politics

When is a Civil War a Civil War?

If it looks like a civil war and smells like a civil war, odds are – it’s a civil war. With yesterday’s bombing of a Shiite shrine in Iraq, many pundits and bloggers are finally waking up and smelling the insurrection.

February 23, 2006

As CJR Daily noted back in May 2005, if it looks like a civil war and smells like a civil war, odds are — it’s a civil war. With the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Iraq yesterday, many pundits and bloggers who have been loathe to fully recognize the nature of the Sunni/Shiite violence in Iraq are finally starting to wake up and smell the insurrection.

The People’s Republic of Seabrook has had enough of the violence, angrily declaring that “The genie is out of the bottle, and the forces of Evil clearly have the upper hand. At this point in time there appears to be nothing that American policy, money, and/or military might is going to be able to do to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. So when do we admit to the reality and stop wasting time, money, and lives in a country that seems immune to all efforts to build a functional, peaceful country?”

While some advocate pullout (even Bill O’Reilly has jumped on that bandwagon), others are calling the violence what it is. Daniel Drezner notes that “It would be a cruel irony if a bombing that didn’t actually kill anyone turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Garfield Ridge, on the other hand, thinks this is just another shot in a war that has been raging for years, writing that “talk of an Iraqi Civil War is foolish semantics — there’s been an Iraqi Civil War going on since day one of the American invasion. Or do the insurgent murders of Iraqi police and soldiers allied with America not qualify as a ‘civil war’?”

Blogs are also continuing to be all over the scaremongering concerning the proposed contract to turn the commercial management of several American ports to an Arab company. Lorelei Kelly of Democracy Arsenal is disgusted with the “hyperventilating” politicians objecting to the turnover. “This is not a wise nor a measured response,” she writes. “In contrast, it is lazy and opportunistic and does nothing to address the overriding challenge of achieving port security. Instead of educating the public about needed policy reforms, such posturing scares Americans and brings out the worse kind of isolationism.” Rather, “We need a comprehensive strategy to be implemented. Port Security will not be in effect until we have one. That’s a far better occasion for bipartisan consensus than this frenzy to rally Americans’ greatest fears for political gain.”

Gregory Djerejian has an excellent post about Jane Mayer’s equally excellent piece about the torture of prisoners in American military custody. Djerejian, a Republican who is fed up with the Bush administration’s “purposefully, methodically dishonest” way of handling the torture issue, lets fly:

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With an often meek opposition party (the Democrats have few, if any, standard-bearers who have really grappled with the torture issue seriously, and this includes Al Gore’s sour grapes and poor venue selection for hyperbolic showmanship), people like me increasingly have no party to turn to. … And, yet, we have certain elements in this Administration that have dishonored the nation, and continue to be in a position to do so, on issues like detainee policy, handing an unnecessary propaganda victory and recruiting tool to our enemy.

The post is much more than standard-issue Bush-bashing, however. It’s worth a read.

After reading Mayer’s article, Jeff Huber, former U.S. Navy officer, writes that “As we have seen in the recent controversy surrounding the NSA domestic surveillance program, the administration continues to claim absolute authority for Mr. Bush to conduct the so-called Global War on Terror in any manner he sees fit, citing executive constitutional powers that appear nowhere in the Constitution and permissions granted by Congress that aren’t actually delineated in the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.”

Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.