I totally agree that it's not a civil war. Democrats and the MSM use that term because most Americans, not unreasonably, believe there is no point in America involving itself in a civil war.

It is for this reason that both entities ignore the pivotal role al Qaeda is playing in the conflict.

If it were a civil war more people would be taking sides. Most Iraqis are just trying to avoid getting killed.

I remember reading from MNF-I that around 70% of the violence is crime and economic related. Not surprising given that a lot of these insurgent groups, like JAM, are confederations of criminal gangs. I totally agree the "civil war" label obscures the real dynamics and points us to wrong strategies

btw, AQI actually does have a "shadow government" in the Islamic State of Iraq with its own leaders and Court system. It's non-functional and no international states recognize it.

global security has a reasonable definition
-the contestants must control territory,
-have a functioning government,
-enjoy some foreign recognition,
-have identifiable regular armed forces,
-and engage in major military operations.

It looks like AQI or JAM only qualify for one or two of those - and that's if you count random car bombs as "major military operations". I don't.

I'd hate to have it thought that I endorse the leftist definition of a civil war as a purely private matter that the participants should be left alone to work out. I, too, object to that definition of a "civil war." It's a policy position masquerading as a definition and a steaming pile of horse apples.

The definition I was referring to as the "plain sense" of the words "civil war" is the one found in dictionaries. Webster: "a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country" or American Heritage: "A war between factions or regions of the same country." It is this definition for which I think conservatives do themselves no good through lawyerly wrangling. If the term "civil war" has been larded with crap giving it a distinct odor to the voting public then the public should be reminded exactly what it means. Coming up with a four-point test of a "true civil war" isn't likely to convince anyone outside of conservative circles that we are not looking at some sort of a civil war in Iraq. Heck, I am a conservative and I don't buy it.

There was a time, I'm sure you remember, when the popular definition of "science fiction writer" was rather negative -- something like "a writer of infantile escapist fiction designed for socially maladroit teenagers who lack the patience for more serious literary work." Some writers responded to this by officially (but not actually) abandoning the genre. (I remember one writer who would go to the World Science Fiction Convention every year to say goodbye and announce he had moved on.) Other writers worked hard to attack that definition in the public mind and they seem to have won out.

There are several overlapping wars going on in Iraq right now. You mention an insurgency and a gang war. I'm tempted to take that as supporting my point. In the third world the difference between a "gang war" and a "civil war" depends on which term of art one choses to apply. I would have added "proxy war" to your list as well. It's hard to deny that the Saudis and the Iranians are putting on a bit of puppet theater in Iraq for our edification and amusement.

True, the plain sense meaning of civil war is broader, but that is not true for international law or military strategy. There are multiple types of intrastate warfare with civil war as the highest form, and there are laws and strategies to define and deal with each type.

Calling lesser forms of intrastate war "civil war" confuses the problem and prevents us from coming up with useful ideas. It also dumbs down the standards of civil war. I don't think this is purely semantics cuz a lot of awful policies result from incoherent definitions.

At least we can all agree that Iraq is in an intrastate war.

If I may can I bring up a related note. The next month will be tough. We must keep pur nerve up. We have many hispnic and latrino soliders dying and fighting for this country. They represent the average Latino really. Many come from families that are of mixed legal status.

As stituation has arisen with one of our brave heros that went missing in Iraq on May 12. His wife is now facting Deportation hearings. Here is the story.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20070619-2214-missingsoldier-wife.html

Much more important is to go here and see the tribute page to his family and to to him and read the articles
http://www.eagletribune.com/punews/eaglelocalnews_story_136125347.html

At times, even as a Bush supporter, I wonder what is going on. If I was him I would pardon the woman and make sure she stays. However who knows if that will happen. Regardless of where you stand on the immigration bill we do not need the anti-war crowd using this. Also there is a matter of justice here.

I sent this letter to all the contrubuters at the THE CORNER blog at NRO. Please consider doing something similar as well as to conservative blogs and media outlets.

"Please Consider advocating for this Family

“Wife of Mass. soldier missing in Iraq faces deportation, attorney says
LINK

This is a page that has complied all the articles about him and his family. As you can tell this is a real issue in the community
LINK

I think it would do much for the conservative cause that people realize that even conservatives that oppose the immigration bill realize that Law must be tempered with Justice and Mercy. So if you can fit this in when yall do a another “Pardon Libby” post that would be great.

JH
Louisiana”
Thank you for ytour effort and plaese keep this family and community in your prayers

Didn't the liberals/commies celebrate their intervention in the Spanish civil war? Didn't thousands of them volunteer for the Abraham Lincoln Brigades to fight against the fascists? Times sure change, now the liberals/commies are on the side of the fascists.

BigLeeH:

I was quite careful not to misquote you or even misconstrue what you wrote; if you'll note, I don't even say that you, yourself subscribe to the definition "when Democrats hurl the term," only that you offered that as the definition those Democrats use.

