What's in a name?

Throughout the world news media are doing their very best to confuse us, is it IS, ISIS or ISIL and what difference does a name make anyway?  The simple answer is, there is no simple answer.  In essence ISIS and ISIL mean similar things, ISIS is the acronym for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria whilst ISIL is the acronym for Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (the old name for an area covering Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine).  Personally I keep to the simple catch-all, IS or Islamic State.
It gets really interesting when you look at the history of the group, founded in Iraq in 1999 as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.  In 2004 al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin-Laden's al-Qaida, simplifying the organisations English name to al-Qaida in Iraq, this despite there being ideological differences between the organisations.  In 2006, under the new leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group distanced itself from al-Qaida when they became Islamic State in Iraq or ISI and then in 2013 declared a Caliphate, a state for all Muslims adopting the name Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.  Al-Sham is the Arabic name for the area known in English as Levant (ironically from the French).  IS have become so extreme in their actions that even al-Qaida, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks in the USA and 7/7/ bombings in London, have now distanced themselves from the organisation following IS indiscriminately killing civilians in Syria

So, history lesson over, what are they.  In my December 2013 article entitled One man's terrorist..... I concluded that the definition of a terrorist will ultimately be decided by those that write the history books, which task is usually undertaken by the victors.  And here is the nub of it, IS are, without doubt, an extreme organisation, imposing their will upon thousands, if not millions, of others by force and terror but is that so very different to NATO sanctioned bombing campaigns, the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the abuse of the Boor by the British in South Africa?  The list goes on.  Are they terrorists, freedom fighters or is this a straight forward civil war?  I'm not sure it matters.

The United Nations employ a philosophy of self determination, as so peacefully and democratically exemplified in Scotland on the 18th September earlier this year, but where does this leave the people of Eastern Ukraine?  No matter what can be argued about Russian involvement, there is no denying that a significant part of the population of Eastern Ukraine no longer wish to be a part of the Ukrainian state yet when they have held elections they have been deemed illegal. 

Frankly I don't know what the answer is, better and more informed minds than mine have and are failing to resolve these situations, I therefore, feel safe in just one conclusion and that is: Regardless of the rights and wrongs of both situations, Ukraine and the Middle East alike, innocent people are being made to pay for the desires of others and when innocent people call for help we have a morale obligation to respond.

In the words or Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."