dog crap in your yard and didn't pick up after himself, and since your yard is carpeted by dead leaves the urban land mine has a nice natural camouflage.  Probably a moonbat soccer mom out for her morning jog and dog walk, and probably she voted for the tax levy in the last election.

You won't think of this at the time, but you're naming your enemy.  Your enemy is not your neighbor who invited you over for a swim in his pool last August when the temperature shot up to over 100 and the humidity was 110.  It isn't your pastor at church, and it isn't that hot bar maid down at your favorite watering hole.  The name is colorful and is something else, something that takes away any shred of respect and dignity.

Today as I was contemplating my early-mid-late afternoon bourbon, I stumbled across this post by my good Internet buddy, Old NFO: Truth, or consequences…

Obama The Ayatollah Obongo accused America of being afraid of women and children from Syria…
As usual, he’s [dead] wrong.

Paraphrased by yours truly.  Old NFO is a much more polite man than I am.  Then I got to thinking, why do we, the citizens of the US, call these people ISIS?  I looked up a few answers and got a surprise.  The Indian EXPRESS had this to say:

Indian EXPRESS: ISIS, ISIL or Islamic State (IS): Where the name makes a statement

While the outcry against the ISIS has been consistent across the globe, their name hasn’t. United States, the United Nations and some news media agencies refer to the jihadist group with the acronym ISIL, while others use either ISIS, IS or ISIL. But what’s in a name, we ask. Apparently, a lot.

Exactly.  Why aren't we calling them scumbags, murderous scum sucking terrorists, or some other colorful, descriptive moniker?  Here's the deal, again from Indian EXPRESS.

ISIL: The acronym ISIL stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The US, United Nations and some sections of the media use this term.

If the UN uses it for a terrorist organization, that should be enough for the rest of us.  Have someone clever come up with something else.

ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is an English translation of the Arabic acronym Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham, which means the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.
IS: The Islamic militants refer to themselves as the Islamic State. This term is used on their videos and reflects the organization’s ultimate goal of creating a caliphate across national borders.

Okay, stop right there.  I am not going to refer to our enemy by their preferred name.  Evidently I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

DAESH: Experts believe that some Arab governments have refrained from referring to the terrorist group as Islamic State because it lends the organisation legitimacy. They prefer using the Arabic acronym called Daiish, which in short means Dawlat al-Islamiyah f’al-Iraq w Belaad al-Sham.
According to news reports, when Mosul fell to the militants, they threatened to cut of the tongues of Mosul residents who publicly referred to them as Daiish [STET]. The militants said that acronym shows disrespect and defiance.

Which is good enough for me.  Hereafter, I'm calling them DAESH, which I supposed is pronounced daysh.  If anyone knows how this is officially pronounced, tip me off.  Here's another article about the DAESH and will give the reader some idea about what they really are like.  From The Telegraph:


The Telegraph - Mass graves of women 'too old to be ISIL sex slaves' - this is what we're up against

Daesh is an abreviation Dawlat al-Islamiyah f'al-Iraq wa al-Sham, and is the derogatory name used by many Muslims for ISIL. Following the Paris attacks, the French government is now using this term.

Now as to why, precisely, the enemy objects to being called DAESH, here's one source that explained it.

Deconstructed Globe: ISIS or DAISH

(slightly paraphrased)
What makes the Arabic acronym interesting is that the Arabic word daish means to ‘tread under foot‘ or ‘crush‘.

So it's a sort of antonym for the famous motto, Don't Tread On Me.  In this case I'd say that if the shoe fits...

So that's that.  My thanks to Old NFO for getting me started on this one.