Call it

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the highest American official for foreign policy, answered the genocide question Thursday for the Obama administration: Islamic State is committing genocide. Congress had urged the administration to do just that by March 17, yesterday.

This does not legally obligate the U.S. militarily, so it doesn't mean we will apply more force. But plain words are still important because there should be no confusion about what IS has done.

Here are bits of the Secretary's statement:

"[Islamic State] is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims . . genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions in what it says, what it believes and what it does.

"One element of genocide is the intent to destroy an ethnic or religious group in whole or in part. Its entire world view is based on eliminating those who do not subscribe to its perverse ideology.

"The fact is that [IS] kills Christians because they are Christians, the Yazidis because they are Yazidis, [and] Shia because they are Shia."