war cimes come to mind when i think of bush . that is war crimes against humanity.

Let's imagine it's anything BUT a civil war -- then let's (the U.S.) imagine a Victory and get our soldiers and marines -- OUT.

Civil war, sectarian violence, unrestrained chaos, ethnic cleansing. Spin it anyway you want --- you have a complete meltdown of any sense of civility and nationhood in Iraq. There is no one in charge, and no one is listening to anyone. The only commonality is that all the warring parties hate the Americans.

We uncapped the genie bottle --- and no amount of diplomacy or force or begging or threatening is going to put that genie back in again. And our troops --- military men with no military mission --- are sitting ducks.

This is what happens when a incompetent sociopath (aka George Bush) starts an illegal and immoral war for --- wait a minute, the reason for this war keeps changing. Add to the mix and incompetent and evil Veep, and incompetent and arrogant Secretary of Defense and in incompetent and naive Secretary of State --- and you have created a recipe for the ultimate debacle -- Iraq.

The mess we have created is so great, so tragic and so massive --- i am afraid none of us will see a fix in our lifetimes. We have only bad choices now --- in chess it is called Zugzwang --- any move we make is going to make a bad situation even worse. I never thought I would ever be so embarrassed by our President.

Call it what you like. I will tell you what is disgraceful and that is the way a segment of the american public has maligned our president. Not only the general public but important leaders in high places. The enemy in Iraq themselves has to be stunned to hear some of the comments and lies comming from Americans. The president had it right early on, you are either for us or against us, so all of those who believe we must wait until the enemy is within our home before we defend ourselves, get ready, you may have to do just that!

NBC is causing problems by telling everyone there is a civil war going on. Please stop and simply deliver the news and don't jump in and label what YOU FEEL is going on. Don't make waves where there should be none. Help our troops and THINK BEFORE YOU WRITE THIS DRIBBLE.

This is another blow to the credibility of the media. Here is a news organization, inflated by its own sense of importance, that has unilaterally decided to label the war. What stupidity. News reporters should report the news, not try to make it. The public's trust of the media is already at an all time low. This grandstanding by NBC will only make it worse.

Right, MSNBC knows more about warfare and the situation than military historians, the Iraqi gov't, the U.S. military leaders and the United Nations.

Right.

You arrogant condescending elites will do anything and evetything to undermine this country and it makes me sick.

Your undermining actions will NEVER be forgotten.

Is Darfur a civil war?

Palestine?

Pakistan?

India?

Phillipines?

Sri Lanka

O wait, those stories can't be used to smear the U.S. so NBC avoids those.

Freaking liberal scabs.

Of course it is a civil war. Thank for, Mr. Engel, for calling a spade a spade, unlike so many others in the mainstream media. The job of the media is to report the truth, however uncomfortable it may be, and let popular opinion fall where it may. An honestly informed electorate makes wiser decisions than one fed comforting lies.

Most who have posted here realize what is going on. But World powers deny what is obvious to any who can see. Bring our people home........let them fight their own civil war!

Definitions aside: I can't help but feel bad for a woman who's been cooped up in her house for so long, she's struggling to keep touch with some sense of what is normal by dressing up to go nowhere. Anyone who for internal or external reasons has ever spent time as a shut in knows that it doesn't take long before you get a little funny in the head. I wonder how many such people that no one knows about (anywhere for that matter ...) exist? Tell your friend's wife this American says "hi." I think I will stop complaining about my commute to work. At least I get to go out.

Gee, Mark - the difference is that the US doesn't have a major military presence "there".

Darfur? Civil war

Palestine? If you mean the struggle between Fatah and Hamas? Only "sort of" a civil war (not enough money to have a "real" civil war

Pakistan? not lately (of course, Musharref's power is weilde only thru the military, but he seems to keep the "non-tribal" areas reasonably under control)

India? Some unrest but it's historical

Phillipines? Only in the south and then only due to islamic "terrorists"

Sri Lanka? Confined to a relatively small area and then only small numbers (although there is a "control issue" as in "who's in charge?")

As to "smearing the US" though - those other places

Imagine the scenario where an Al Qaida-type organization uses Iraq as an arsenal, a place to get weapons, a place to be trained to use the weapons. – George W. Bush, Remarks by the President at Arkansas Welcome, White House (11/4/2002).

Yeah, just imagine.........

Definitly a Civil War in my mind. Even a lot of our politicians and media see it as that. President Bush just has to finish his agenda or he looks like he failed. I think our agenda was met; Remove Sadaam Husein and locate any weapons of mass destruction. We should leave and let them figure out how the country will be run. Who is President Bush to tell them who should be in power. Its a shame that the president cant see the current state of the war for what it is and get our troops home and out of harms way.

