Iraq's civil war

Press reports continue to caution that Iraq might be on the brink of civil war which leaves one wondering how they might have reported Sherman's March to the Sea?
-- "Iraq Snapshot," The Common Ills, November 24, 2006

A day after the Thursday violence that had claimed over 200 lives in Baghdad alone, while what was portrayed as retaliation killings and violence rocked the capital, most reporters refrained from stating the obvious: Iraq was and had been in a civil war.

That might seem strange until you realize they usually avoided noting a total figure for Iraqis who had died since the start of the illegal war until Bully Boy himself cited the figure (a vast undercount) from Iraqi Body Count. Suddenly, they could all toss around the low ball.

Because, apparently, it doesn't happen until an "official" says it has.

Today's New York Times contains a piece by Edward Wong where he attempts to address the issue, "Though the Bush administration continues to insist that it is not, a growing number of American and Iraqi scholars, leaders and policy analysts say the fighting in Iraq meets the standard definition of civil war."

Scholars knowledgeable on the issue, scholars who specialize in that field, say it's "civil war." The New York Times? Balance, balance, balance. It's all about the 'balance,' baby. Scholars say this, administration says that. And The New York Times doesn't exist to inform readers what is actually happening. Better to play out like a print version of the children's game Telephone. There are on 'facts' to be determined, just 'choices' to be noted -- for the paper of record, it's The Pepsi Challenge way of covering war.

Solomon Moore (Los Angeles Times) gets right to the point in his report, in the first sentence: "Iraq's civil war worsened Friday as Shiite and Sunni Arabs engaged in retaliatory attacks after coordinated car bombings that killed more than 200 people in a Shiite neighborhood the day before. A main Shiite political faction threatened to quit the government, a move that probably would cause its collapse and plunge the nation deeper into disarray."

The week before last (on November 16th), Ellen Knickmeyer (Washington Post) could report:
"While American commanders have suggested that civil war is possible in Iraq, many leaders, experts and ordinary people in Baghdad and around the Middle East say it is already underway, and that the real worry ahead is that the conflict will destroy the flimsy Iraqi state and draw in surrounding countries."

We like the Sherman's March to the Sea analogy because civil war didn't break out Thursday, it didn't break out last week or this month. It's been ongoing. While it's good that some reporters are starting to report what they see and know, as opposed to playing the on-the-one-hand-on-the-other game, it's also true that the civil war started some time ago.

Why wasn't it reported sooner? Paul Farhi notes the continued decline in Nightline for AJR. Nightline, never as good as the press made it out to be, was a rusted out hooptie even when Ted Koppel held the title and license. For one thing, there was a not-so-slow leak in the front and rear tires on the passenger side, causing it to lean to right. These days, the airs out of all the tires.

Drop back with us to a TV review Ava and C.I. did last August where they noted that the March 20, 2006 broadcast of Nightline addressed the 'newsworthy' issue of the ABC broadcast entertainment show Grey's Anatomy. As Ava and C.I. noted, it was the anniversary of the illegal war, the day before (a Sunday) 45 Iraqis had died, the US troops scandals involving alleged killing of Iraqis (in Haditha and near Balad) and former puppet of the occupation Allawi had told the BBC, "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

But Nightline, the 'news' program, was schilling for ABC entertainment product.

They must be so proud, providing such an informative public service to viewers.

Speaking of ABC, today on their chat & chew (This Week), George Stephanopoulos promises:

Under Siege: The latest bombings in Iraq include the single deadliest assault on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad since the start of the war in 2003, and place Iraq on the verge of all-out civil war. Our headliner this week is King Abdullah II of Jordan. With President Bush scheduled to meet with both King Abdullah and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman next week, King Abdullah joins me to discuss what can be done to stem the growing tide of violence.

As long as he has King Abdullah II on, how about asking what he thinks about the US administration's recent decision to discontinue training Iraq police officers in Jordan? As more US troops head to Iraq to do just that (train police officers), shouldn't the press be raising the issue?

Don't count on it being rasied anytime soon.

But take a moment to be thankful that some are raising the issue of civil war and be really thankful that some are actually reporting that it is a civil war. Those journalists aren't waiting for a government official to give an okay for reality to be reported. Friday evening, on CNN, Michael Ware broke it down, "Well, firstly, let me say, perhaps it's easier to deny that this is a civil war, when essentially you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country within the Green Zone, which is true of both the prime minister, the national security adviser for Iraq and, of course, the top U.S. military commanders. However, for the people living on the streets, for Iraqis in their homes, if this is not civil war, or a form of it, then they do not want to see what one really looks like. This is what we're talking about. We're talking about Sunni neighborhoods shelling Shia neighborhoods, and Shia neighborhoods shelling back. We're having Sunni communities dig fighting positions to protect their streets. We're seeing Sunni extremists plunging car bombs into heavily-populated Shia marketplaces. We're seeing institutionalized Shia death squads in legitimate police and national police commando uniforms going in, systematically, to Sunni homes in the middle of the night and dragging them out, never to be seen again. I mean, if this is not civil war, where there is, on average, 40 to 50 tortured, mutilated, executed bodies showing up on the capital streets each morning, where we have thousands of unaccounted for dead bodies mounting up every month, and where the list of those who have simply disappeared for the sake of the fact that they have the wrong name, a name that is either Sunni or Shia, so much so that we have people getting dual identity cards, where parents cannot send their children to school, because they have to cross a sectarian line, then, goodness, me, I don't want to see what a civil war looks like either if this isn't one."

That pretty much says it all.