I’ve been baffled since the early days of the Obama administration’s about the focus semantics rather than policy. I think the first time I noticed was when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano began using the term “man-caused disaster” instead of “terrorist attack.” That was just the start. “War on Terror” became a forbidden phrase and was replaced by “Overseas Contingency,” which I still don’t understand. “Jihad” became a forbidden word and “violent extremism” replaced either “Islamists or Islamic terrorists.” I have come to believe that the original confusion about the attack on Benghazi was caused by Obama administration officials being convinced they weren’t allowed to use the term “terrorist attack.” Perhaps even they thought it would be silly to call it a “man-caused disaster” and instead referred to it as a “demonstration.”

The latest in the quest to use semantics is the conscious shift of the administration from the term ISIS (Islamic State in Syria) to ISIL (Islamic State In the Levant) to describe the terrorist organization creating carnage in Iraq. I had to look up “Levant” and learned it consists of the Eastern Mediterranean. Wiki describes that the Levant today “…consists of the island of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria Palestine, and part of southern Turkey.” I was even more confused, because I hadn’t heard of any of the ISIS or ISIL attacks being in any of those countries other than Syria. I thought most of the attacks that had made the news occurred in Iraq, which isn’t mentioned.

So why would the State Department and President Obama begin using the term ISIL?  An article by Liz Peek gives one explanation. President Obama “Most likely…would rather eliminate the connection between chaos in Iraq with his inaction in Syria. Better that the upheaval in a country to which we committed so much blood and treasure remain the fault of George W. Bush. The president has already been tarred with having failed to secure a Status of Forces deal with Prime Minister al-Maliki, which would have allowed a contingent of American troops to stay in Iraq.”

I of course don’t know that al-Malaki would could have been pressured into signing a Status of Forces Agreement, but I do believe it would have been a different story if there had been American soldiers, tanks, helicopters and air support when ISIS (I think I’ll continue calling them that) terrorists (I think I’ll continue calling them that also) began marching across the border between Syria and Iraq. I believe they would have found a hail of munitions instead of a nice cache of abandoned weapons. I believe the survivors who managed to escape would have held a small rally to decide to try that again when the Americans were no longer in Iraq.