Chicago Tribune
Civil words over a civil war in Iraq
Clarence Page
November 29, 2006
WASHINGTON -- NBC is the first
major TV network to call the war in Iraq a "civil war" instead of an
insurgency. With that, a new front has opened over what words best
describe the war that Americans are most worried about.
A growing number of correspondents in Iraq have been describing the
country as torn apart by "civil war" or at least rapidly spiraling into
it. But the White House has rejected the term and most major broadcast
news media have gone along with that, even if it has meant employing
such hedge words as "approaching civil war" or "near civil war."
NBC's Matt Lauer announced on the "Today" show Monday that his network,
"after careful consideration," had decided that the situation in Iraq,
"with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political
agendas, can now be characterized as civil war."
With that, in
my view, NBC showed a keen grasp of the obvious. A civil war is a fight
between factions or regions within the same culture, society or
nationality for political power or control of an area. Iraq appears to
have fit that description for much of the past two years.
Retired Gen. Barry McCaffery, an NBC military consultant, agrees. He
told Lauer he had been using the expression "civil war" for quite some
time, although with the qualifier "low grade."
Rival networks
CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox News announced no similar change in network
policy that day, although some of their reporters have called the
conflict a civil war. As CNN's Michael Ware said Monday, "If this isn't
a civil war, I don't know what is."
Among newspapers, the Los
Angeles Times was one of the first to call it a civil war, according to
a survey by Editor & Publisher, a leading newspaper trade journal.
The Christian Science Monitor also has referred to it as a "deepening
civil war," the survey found. Most other media put Iraq on the verge of
civil war, but not quite there yet, using terms like "sectarian strife"
(Washington Post), "sectarian conflict," (Reuters) or "sectarian
violence" (Associated Press).
All of which raises the question
of how "deep" the "strife" in a sectarian conflict must be before we
can call it a war. Or, as CNN's Ware implies, if it is not a civil war,
what is it?
President Bush continued to dodge the term Tuesday,
following Iraq's deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the
American occupation began in March 2003. Iraq's sectarian violence is
not from civil war, Bush said, but "fomented in my opinion because of
the attacks by Al Qaeda causing people to seek reprisal." Yet, our
president did not explain why, after centuries of feuds, Iraq's Sunnis,
Shiites and Kurds would need Osama bin Laden to goad them into fighting
each other now.
Words matter. They shape our perceptions and
perceptions shape our politics and, ultimately, government policy. The
Bush administration respects the power of words. It has, at various
times, urged the media to use "homicide bombers" to describe suicide
bombers, the "death tax" to describe the estate tax and "detainees" to
describe prisoners who may be locked up without formal charges. It has
used "Clear Skies initiative" to describe relaxation of air pollution
curbs and "No Child Left Behind" to describe school reforms that leave
some children behind.
Against that record, we should not expect
much candor from this White House about the civil war that quite
plainly appears to have broken out in Iraq on Bush's watch. In the
recent elections, Americans put the Democrats in charge, obviously
discontented with the way the war has been handled. If America's noble
mission to bring democracy to the Middle East appears to be caught
between the factions of another country's civil war, calls for a rapid
departure can only increase.
Yet, reality matters too. The
nature of the insurgency has grown to the point where factions are
seizing control of large chunks of real estate. A mounting civil war
forces Iraqis to take sides or run for whatever cover they can find. It
also reminds all parties of America's inevitable departure. Americans
have no intention of staying longer than necessary. We have even less
intention of getting in the way of disputes that only Iraqis and their
regional neighbors must ultimately work out.