This is not intended to be political post, so please don't turn it into one. I'm trying to figure out why we can't all agree on a single, simple name for the terrorist group taking responsibility for, among other things, the attacks in Paris last week. Much of new media calls the group ISIS Some of the news media calls the group IS (Islamic State) The US President calls the group ISIL Just today, I heard the US Secretary of State call the group DASH (apparently based upon an Arabic name for the group) It's damn confusing. And it's been going on the this way for years. Can't we just settle on a single name? What's with the various names?
An older Washington Post article on the naming conventions used with more background on each. This article has much more of a US based slant than the one above from a UK publication. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/20/isis-vs-isil-vs-islamic-state-the-political-importance-of-a-much-debated-acronym-2/
A timely and succinct response. Seems the author of that article published just yesterday knew there was confused people like me out there. Thanks for the link. So now I know a bit more of what is behind the various names out there, but I repeat: Can't we just settle on a single name?
Another UK based publication that explains the usage without the American leaning bias the Washington Post article brings to the table. Isis vs Islamic State vs Isil vs Daesh: What do the different names mean