“Their narrative is caliphate, we’ve taken territory, we’re the future of true Islam, and on you go. And you have to find a way to counter that that’s effective and I think we’ve gotten pretty good at it.”
Nonsense. Not only have they not gotten pretty good at it, but there is nothing they are worse at doing. Kerry’s remarks here show why. He thinks that to call the Islamic State something else, such as “the world’s most evil terrorist group,” will deprive it of legitimacy. But if the United States government refuses to call the Islamic State the Islamic State, that will not prevent a single Muslim from joining it, because young Muslims don’t look to the United States government to tell them what is legitimately Islamic and what isn’t. Nor will it prevent the Islamic State from invoking Islamic texts and teachings to justify its actions and make recruits among Muslims, and the U.S. government has done absolutely nothing to counter that, because it is determined to maintain the fiction that Islam is a religion of peace, and refuses even to admit that the Islamic State makes recruits in this way.
“Kerry: To Avoid ‘Islamic’ or ‘State,’ Call ISIS ‘World’s Most Evil Terrorist Group,'” by Bridget Johnson, PJ Media, October 11, 2016:
Secretary of State John Kerry suggested referring to ISIS as “the world’s most evil terrorist group” so as to not use the acronym references to “Islamic” or “State.”
Kerry noted at the Virtuous Circle Conference on Monday in Silicon Valley that he “rarely” uses the terms “ISIS” or “ISIL” at all.
“I’ve been on a lot of campaigns to get everybody to say “Daesh” because it’s a pejorative in Arabic — the initials — and I haven’t won that campaign at all,” he added.
“But it’s just — you kind of resort to the use of those letters because it refers to a state — it’s the Islamic State — and it’s not a state. There’s nothing legitimate about it. There’s nothing Islamic about it. It’s a complete misnomer. It’s their title and we shouldn’t use it and I feel that very strongly,” Kerry continued. “But it has gained — it’s the recognized term and if you want people to know what you’re talking about, unfortunately, sometimes you are forced to.”
He stressed that “it would be great if we could get away from that, and the key is the media to begin really to call it something else.”
“The terrorist group Daesh — that would be the best moniker, I think,” he said. “Or the most evil — the world’s most evil terrorist group.”
Daesh also incorporates Islamic State, just in Arabic. It stands for al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham. It’s one letter away from the word “daes,” which means to crush or trample. ISIS hates the Daesh term and has threatened violence against people who use it.
“Anyway, it’s hard,” Kerry added. “Today’s media is so — it’s so labelized and it reduces everything into these simplistic things. It’s very, very hard to break out once something has stuck.”
Kerry also talked at the technology confab about the State Department’s Global Engagement Center “mostly focused on countering violent extremism.”
“And we have 131 employees authorized, I think we’re currently at about 68. Why are we not at full force? Because it’s pretty competitive out here and tough to get people… it’s hard to find the talent and fill the slots, number one. It’s just been a slower growth process than we would have liked,” he said of the department meant to counter terrorist propaganda online.
“We’re messaging and changing the narrative of ISIL, of Daesh. And countering that narrative very forcefully. We use a lot of defectors, a lot of survivors of Daesh’s brutality. And they are the people who are messaging. They are the communicators. They’re the people who are debunking the extraordinary lies of a fairly sophisticated Daesh operation, I might add. It’s quite amazing how effective they’ve been for a while in proselytizing propaganda and so forth,” Kerry said.
“Their narrative is caliphate, we’ve taken territory, we’re the future of true Islam, and on you go. And you have to find a way to counter that that’s effective and I think we’ve gotten pretty good at it. We know we have reduced recruits. We know we have cut financing. And I am absolutely convinced, not any exaggeration, that we are going to destroy ISIL as we know it now, in the sense that there’s still a few al-Qaeda folks around, but there’s not the day-to-day threat that existed. We’re moving on Mosul, we’re moving on Raqqa, we’re shrinking their space significantly. They haven’t taken one piece of territory and held it since May of last year and their leadership is being decimated person by person.”…

Crusades Were Right! says
Wait a minute, Mr. Spencer; maybe Mr. Kerry is onto something! Let’s see…
Democratic Party? Nah! How about “America’s Most Un-American Party”? That’s MUCH better!
