Does it matter if you call it a civil war?

[julialnyc]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0822/p01s02-woiq.html

Does it matter if you call it a civil war?

Iraq's constitution could be seen as a draft 'peace pact' for warring parties.

By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD - Finding a way to head off civil war is at the heart of all the major initiatives - including the talks over a new constitution - in Iraq. But by most common political-science definitions of the term, "civil war" is already here. "It's not a threat. It's not a potential. Civil war is a fact of life there now,'' says Pavel Baev, head of the Center for the Study of Civil War at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. He argues that until the nature of the conflict is accurately seen, good solutions cannot be found. "What's happening in Iraq is a multidimensional conflict. There's international terrorism, banditry, the major foreign military presence. But the civil war is the central part of it - the violent contestation for power inside the country."

What this means in practical terms, is that an immediate US withdrawal isn't likely to bring peace to Iraq, say analysts. Nor is simply "staying the course," if it isn't matched by a political peace treaty among the warring parties - a role that a new constitution, facing a midnight tonight deadline, could fill.

The academic thumbnail definition of a civil war is a conflict with at least 1,000 battlefield casualties, involving a national government and one or more nonstate actors fighting for power.

While the US has lost 1,862 soldiers, getting an accurate casualty count beyond that is difficult. The Iraqi government and US military say they don't keep figures on Iraqi troops or civilians killed. According to www.iraqbodycount.net, a website run by academics and peace activists, 24,865 Iraqi civilians were killed between March 2003 and March 2005. The report said that US-led forces killed 37 percent of the total.

The spreadsheets in Dr. Faad Ameen Bakr's computer shed some light on the casualty rate. Baghdad's chief pathologist pulls down the death toll for Iraq's capital in July: 1,083 murders, a new record.

<SNIP>

[gratuitous]

1. Yes, yes it does

And if you plug your ears, close your eyes real tight and chant "La, la, la, la, I can't he-e-e-e-e-ear you" over and over, then nothing bad is happening in Iraq, we're about to turn the corner, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, the insurgency is in its last throes, and there is real, measurable progress being made every day in Iraq.

And these self-described cold-eyed realists have the nerve to call pacifists naive and divorced from reality.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Thanks for posting this