Katie Couric's Notebook: Civil War?

By: Katie Couric
Topics: Katie's Notebook

Video:
Notebook: Living In A War Zone

Hi, everyone.

Just what makes a civil war?

That's one of the big questions being asked this week. President Bush has said the sectarian fighting in Iraq does not amount to civil war ... But others aren't so sure.

Scholars say that civil war requires two criteria: first, the warring groups must be from the same country...fighting for control...and second, at least a thousand people must have died, at least 100 from each side.

But that's what scholars say. Politicians and military leaders see it differently. They are reluctant to use the "civil war" label, because it implies a country near chaos, or a policy near failure.

Yet Nicholas Sambanis, a political scientist from Yale, says there have been at least 100 civil wars since 1945. Iraq, he says, is one of them. And, he adds, it's one of the worst.

But in Iraq, the violence continues. The Iraqis are suffering. They don't care much about semantics -- or what term we use.

They're living it.

That's a page from my notebook.

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by December 2, 2006 12:04 PM EST: Civil War, with an occupying army. Now that is a new twist on the idea of a civil war.(besides since words matter so much, when has war ever been "Civil"?)
We created this. We started this. We made the decisions that strategically allowed this to happen. Our men and woman have paid for it in blood.
Are the Iraqis fighting?
Yes sure they are, but is that what everyone really is worried about. Nope I don't think so.
It's like a friend of mine used to say
"Hey look over there a terradactyl!" Then he would steal my chips. That's exactly what war planners are doing.
They are very worried, or should be, not about what is going on today.(they already scoped that.) No they are worried about IRAN.
Not a nuclear IRAN.
No an IRAN that has a very long memory, about what we once tried to do there.
And now it knows it can make things difficult.
Iran understands how to play the politics of blood in the middle east, perhaps better than anyone else.
That IRAN has our war planners very nervous, because they don't have to do much, they just have to do what they are doing, and everyone pays attention to the terradactyl of civil war instead of the real threat, until it's too late and our chips are gone.; Reply to this comment


by thy1138 December 1, 2006 7:38 PM EST: I find it somewhat ironic, as next year is the "200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the British and U.S. Slave Trade 1807-2007" that Madame Secretary is so opposed to describing what may actually be in fact. On the other hand there are many reasons we fail to acknowledge of out own, e.g., the former Cabinet Secretary of War became the Confederate President, the people who fired on Fort Sumter were a student and teacher at West Point noted in argument while there, where some cadets have died in gunnery exercise. I worked at the Point on hurricane damage archaeology there on "anthrax day" and on the archaeology of the "Swamp Angel" prototype, found across the river in the West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, NY while designed EPA cleanup of spilled heavy metals for NIKE missile's batteries was drawn-up a number of years before. Another Hudson River founder designed the powder mill 30 miles outside Atlanta, Georgia, which General Sherman "missed" some historians think the war may have been shortened by as much as two years and Sherman's war on property avoided, etc.

Tim Russett asked Secretary Rice three times if she was running for President and she said no, I hope that hasn't changed.; Reply to this comment


by aquilito-2009 December 1, 2006 11:38 AM EST: I LOVE COURIC, I JUST LOVE HER SINCE THE TODAY SHOW. I AM 17 AND WOKE UP WITH HER EVERY DAY, NOW I EAT DINNER WITH HER. EVEN THOUGH THE NEWSCAST IS KIND OF SLOW, IT IS GOOD. NOW THE FIRST DAYS OF THIS SEASON WITH HER ON THE NEWSCAST I REMEMBER THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE REPORTED BACK OR JUST COMMENTED ON THE BLOG, BACK IN THAT TIME THOSE NUMBERED 20, 25 COMMENTS ON DIFFERENT STORIES. TODAY ONLY 3 PEOPLE OR FEWER COMMENT ON THE STORIES. WHAT IS GOING ON? WHY IS COURIC LOSING THE SUPPORT OF THE PUBLIC? THAT MAKES ME SAD.; Reply to this comment


by nzrqv7 December 1, 2006 4:19 AM EST: I listened to Katie's 1 on 1 with Secretary Rice and also listened to Katie's Notebook about Civil War. It is a curiosity that Katie and most of the media are so focused on putting the "Civil War" label on the situation in Iraq. I think Secretrary Rice is correct that the Civil War label is not helpful especially if the Iraqis themselves do not use that label. The American Heritage Dictionary defines civil war to be %u201CA war between factions or regions of the same country.%u201D I would agree that there are groups from different factions fighting one another, but it is not a wholesale war as we%u2019ve seen in Africa or in the Balkans, or even in our own country.

And to cite Mr. Sambanis claim that civil war is occurring in Iraq and that it%u2019s one of the worst is reckless and shameful. No explanation is given as to why he says this is the worst. The reader is just left with a very negative sound bite. Even if Iraq were in a civil war, to say it%u2019s one of the worst when compared to the war in the Balkans or in Africa if ridiculous. In terms of violence and death, those were much more horrific!

Ms. Couric closes her notebook by saying the Iraqis don%u2019t care what we call the conflict%u2026in this one point she is correct. If they don%u2019t care, then why should we, and why does Katie?; Reply to this comment


by frb01 December 1, 2006 12:54 AM EST: I don't want to pick on a point Katie but if we are at the point of civil war there the Iraqi people have lived it and are living it but there are also a bunch of dead Americans as well as our allies who have fought it and a bunch more who are over there now and fighting it. We have a piece in any civil war unfortunately.; Reply to this comment


by one_american November 30, 2006 10:01 PM EST: From NewsBusters.org:

"The "police captain" that the Associated Press used as the source for their story about six Sunni men dragged from prayers and burned alive by Shiite militants is not a policeman and does not work for the Iraqi government in any capacity, according to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.
CENTCOM had warned the AP about Hussein and other questionable sources they were using, but was rebuffed by the wire service organization. The AP's sensational story of the burning Sunnis was cited by NBC as a reason they decided to start calling violence in Iraq a "civil war." The source, "police captain Jamil Hussein," has been quoted in wire service stories since April of this year."

But let's not quibble about the term "Civil War" Katie...

Just don't use it. It's propaganda.

And if you REALLY cared about the lives of Iraqis, you would have spent less time showing terrorist propaganda.

Sleep tight.; Reply to this comment