Three, Two, One… CIVIL WAR!
I have been struggling for months to understand what the big deal is about calling the current situation in Iraq a civil war.
The administration has worked very hard every day to convince us that at worst, the incredible daily carnage, mass-relocations, and execution-style killings, are simply the result of increased “sectarian violence.”
Congressional hearings, press conferences, weekly broadcasts, have all skirted around the CW words since late last year.
I know about as much as the average informed American, which means I don’t know a whole heckuva lot, but still, I have to wonder, what’s the deal here?
Even if President Bush is right, and insurgents were responsible for starting this latest violent evolution, will calling the Iraqi situation a civil war change our strategy?
If we admit the country is breaking up into two or three armed camps, each intending to hold sway through whatever means necessary, will we start doing anything differently?
Do we defend ourselves from a tornado any differently than from a cyclone?
If we’re in a hurricane and are hit by a storm surge, are we any less inundated with water than if we’d called it a tidal wave?
I mean, what’s the difference? It seems like a great deal of effort is being wasted by a whole lot of high-powered, busy people in and out of government, over semantics.
If calling a spade a spade will help us become more effective over there, then why don’t we just do it.
If it would make things even worse, then let’s admit we’ll never admit it… and move on.
One way or another we’ve got to start doing a better job in Iraq.
All I’m saying is, if this issue is getting in the way, let’s clear it up once and for all.
I’d hate to think even more people over there are struggling just to stay alive every day, because people over here are wasting precious time fighting over a couple of words.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
I think the problem is that Bush loves to micro-manage vocabulary, much like Orwell’s Big Brother did in ‘1984′.
November 29th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Considering the breadth of his vocabulary, that would truly be ironic, wouldn’t it?
Ah, 1984.
I remember quite clearly when that was the future. Also when I got my first Mac.
What was Dubya doing then? Oh, yeah, little white lines.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
November 30th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Hi Tim. Enjoyed your visit to my place. You got one of the very first Macs then. They went on sale in january of that year if memory serves. In 1984, I was working in a computer store selling PCs and Amigas, and wondering what Ronnie Raygun would do next. That’s also the year Rumsfeld first provided Saddam with Chemical weapons.
November 30th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Hey TC,
It was among the first available in NY.
Amigas! Flashbacks abound. And Good old Rummy. Hard to believe he’s been snaking around DC for fifty years, now.
Is it too late to take Ike’s warning to heart?
December 1st, 2006 at 9:12 am
I fear it is. Too few remember Ike, let alone his concern about becoming bogged down in a land war in Asia. But then, since ancient Athens leaned the same lesson the hard way in Sicily, I guess the human beast has a long track record of refusing to learn from history.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:29 pm
What it is they say, TC?
If there’s one thing we learn from history, it’s that we never learn anything from history.
Perhaps it has always been so, though I’d love to be part of an enlightenment before I die.