Only person who doesn't see this for what it is, a civil war, is Bush. He has our troops in harms way to try to save his sorry a**. Impeach Bush

Civil War? Which Iraqi sectarian group launched the first strike on Bagdad? Let's call it what it is...an American 'revenge strike' that's outlasted the American appetite for war. What we've done is unprecedented so we need a new word to describe the disaster we now want out of. What will our children call it as they struggle to pay for and fix it? Apocalyptic madness?

Selling news is accomplished through sensationalism, hence the NBC proclamation. Many returning military personnel complain that this one-sided, "the sky is falling" rhetoric is often inaccurate and uninformed. The "good" that has been accomplished in Iraq is ignored and goes unreported giving way to the carnage and destruction that is force-fed to the public. So, instead of taking the reported news at face value, treat it as propaganda. Don't get so worked up about it and know that all of the media reporting organizations are owned and controlled by a handful of folks who enjoy imposing their own views on the masses.

If you want to use standard definitions, what is going on in Iraq is closer to a "Civil War" than the use of our military to fight Terrorists is a "War." Wars are fights between countries, not fights between a country and a bunch of stateless criminals.

I think everyone is missing the point...Things in Iraq have ALWAYS been this bad. The only difference is now major new organizations are inside this country reporting it. Has everyone forgotten the silent and continous civil war Saddam Hussein has been waging against the Kurds and Shiites? What about the oppression and disappearance of over a million Iraqis? Three to four million Iraqis fled the country under Saddam's rule. Does that not mean something? The Bush haters here act like Bush made Iraq worse, when in fact he just exposed how bad things really were there. The violence we are seeing has always been there the news medias have not.

This wouldn't have been such a big deal if the administration had not drawn such a hard linguistic line in describing elements of the conflict.

It was the White House that chose to make the term political. (Much like the battle over the descriptive term for indigineous Sunnis fighting against Americans guerillas, insurgents, ex batthists, deadenders, etc.)

It was a deliberate effort to exclude certain words and terms with the worst associations to try to shape the perception of the conflict.

I'm far more troubled that we've been led to a linguistic politics where a news organization feels they must issue a preemptive defense for their use of a term.

It's a very subtle self limitation on expression backed up by a political threat of criticism by people like those above who claimn that NBC wants the US to lose the war.

By the way, what kind of garbage is that? Has your mind been so warped in the factional wars that you seriously believe that the people at NBC want the US to fail?

I see this whole "controversy" as a reflection on politics in the US. It matters very little in the reality.

Mike

This is not a civil war, to deem it so is absurd. This is just another media attempt to smear what we have done i Iraq. It is sectarian violence aimed at one thing - murdering your neighbor. And by the way, can anybody explain to me the midset that does NOT see winning as an option, only failure? Geeze.

Always these conversations degenerate to semantics. "Unorganized Chaos" as if Chaos can be anything else by nature. "Sectarian Violence" and "Civil War" as if changing what you call it changes whether or not we should be there.

We have been involved in Civil Wars in the past. Our own with Britain, our own with the North and South. Vietnam, Mogadishu, Bosnia. Just because it's suddenly a "civil war" (which I don't necessarily agree with) why does that change anything?

Just because our president is a "bumbling idiot" (which I don't necessarily agree with) why does that change anything?

Regardless of all of that, the situation in Iraq is our making. I was raised to think that if I made a mess, I was supposed to clean it up. You don't drop a can of spaghetti sauce and then just say, "Well you know if we wait long enough the ants and roaches will eat it and it won't be there anymore!"

The simple fact of the matter is that the violence in Iraq is only kept in check as it is from Western forces, and due to a lack of those it is boiling over. A recent report on NPR said that if you look at places where US troop concentration was higher per capita, the violence was lower. The cities that we have pulled out of were instantly infested with insurgents again, the cities we stayed at and kept a presence in were not that way. Since so many of you agree with the Lancet's extrapolation methods, let's do some math.

Cities where more troops are = less violence. So, more troops in the country = less violence in the country. In 1991 we had 600,000 troops just to liberate Kuwait, a country barely big enough to be considered a state here. Now we are trying to secure a nation over 20 times the size with less than 1/3 of the troops. That is where our problems lie.

We need more troops, not less. We need to say this isn't working and be willing to rethink our strategy. Tell Maliki to do his job as a leader of Sunni and Shia, and not just Shia. Send in enough troops so that an insurgent can't pee in the bushes without a soldier watching him from a tank.

http://tlocfym.blogspot.com

Richard, it is not a civil war, unless you are willing to accept that it began thousands of years ago. It is about the time that those people have been killing each other.

Richard: truer words were never spoken!! We need to get out of Iraq and let the chips fall where they may.

-take the great leaders of there time. what do you
think they would to to win in iraq. we must not lose.
we must learn from the wining of this war. our world
power depends on our power to win. a non win will
result in iran becoming a super power. arab countries
pledge support now . but a loss will swing support to
iran. and all those europen countries will ally
(behind our back)with iran. we must win..