Katie Couric's Notebook: Civil War?
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.
Video: 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.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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.
Tim Russett asked Secretary Rice three times if she was running for President and she said no, I hope that hasn't changed.
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?
"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.