JawsV says
Kerry – an absolute fool. Like Islam-loving Hillary and Gramps Sandals.
Jaladhi says
Thank you Mr. Kerry for calling Islamic State acknowledging that ISIS is world’s most evil terrorist group as if other terrorists are less evil. All terrorists are evil but what is most important is who they are and what religion they follow. In this case it is Islam if you didn’t know. And to repeat the old adage Islamic terror by any other name will be Islamic terror!! Kapisch!!
Jaladhi says
Thank you Mr. Kerry for calling and acknowledging that ISIS is world’s most evil terrorist group as if other terrorists are less evil. All terrorists are evil but what is most important is who they are and what religion they follow. In this case it is Islam if you didn’t know. And to repeat the old adage Islamic terror by any other name will be Islamic terror!! Kapisch!!
August West says
Interestingly by calling Islamic State the the world’s most evil terrorist group “TWMETG” Kerry has unilaterally determined three things about Islamic State:
1)They are a terrorist group.
2)They are evil.
3)They are the worlds most evil terrorist group (I assume he must have a proprietary metric which will numerically quantify degrees of evil)
Even Kerry has probably figured out that in a few months he will be out of work.
If I were Mrs Kerry I would be very concerned about having him around the house, so he is probably getting lots of questions from his wife about what he plans to do with himself.
He can now set up shop officially declaring groups to be terrorist and evil. He can also make a list ranking such groups in order of evil.
This is a full time job and he will be able to leverage all of the expertise gained from his stint at the State Department.
Perhaps he will just start calling the TWMETG Voldemort and be done with it.
He might be able to get into the movies that way.
Mrs Kerry must be very happy.
BTW Dante in the Inferno put Mohammad on the 10th pit of the 8th level of hell. Sounds like Dante beat him to it.
mccode says
Dante had an accurate assessment of Mo’s evil, in stark contrast to innumerable contemporary “leaders” who are deceitful and treacherous. And that includes their quisling MSM mouthpieces as well.
August West says
I have just refreshed my memory on Dante’s depiction of Mo.
From Inferno Canto 28:
A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
Was never shattered so, as I saw one
Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
That maketh excrement of what is eaten.
While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, saying: “See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
Disseminators of scandal and of schism
While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
Thus cruelly, unto the falchion’s edge
Putting again each one of all this ream,
When we have gone around the doleful road;
By reason that our wounds are closed again
Ere any one in front of him repass.
When reading this its good to look at the artwork by Gustave Dore depicting Dante and Virgil looking down on Mohammad (cut open) and Ali weeping. A demon in the back ground with sword.
Salvador Dali also has an picture of Dante’s depiction of Mohammad, but I prefer Dore better.
Either way both of these guys drew pictures of Mohammad and lived to tell about it.
8th Circle of Dante’s hell – reserved for frauds. Big Mo Mo fits right in.
Geppetto says
Any major American university will be thrilled to get him and infer upon him the title of “Professor” of something or other. He will be the darling of the faculty lounge.
john spielman says
ISIS is islam and islam is ISIS- NO DIFFERENCE; both worship Satan (allah) and consider his prophet -that dead mass murderer, thief, liar, adulterer and pedophile false prophet muhammed to be their ‘ perfect man” and the one to emulate
Beagle says
All that concerns these jokers is controlling the “narrative.” This is what happens when 52% of the United States installs a president whose only real job was being a part time adjunct professor. Their approach to everything is to control and manage the discussion.
As recently as 2012 the Obama Administration, our Gulf Arab ‘allies’ and Turkey supported the rise of a Sunni rump state in Syria as a possible “strategic asset” in toppling Assad, the “reformer” as Hillary once described him. One failed state in Libya was not enough for this crew. They had to go for two in Syria. So they put on blindflolds and backed Sunni mujahideen, the most notorious now being the Islamic State.
The Islamic State could not exist as it does but for horrendous foreign policy decisions made under Obama and Clinton as Secretary of State.
Don McKellar says
How much longer are we going to have to hear this line of bullshit from this political hack puppet again?
Sam says
To these idiots so called politicians, all goes well as long as we don’t say, Islam, Muslim, Jihad.
