What is a Civil War?

[slapout9]

Tom Odom I remember when you had that discussion. I had just posted my comment about motive,means,and opportunity(this is my pet rock). If you can not figure out the motive you will never get anywhere, like you said it is what? without the why? Motive is simple. Ask who benefits by the action? That will give you the why and also the who if don't know.

[Tom Odom]

I must say I have an increasing sense of deja vu in this debate/discussion over whether a civil war is going on in Iraq because the factions are aligned via sectarian or ethnic lines.

I am sickeningly reminded of the debate in the Clinton decisionmaking structure over whether we should have at that time labeled the genocide in Rwanda as such. Instead we engaged in flights of fancy spin, agreeing that there had been "acts of genocide" while remained hesitant to utter the "G-word" all by itself and tag it to Rwanda. Such verbal dodgeball led one frustrated reporter to ask "how many 'acts of genocide' does it take to make a genocide?" Of course, the answer was another dip away from the dodgeball. And all during this mincing over words, Radio-Telephone Milles Collines continued to pronounce it was the hardliner Hutu intention to kill all the Tutsis and any Hutus who supported them, leaving no doubt that the perpetrators of the genocide motivation was control of a post-conflict Rwanda cleansed of Tutsi.

So for me, the debate over the "C-word" in Iraq is all too familiar and equally bankrupt. In any case, the Iraqis will decide it for us.

Best all

Tom

[Culpeper]

War is war. Civil War is an oxymoron. An insurgency/counterinsurgency is a civil war. So was, "The War", as we call it in the South. I don't see the motive behind labeling Iraq a civil war at this point because that has always been the case long before the Persian Gulf War. Frankly, I view it as a sign on how inept America is about the history of Iraq. Calling it a civil war now is like a day late and a dollar short. Of course it is a civil war. It always has been a civil war. It has been a very bad place for a very long time. What NBC should have stated the other day was, "Gosh!, we're so stupid. Iraq is a civil war!...Duh!"