Think Progress relates that the Washington Post won't term that thing going on in Iraq as a "civil war" because the Iraqi government doesn't use that term.
Today on MSNBCGs Hardball, Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest explained that her newspaper does not use the phrase Gǣcivil warGǥ to describe the current violence in Iraq in part because Iraqi government officials say it is not a civil war.Priest said she GǣabsolutelyGǥ believes the Gǣlevel of violence [in Iraq] equals a civil war.Gǥ But she acknowledged that the Post has Gǣnot labeled it a civil war,Gǥ explaining, GǣWe try to avoid the labels, particularly when the elected government itself does not call its situation a civil war.Gǥ
The White House will only admit Iraq is in a "new phase". To paraphrase the Billy Joel song:
"It's the next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It's still Iraq and roll to me."
[note: Don't kill the messenger -- Dana Priest is IMHO a great reporter]
According to Think Progress, MSNBC and NBC News are calling Iraq a Gǣcivil war.Gǥ The Los Angeles Times has consistently used that term, and the Christian Science Monitor just started to do so.
Fox, USA Today, CNN, The Boston Globe, the New York Times and most other major media are still calling it "sectarian violence" or using other terms.
Does anyone have a better term, that still avoids the White House's verboten "civil war" phrase? Perhaps "a bit of recent unpleasantness?"
Steve
Let's see...
The recent downturn in events in Iraq? or
The Terrorist-Insurgency-Iranian-Syrian Destabilization of Iraq? or
The Head in the Sand Bush Problem in Iraq?
The WP has no problem reporting today that a Marine intelligence report says that the U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there.
Does that qualify as being caught in the middle of a civil war?
Oh, you mean the government that has, thus far, been totally and completely ineffective at keeping the peace? Please. No government ever wants to admit that it sucks at its job. The Iraqi Government makes Bush look compitent.
During our own Civil War, Americans didn't refer to it as such. For the South, it was the Second War for Independence. For the North, it was a war to Preserve the Nation. It was the outsiders, the French and the British, that recognized that the US was in a Civil War.
I have one thing to say to the WaPO:
Get a spine, you sissy maries. Saying Iraq is facing "sectarian violence" is like saying Rwanda faced "ethnical anger."
The point is to say, just because one government does not classify a war as a "civil war" doesn't mean it isn't, or that it shouldn't be judged that way by outside observers.
Steve
Some ideas:
The carnage in Iraq.
The quagmire in Iraq.
The new Vietnam.
The only problem is that to use anything which approximates the truth the Post would have to be independent. Too bad we can't vote the Neo-cons off the Post staff the way we voted them out of Congress. Now we're stuck. At least Bush will leave in two years.
It is what it is-and that is a civil war; not a new phase in the insurgency, not recent rise in anger, not the last throes before civility...it's a civil war. And George W. Bush caused it with his own insanity. Ugh.
This morning Ralph Peters was on C-Span and when asked that question he responded that the problem is identifying the numerous types of conflicts raging in Iraq right now. He pointed to the ethnic conflict between Kurds, Persians, and Arabs as one issue, the religious conflict between Shiites and Sunnis as another major issue, and the insurgency, including Al Qaeda, against the US as yet another issue. Civil wars usually involve two or three identifiable groups within a country, all trying to seize control of that country. The man had a point. There are so many ways the situation is screwed up that it almost does it a disservice to refer to it as simply a civil war.
Winning this election is the best thing that could have happened to both Iraq and the US.
Steve
This was an elective war pursued by Bush more for domestic political gain than for geopolitical reasons. For better or worse it is his legacy.
Surely even Republicans can agree to the justice of naming this "Bush's War." If the war turns out to be a huge success, then surely Bush deserves the lion's share of the credit, no?
Likewise, if it turns out to be a failure that dramatically impacts the United States' standing in the world for decades to come, then surely Bush deserves the blame for the war he insisted on waging.
I say call it "Bush's War."
Steve
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The use of the term "failed state" also expresses that the mission to "Democraticize Iraq" has failed and it's time for a course correction.
At least the Post has never bought into the "homicide bomber" crap that the Bush Administration was pushing. Can't say the same for Fox, but hey, no surprise there.