It is really unbelievable how much damage these enablers of Islam do to humanity.
JayT says
Kerry’s even better than fictional “Neo” in the Matrix going from “There is no spoon” to “Islam is never violent”.
billybob says
Dear John Kerry,
I have an even better idea I got from my 5 year old granddaughter. You could call them “poopycocks”. Nobody would dream of joining ISIS if they would get called that.
Keep up the good work. …just thought I might help you out here a bit.
Regards,
billybob
[yes that’s my real name – you think I would use a false name on the internet?]
le mouron rouge says
billybob,
Too funny.
mortimer says
The Islamic World’s Most Evil State.
Satisfied?
mortimer says
Sheikh John Kerry hasn’t read any of Islam source texts and yet, preposterously, he know Islam better than Caliph al Baghdadi.
Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who is the ISIS chief and the caliph of the Islamic State, is apparently the first Islamic Studies PhD from a Muslim background who has no idea about Islam.
Al-Baghdadi, who has obtained BA, MA and PhD degrees in Islamic studies from the Islamic University in Baghdad, has been condemned as a person who knows nothing about Islam, and as the head of an organization that has nothing to do with Islam.
The professors from the Islamic University of Baghdad, however, do not agree. They taught the caliph and believe his credentials and doctrines are sound.
“If a person who has a PhD in Islamic studies and does nothing but study the Islamic scriptures knows nothing about Islam, then who does?” questioned al-Baghdadi’s main teacher from the Islamic University, preferring to remain anonymous since the fatwa against ISIS and its chief puts his reputation into jeopardy.
“The wine-sipping Muslims, those hedonistic adulterers will tell the world what true Islam is? Obama and Cameron know more about Islam than the faculty of Islamic studies at the Islamic University in Baghdad?” the professor bellowed with rage, while talking to a journalist.
Another professor who had taught al-Baghdadi in BA said off the record that the Isis caliph was an ardent student.
“He had this obsession with Islamic studies. I used to tell him to go out and have some fun sometimes. But his idea of fun wasn’t too human friendly,” the professor said. “In any case he was a top student. One of the best I’ve ever had. Had the entire syllabus on his finger tips – to be honest, he knew more about Islamic studies than most of the professors.”
“While you can question whether they are humans or not, there is no doubt that ISIS, including Abu Bakr (al Baghdadi), are indeed bona fide Muslims,” concluded the ISIS caliph’s PhD professor.
August West says
Mortimer can you please provide a link to the anonymous professor comment(s) or site the source. I would like to look them up and put them into my playbook.
JeffS says
As far as I could tell, it’s from the Kabaristan Times, which is a satirical Pakistani new site inspired by The Onion. https://khabaristantimes.com/world/abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-becomes-first-islamic-studies-phd-to-have-no-idea-about-islam/.
somehistory says
Homer Simpson has more intelligence, depth of character, morals and ethics than does this guy, perpetually with his islam finger in the air.
Has he never heard that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”?
Of course, he would need Homer to explain it to him.
Sickening, always bowing to the wild beast. of islam
Guest says
Both terms fit them perfectly.
Abo Ajab says
Well, it is not Islamic for sure !
And Islam is a peaceful religion!
ISIS is evil, violence is evil and hatred is evil as well!
Vast majority of the one billion muslims in the globe are peaceful and are tragically harmed by ISIS!
Those who think Islam is violent they simply don’t get the religion
Quran enforces peace and honors deals and trust with non muslims (modern day laws and international laws), Islam is pushing to save lives rather than taking them!
ISIS TO ISLAM IS KKK TO CHRISTIANITY
peace ✌?
amalteser says
Utter rubbish!!!
somehistory says
Abo has provided the bologna. Bread and mustard, mayonnaise and spreading knife and we can all have a sandwich. Leave out this brand of bologna and it might taste swell as a condiment sandwich.
Angemon says
Abo Ajab posted:
“Well, it is not Islamic for sure !”
‘Kay. I would like to see some explanation and backing of this assertion but let’s run with this for now.
“And Islam is a peaceful religion!”
See above.
“ISIS is evil, violence is evil and hatred is evil as well!”