Perhaps I fight a lonely war, but I refuse simply to surrender the actual meaning of words to popular misconception. I will not start using "penultimate" to mean the last item; I won't say "literally" when I mean figuratively or metaphorically; and I won't say "civil war," just because the popular mind equates that with any war fought entirely within the borders of one country.

Words have definitions, but you cannot always get them from dictionaries, because they simply chronicle popular usage. I understand language changes, and I applaud such change -- when it serves to broaden and enrich the language. But I emphatically reject it when it narrows, constricts, or diminishes the language, as is the case with the popular misdefinition of a civil war.

Besides mere entertainment, I see another duty of a writer to be a pedagogue (which may at times entail being pedantic), and I take that one very seriously. I make my case for what I consider the proper use of the term in this post.

Dafydd

lsu:

That link did not work. Did you say they are going to deport the wife of the Mass. soldier who is missing in Iraq? How awful. How can they do that?

Dafydd:

I wasn't accusing you of misquoting me or of misrepresenting my point; I was merely concerned that I hadn't been altogether clear about what I meant when I referred to the plain meaning of the term civil war since the only definition I had offered was one to which we both object.

There remains our disagreement about whether my definition is rather broad or whether your definition is a trifle technical but I am happy to stipulate that according to the definitions in effect in Big Lizards there is no civil war currently in Iraq. I gladly yield on that point so I can move on to my next point which is to observe that should the situation in Iraq change in such a way that, however defined, there was to be a civil war, it would not necessarily follow, as a matter of definition, that we should immediately exit the field.

The defeatist liberals have failed -- for now -- to set a date certain for US troop withdrawal -- to tell the insurgents, in effect, that all they need to do is wait us out for a few months. I am also unwilling to agree to the liberal notion that the bad guys automatically win if they succeed in starting a civil war. There are things we can and will do in a civil war to advance our interests and frustrate our opponents. It is more important for our citizens, our allies and our opponent to understand that fact than to quibble about where the dividing line falls between sectarian thuggery and civil war.

BigLeeH:

Well, I certainly agree with that point!

Dafydd

It is not a civil war. It is a battle in a proxy war between the US and Iran.

It is a battle in a proxy war between the US and Iran's strategic, behind the scenes partners -- Russia and China.

It is interesting to me that the old Non-Aligned Movement has China looking to poke and prod America by throwing rocks and hiding its hand while India (because of the craziness in Pakistan) is neutral at worst and oftentimes rolling with America.

My point, however, is that Iran is a bit player. Just as the Non-Aligned Movement back in the day ganged up on America in concert with the Russians, it is much the same these days. We have our proxies and they have their proxies.

Hopefully, America continues to prevail.

This argument drives me NUTS. As does any argument where the arguers don't define their terms first (like trying to force me to condemn torture without defining torture first).

Our army's definition of a civil war includes those four points and then some. By our military definition, then...no. It's not a civil war.

If anyone wants to define civil war some other way, fine. But put the definition on the table up front, before I'm asked to somment.

And then maybe somebody can reveal when we decided outsiders never, ever get involved in civil wars. Wasn't Kosovo a civil war by some malleable definition?

S Weasel:

Thanks for popping in. And thanks for the remarkably concise (if slightly cranky) recap of this thread so far.

This argument drives me NUTS. As does any argument where the arguers don't define their terms first (like trying to force me to condemn torture without defining torture first).

Defining the term civil war is the sole purpose of this whole thread.

Our army's definition of a civil war includes those four points and then some. By our military definition, then...no. It's not a civil war.

I'm pretty sure we covered that, too.

If anyone wants to define civil war some other way, fine. But put the definition on the table up front, before I'm asked to somment.

Hmmmm. I think that would be me. I suggested a different, broader definition but allowed myself to be outvoted for purposes of this discussion (Dafydd's vote weighs heavily here. It's his blog.)

And then maybe somebody can reveal when we decided outsiders never, ever get involved in civil wars. Wasn't Kosovo a civil war by some malleable definition?

When it is necessary to be involved in what some consider to be a foreign civil war there are two approaches: One can use a narrow definition of civil war to show that it doesn't apply; or one can question the prohibition on deploying forces into foreign civil wars. Dafydd tends to stress the former approach and I tend to prefer the latter but we both agree that one can and should do both.

BigLeeH:

When it is necessary to be involved in what some consider to be a foreign civil war there are two approaches: One can use a narrow definition of civil war to show that it doesn't apply; or one can question the prohibition on deploying forces into foreign civil wars. Dafydd tends to stress the former approach and I tend to prefer the latter but we both agree that one can and should do both.

An amplification: I believe that the question of whether a war is a civil war and whether it's a war we should enter are entirely orthogonal:

Some wars are civil wars, others aren't; we should intervene in some wars and not in others; and the one does not affect the other. It's a two-axis graph, and the "civil-warness" does not affect the "interventionability".

Dafydd

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