News Digest

U.S. military action against Islamic State stokes war of words over terminology

A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry refused to use the word “war”, Obama administration officials have begun to use the word to describe its action in Iraq and Syria to disable the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) and ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Americans may be war weary after years of costly conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, but most are not eager to give up the fight against what they see as a new threat to national security.

I think ‘war’ is the wrong terminology and analogy but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity.

U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll shows more than six in 10 respondents believe that taking military action against ISIS is in the nation’s interest. But while 63 percent of people surveyed in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll said they backed an airstrike campaign, only 9 percent favoured sending American troops to fight the militants. At the moment, the US is militarily involved in air strikes and/or Special Forces operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan (where some 29,000 American troops remain). Add to that now Syria and the commitments remain widely regional and with no end – or definition of “victory” – in sight or even very well defined.

The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest