Marc,
I appreciate the response and I am going to keep asking you questions because I am looking to have any of my ideas challnged.

My follow up question is this: Isn't it very often the case that for internal conflict there is often few overt distinguisig characteristics between freinds and enemies and the dnager comes not when this is recognised but when this is ignored and people are treated as a homogenous group. I use the war in Vietnam as an example. I am concerned that the 'war on terror' is morphing in peoplels minds into the 'war on Islam', in both the west and east. This has a historical precendent in the cold war where 'communism' became byword not for all persons giving equally in a society but instead for totalitarianism and repression. By using the phrase civil war in Islam, it immediately recognises that there are at least two sides and Islam is not a homogenous enemy.

Your thoughts?