ISIL or ISIS?

I normally don't talk much on Islam as I have a different perspective than many people I know. But I've got something to say about this "ISIL" or ISIS bit that I need to talk about...

I have a dear friend. A woman I consider a sister. She lives halfway around the world. She brings much happiness to her family, friends, animals and customers. Way down on list of things she is: Muslim.

I don't go with the ordinary view that many people have that "all devout Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims." I almost ripped apart a guy in a Facebook group who basically said that my friend is not a good Muslim but a decent person. Don't be judging what you don't know, dood. But maybe he's right? I don't know. I don't know enough about the Quran to know what the "literal" interpretation is. What I do know is my dear friend's heart. So don't be lumping "all" anything in with "all" anything else.

Anyway, back to this "ISIL" or "ISIS" thing... I did get a little perturbed about why the current Administration seems to think "ISIL" is the proper term to use, when it seems everyone else in the world including "ISIS" themselves doesn't. So I did some research. I'm a good little Glenn Beck fan, I find my own facts.

ISIL stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Semantics for some, but then you find out what the Levant means.

In Arabic, the group is known as Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham, or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The term “al-Sham” refers to a region stretching from southern Turkey through Syria to Egypt (also including Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan). The standard English term for this territory is “the Levant”.

 The group’s stated goal is to restore an Islamic state, or caliphate, in this entire area. Which I guess you notices includes Israel. Some have taken the use of "ISIL" to be a slam at Israel, insinuating that they will be ruled as well. Yeah, good luck with that one.

My gut says it's being called "ISIL" to avoid having anyone with a brain and hearing the "ISIS" being able to figure out that Syria being included would be an admission of the administration's massive FAILURE in that country.

Their president, Bashar al-Assad, has overseen a three-year civil war that has accounted for nearly 200,000 dead, and over 4 million refugees.

Pretty sure we don't need an acronym to tell us what's right there on the faces of the Syrian people.