By Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust
Nov. 28, 2006 -- It’s almost like a latter-day Declaration of Independence with a nice,
clear, round period now coming at the end of the sentence. What a month
this November has been! First, the Good Guys trounced the republi-CONS
in an avalanche of votes too large for the GOP and its Diebold demons
to steal. The Democrats have taken back both Houses of Congress. And
now, FINALLY, we’re also starting to take back the language of the
debate. The line was crossed by NBC and its sister network MSNBC, with
the executive edict causing a seismic stir throughout the newsroom:
Iraq is INDEED in the throes of civil war, and that’s what we’re going
to call it.
Why was this so unmentionable for so long? Well, maybe I shouldn’t ask that with a straight face. I think most of us know the answer.
I’m no expert in military affairs or the waging of war. I’ve never been a soldier, I’ve neither ever seen combat nor worn my country’s uniform in peacetime. The closest I’ve come is whenever I look at an old photo of my dad during World War II, dressed up in his Air Force duds. My husband’s disability spared him from Vietnam. My kids already know the answer to “What did you do during the war, Mommy?” I served proudly under a series of protest signs -– as did they, several times, at my side. All I know is what I read in the newspapers and more extensively, online. And with what little civilian understanding I bring to the table, it sure as hell looks like civil war to me. Has for a long time.
This has been, quite literally, a war of words. And unlike with Iraq itself, in which we’re repeatedly told we’re winning, that freedom is on the march, the enemy’s in its “last throes,” that nobody’s hearing all the “good stuff” we’re doing over there, and that mission’s been accomplished, it’s now official at least to some in the media. We’ve turned the corner on the conflict here at home alright, and we’re finally winning the war of words. Truth will out, and it’s finally happening here. It’s a kind of liberation that fans of George –- Orwell, that is, NOT Bush –- can rightfully celebrate. How things are labeled and referred to, how they’re constantly spun for public consumption, dictates how they’re perceived, and the GOP has known this for almost three decades.
It goes beyond the embarrassment of “freedom fries” to more systemic verbal gaffes and gamesmanship. That’s why dissent has morphed into treason, why extreme social stingey-ness is more commonly known as tax relief, and Bible-based “creation science” has insinuated itself into the study of evolution. A “Clear Skies Initiative” legally guts clean air standards; our troops -– living, breathing (well, at least, for the time being), and valuable as individual human beings -- are mere “fungible assets,” and now, of course, hunger is “food insecurity.” And torture is whatever the White House says it is, depending on the mood du jour. Antics with semantics is what allowed the republi-CONS to convince the gullible and trusting that they were for smaller government, with the adults back in charge, while they’ve been exploding the size and costs of everything in Washington like a swarm of unruly children with unlimited access to Daddy’s liquor cabinet and the keys to his car. Those of us with our pathetic little “reality-based” world were merely to be sneered at, vilified, marginalized, and trampled over.
But reality evidently has a lot more stamina, and has a lot more muscle, than even the best of the forked-tongue gang could withstand. I’m sure Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, and everyone else at the Pox “news” channel will fight tooth and nail to avoid the term “civil war” whenever Iraq comes up for discussion. But the glaciers have started melting. Reality can’t be frozen out forever. The facts really do, at long last, speak for themselves.
Civil war? You tell me:
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
civil war
a war between political factions or regions within the same country.
Compare AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, ENGLISH CIVIL WAR, SPANISH CIVIL WAR.
***
American Heritage Dictionary
civil war
n. 1. A war between factions or regions of the same country.
2. A state of hostility or conflict between elements within an organization: “The broadcaster is in the midst of a civil war that has brought it to the brink of a complete management overhaul” (Bill Powell).
3. Civil War The war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. Also called War Between the States.
4. Civil War The war in England between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists from 1642 to 1648.
***
WordNet
civil war
n : a war between factions in the same country
***
Now, too, the New York Times’ executive editor, Bill Keller, tells Editor & Publisher, "It's hard to argue that this war does not fit the generally accepted definition of civil war.” For Bush mouthpiece Tony Snow, on the other hand, no dictionary need apply. Evidently it’s the recognizable uniforms, or lack thereof, that determine whether the current catastrophe qualifies for formal civil war status. Clothes make more than the man here, I guess.
Dubya, of course, has his own way of looking at it, having clearly left his Websters’ back home. No civil war here, he says. Not even a “new era”:
Bush, who travels to Jordan later in the week for a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the latest surge of violence in Iraq does not represent a new era. "We've been in this phase for a while," he said. Iraq is reeling from the deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began in March 2003. Bush, dating the current spike in violence to a February bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra that triggered reprisal attacks between Shiites and Sunnis and raised fears of civil war, said he will ask al-Maliki to explain his plan for quelling the violence .
"When you see a young democracy beginning to emerge in the Middle East, the extremists try to defeat its emergence," Bush said. "Extremists attack because they can't stand the thought of a democracy. And the same thing is happening in Iraq."
Funny enough, though, Bush’s own National Security Advisor seems to have left both his dictionary AND his boss back home. Try this on for size: it may very well indeed be, if not a “new era,” at least a “new phase”:
TALLINN, Estonia -- President Bush intensified diplomatic efforts Monday to quell rising violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, turning to allies as his national security adviser said the conflict in Iraq had entered "a new phase" requiring changes.
"Obviously everyone would agree things are not proceeding well enough or fast enough," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush flew eastward. -Rhinland Daily News, Nov. 27
The meek still seem to inherit the airwaves, at least for the moment. While the New York Times tentatively utters the unutterable, other networks remain hesitant. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer only dares to proceed on tiptoe, using “civil war” with a question mark at the end of it.
Meanwhile, his colleague in Iraq, Michael Ware, has observed: “If this isn’t a civil war we’re in, I’d sure as hell hate to see what one looks like -– this is as bad as it gets.” Ware adds that anyone who thinks otherwise “is suffering from the luxury of distance.” Perhaps he was referring to the distance those in the White House experience when they have their heads buried too far down in the sand. Ware’s fellow reporter, John Roberts, just back from a month in Iraq, concurs that the situation on the ground is an "absolute mess," worse than the media has shown. "The amount of death that's on the streets of Baghdad for U.S. forces and for the Iraqi people is at an astronomical level."
It’s beyond high time to call this monstrosity what it is. It is at the very LEAST a civil war. It’s a lot worse than that, but the term suffices for polite company. There are far more vile names for it, including “sins,” “lies,” and “international war crimes.” But to face the truth to the extent that we’re finally daring to speak the unspoken is a huge turning point in this war, all by itself. It’s just a damned shame that so far, it’s the best we can do -– that we’re left measuring “progress” in Iraq as pitifully as this.
Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!!
And then go DO something about it.
***
Mary Lyon spent the first 25 years of her adult
life as a broadcast journalist, at Los Angeles radio stations
KRTH-FM,KFWB-AM, KHJ-AM and KLOS-FM, the NBC, ABC, RKO Radio
Networks,and KTLA-TV. She retired from day-to-day broadcasting in
1996, after covering Hollywood for nine years in radio, TV, and print,
for the Associated Press. She wrote and illustrated "The Frazzled
Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood," and is presently at
work on a new craft book for kids and friends. A lifelong Democrat who
began her political involvement in the Student Coalition for
Humphrey-Muskie, and Tom Bradley's first L.A. Mayoral campaign, Mary
currently is a weekly columnist for www.democrats.us -- from the Left.
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