So ISIS is islamic then. Gotcha. Here’s the thing, Ahab: if islam is a “peaceful religion” that is compatible with human rights such as equality for all before the law then, considering its centuries-old history and the number of muslim-majority countries in existence, one should be able to find at least one country where islamic law does not conflict with human rights. But there is none. Not even one. Top 10 worse countries to be a Christian in? North Korea plus 9 muslim-majority nations. Top 10 worse countries to be a women in? Mostly islamic nations.
“Vast majority of the one billion muslims in the globe are peaceful and are tragically harmed by ISIS!”
Clarification needed. What do you mean “are peaceful”? Do you just mean that they are not out with weapons killing people? Do you mean that they genuinely oppose the ideology behind ISIS?
“Those who think Islam is violent they simply don’t get the religion”
Starting with muslims in the islamic world. For example, how many muslims marched against the slaughter of Charlie Hebdo staff for their alleged “blasphemy”? How many amrched in favour of it?
“Quran enforces”
Gonna have to stop you right there and point out two major plot holes:
1 – The quran is a book. It has no power to enforce anything. You can say it mandates, exhorts or ordains such and such because the words written in it contain commands, exhortations or orders but if a muslim reads the quran and decides, despite the commands in it, to drink alcohol, to go out and have a beer what will the quran do? Answer? Jack s***. Because it’s a f***ing book.
2 – Something that “enforces” something else is not, by definition, peaceful. You can’t write “enforce” without “force”, and if you have to force something then you can not be peaceful.
“peace and honors deals”
Enforces peace and honors deals? Do you think we have not read your putrid little book? How it says that it’s OK to attack Jews and Christians because of their religion? How it renders existing treaties null and void?
“and trust with non muslims”
Again: we’ve read your book. “Do not take the Jews or Christians as friends instead of muslims”.
“(modern day laws and international laws), Islam is pushing to save lives rather than taking them!”
Tell that to all the people killed in islamic countries for alleged “blasphemy”, or homosexuality, or being a women and reporting a rape to the police.
“ISIS TO ISLAM IS KKK TO CHRISTIANITY”
No, ISIS is to islam what the USSR or Cuba are to communists: a real-world application of ideological principles with results that are disgusting and offensive to basic moral standards and human decency that. And still, they have no lack of support from outsiders.
“peace ✌?”
We shall have peace… when you and your coreligionists leave your putrid religion, clear the filth out of your minds and embrace core Western values such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion AND freedom *from* religion, and equality of all before the law. We shall have peace when you and your ilk turn the likes of al-Baghdadi, Khamenei or Mahmoud Abbas into a feast for crows. Until then, don’t expect us to fall for your treacherous words spoken from a forked tongue.
Richie says
Leftists feel by controling the language they can control and frame the narrative
Klop says
I’m fine with calling it ”the world’s most evil Islamic terrorist group”.
Dacritic says
Kerry: Don’t call the Islamic State “the Islamic State,” call it “the world’s most evil terrorist group”.
Which happens to be 100% Islamic.
Rufolino says
If an army can’t even decide what to call its enemy, then there is no point in fighting -they have already lost.
mach37 says
True Muslims should be upset by Kerry and other non-Muslims who have the nerve to call Islamic organizations such as ISIS “non-Islamic.”
Praeceptor Maximus says
Personally, I like to punch John Kerry in the mouth and knock his teeth out.
Angemon says
This makes no sense. On one hand they tell us that calling them islamic legitimises them. On the other we’re told to call them the “most evil terrorist group”. If names matter, like he claims, won’t calling it “the most evil terrorist group” make it attractive for people who are, well, evil to begin with? If not calling it “islamic” is supposed to make muslims shy away from it, won’t call it “the most evil terrorist group” attract a certain spectrum of people?
Lucretius says
For a long time now I’ve been calling the John Kerry every bad name besides Secretary of State, but alas, this magic is weak.
Lesley says
Well, if we just start calling the Islamic State the Polar Vortex instead, that would fix everything…
Kathy Brown, Esq. says
Well, OK. But only if I can call you ‘Mr. Mashed Potato Face’ instead of ‘Secretary of State’.
(h/t Mark Levin)