It's all but civil war now

[Roon]

WASHINGTON - Sectarian violence is spreading in Iraq, reflecting the most complex security challenges since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said Friday. "Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months," it said in a quarterly report to Congress on U.S. efforts to stabilize the country.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060901/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_1

[miketorse]

1. Finally, this must the the last throws... n/t

[yellowcanine]

4. To get the democracy omelet one must break some chicken hawk eggs.

[newyawker99]

7. Hi miketorse!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[meldroc]

2. There isn't a civil war in Iraq already?

:wtf: Could've fooled me.

[Roon]

5. Great point

Who and when is it decided that it's civil war in iraq?

[Poiuyt]

6. Definition from Wikipedia:

"A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight for political power or control of an area. Some civil wars are also categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict. An insurgency, whether successful or not, is likely to be classified as a civil war by some historians if, and only if, organized armies fight conventional battles. Other historians state the criteria for a civil war is that there must be prolonged violence between organized factions or defined regions of a country (conventionally fought or not).

Ultimately the distinction between a "civil war" and a "revolution" or other name is arbitrary, and determined by usage."

more-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war

Of course, the Bush administration will NEVER say that this is a civil war because it sounds too much like "Quagmire." I guess they can claim that it's not a civil war because they don't have organized armies fighting conventional battles. Now Bush keeps saying that we are fighting a new kind of enemy, so it would make sense to me that there must be a new kind of civil war also. It seems to me that when you have two or more factions from the same country fighting for control of that country, it's a civil war.

[moondust]

9. The term "civil war" is like a tripwire.

As soon as officialdom admits it is a "civil war" the alarms of conventional wisdom go off that say "there is no place for US troops in somebody else's civil war." At that point virtually everbody demands the pullout of US troops and the game is over for Bushcorp.

They'll tiptoe around that tripwire for as long as they can get away with it.

[Tracer]

3. Wouldn't this catastrophe be better called ...

... a Religious War?

To me, Civil War implies political factions going at it against each other. In Iraq, all we ever hear is Sunni vs. Shiite -- which are religious sects.

[Justice Is Comin]

8. I'ts full civil war right now. They don't have enough gurnies

in the morgue to keep the dead bodies.

Transpose that to any city here of similar population and you would have mass panic.

Hatfield shoots McCoy...McCoy shoots Hatfield....Hatfield retaliates, shoots McCoy...McCoy outraged, ambushes Hatfield----civil war.