Much is being made of the decision by NBC News to begin calling the conflict in Iraq a “civil war”:
NBC News on Monday began referring to the Iraq conflict as a civil war, adopting a phrase that President Bush and many other news organizations have avoided.
Matt Lauer said on the “Today” show that “after careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation is Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.”
The network’s cable news outlet, MSNBC, drummed the point home repeatedly by using the phrase “Iraq: The Civil War” on the screen.
There are different criteria for defining a civil war. Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines it simply as “war between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation.” Some political scientists use a threshold of 1,000 dead, which the current conflict has long since passed.
There are more conservative definitions. The Web site GlobalSecurity.org, which provides information on defense issues, said five criteria must be met: the contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces and engage in major military operations.
The Bush administration said Monday that it does not believe Iraq is in a civil war, and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does not, either.
Civil war, guerrilla war, insurgency, or terrorism, does it really matter what we call it ? The fact of the matter remains that the situation in Iraq has clearly fallen apart. Civilians are now being targeted more often than American or Iraqi-government troops, and suicide bombs are being detonated in areas designed to kill civilians to maximum effect and inflame religious and ethnic tensions.
The motives of the people engaging in the attacks, it seems, are obvious, to undermine civilian confidence in the government and in the American forces protecting to the point where they will stop supporting it.
At this point, though, it seems that there are sizable portions of the Iraqi population who don’t want to live in peace with one another. As long as that’s true, no amount of American force is going to change things.
Further thoughts on this debate at The Washington Post
November 29th, 2006 at 8:34 am
What’s So Civil About the Iraq War?
I don’t think the Iraq War is very civil at all.