The topic du jour today seems to be the transition that some major news media outlets are making towards using the words “civil war” in describing conditions in Iraq:
WASHINGTON — NBC’s “Today Show” host Matt Lauer yesterday…

For 3 years the Media has planned our surrender. Yet for 10, the diligent work of over 26 Nations continues to protect freedoms across the globe; and help allies share strategies to prevent & root-out terror. (VIDEO!)

I see your point but at this point, I just don’t think it matters. People are dying in droves and the country is torn asunder. Whatever you call it, the situation is bad.

Ahmadinejad’s idea of help though is like asking a murderer to shoot you in the head instead of the heart, either way you are dead, but by giving in to your request, the murderer helped huh? A deal, where only one person is acting in good faith is no…

what’s going on now is a discourse on how to handle the situation. obviously “staying the course”, which bred this situation, and which planted the seed and even allowed said seed to grow, is not the right plan. they’re figuring things out, not saying “i told you so”, as hard as it might be for you to understand.

I agree that whether the turmoil in Iraq is a “civil war” or not is immaterial. However, the use of the term is not. Although we have been militarily involved is civil wars ourselves (had 2 on our own territory as I recall) the media meaning of the term appears to have changed. In today’s newspeak, “civil war” = “unwinnable quagmire”, and the term is used as justification for the “cut and run” policy. That is why I get annoyed at all of the attempts to label the Iraq “conflict” as a “civil war”.

Excellent post as always. I find myself in agreement with everything you have written in this post. I’m with you on comment # 7, however, I figured out long ago that the current group of politicians we have in Government are not going to do everything it takes to turn the situation around.

The bottom line is America got itself into trouble when its rhetoric ddid not match what it was willing to commit. It would be unethical of American leaders to ask Israel or Lebanon’s March 14th forces to pay the price because America miscalculated.

Having a representative democracy in Iraq probably would have had a huge benefit to us. We will never know, if it could have worked. It never got the resources it would have needed to give it a reasonable chance to work and the commitemnt does not appear to be forth coming.

The top priorities at this point need to be containing Iran and Al Qaeda, while keeping a close eye on Russia and China. If we are going to negotiate, we can negotiate with Russia and China to get them to withdraw support from Iran. If we can do that, Iran becomes much easier to contain. After our withdrawl from Shia and Sunni areas of Iraq we will need a strong Israel to help act as a buffer between us and the terrorists. Also, an allied Lebanon could be helpful here too. Attempting to appease Iran and Syria will likely end about as well as appeasing Hitler did prior to WWII ended.