Official: Civil War in Iraq!

[Ninot]

Oliver: Semantic quibbling? Oh, well, I wouldn't call it that.

That was the best part of the whole bit.

[Elok]

Colin Powell also says it's a civil war, and Kofi Annan says it's very close, according to CNN.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
If these are all one nation, then it is a civil war. If they are not, then it is some other kind of war, but it is war, and it is getting worse.

What the...?

[Imran Siddiqui]

As the Daily Show put it, the terminology of 'civil war' has now been "Lauer approved"... and that's good enough for me, even if it isn't for Tom Cruise .

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Dis
I think some people want there to be a civil war just so they can say they told us so. Nevermind the deaths and all that.

Told you so.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79538

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Cyclotron
So, your support for a "civil war for the last 2000 years" is to cite me seven campaigns that all happened between 660 and 750 AD? What a joke. Yes, that's 2000 years of civil war, right there!

I wasn't defending Spec's asinine comment, just its underlying logic that the violence we see today is merely another manifestation of ancient cleavages.

It could easily be argued that the lack of open civil war in Mesopotamia was because regimes from the Abbassids to the Turks to Saddam were both powerful and ruthless enough to deter it, not because the latent will for civil war had actually abated.

[Dr Strangelove]

One problem is that there are so many different factions engaged in guerrilla warfare. It's almost as if during the American Civil War the Confederate States had never come together to form a combined army and even in the North the state's militias engaged in their own campaigns. If this conflict was being fought conventionally this state of affairs would not last long, but the nature of this type of guerrilla warfare allows factions to wreak huge amounts of damage with minimum cost or risk. Maybe it's more like North Ireland back in the day, but with a dozen additional factions.

[SlowwHand]

Let's go with that. Northern Ireland.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Its only a Civil war if the central goverment wins and prevents the breakup of the country (like in the American Civil War), on the other hand as seem more likley now they lose and the country Breaks-up its the Sunni/Kurdish/****e Revolution or War-of-Independence.

[Q Classic]

As John Oliver mentioned, it's only a Civil War if Ken Burns narrates while the camera pans over painted images and daguerreotypes of horrifying scenes.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Can't resist posting this.

Tom Toles.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


I have reliable reports from British intelligence that he has recently been inquiring in certain African countries about acquiring a more dangerous type of hate that could be easily weaponized.

Look, I keep telling you - it wasn't me in Niger!

Yellow cake? Sounds tasty!

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Let's go with that. Northern Ireland.

Hey Sloww, are we talking about the variously called 'low intensity conflict'/'civil war'...?

The one that in 30 years, killed 3,720 people?

In October it took the Iraqis one month to reach that total!!!

Kinda makes Northern Ireland look like a pissing contest between two blind, arthritic weevils in comparison...

Maybe with that perspective people like you will finally realise just how totally ****ed up Iraq is?

[Tattila the Hun]

Why do they call it civil war? As wars go, these clashes between citizen of the same nation tend to be the least civil...

[Elok]

I assume it comes from the same root as the word "civic." Civil wars being a conflict over which government a nation's citizens should be loyal to...dammit, now I've got Guns n' Roses stuck in my head.