Denial: It's not just a strategy... it's a policy.

In the interest of cutting the crap, lets just get one thing out of the way.

 There's been a sort of running feud lately between the Bush Administration's private publicists (also known as the Fox News Network), and a majority of the people in the world who watch the news and who regularly exercise brain activity. The debate centers on whether or not the civil war that's ocurring in Iraq should, in fact, be referred to as a civil war. Now, if anyone out there is still undecided, or, for some strange reason, is still inclined to just take the President's word for it; allow me to help you along. I would suggest picking up a newspaper or simply tuning in to any 24 hour cable news network for an hour or so, take note of the reporting on the situation in Iraq, and just commit that information to your short-term memory bank for a moment..... Got it?..... Good.

Now read this: Link to definition of "civil war."

In case you missed the significant similarities between the content of that definition and what is happening in Iraq right now, I'll highlight a couple of points.

• "A civil war is a war in which parties of the same culture, society, or nationality fight for political power or control of an area."  In other words; exactly what is happening in Iraq.
• "Political scientists use two criteria: The warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a seperatist state, or to force a major change of policy".  It's uncanny, isn't it?
• "The second criterion is at least 1000 people must have been killed in total, with at least a total of 100 from each side." The "sectarian violence" in Iraq surpasses those numbers every month.

Seems to me like Wikipedia could have been referring specifically to Iraq when they wrote that definition!

For the sake of fairness, I sought an alternative source for a second opinion, as to how one might define a "civil war".

Webster's New World Dictionary- civil war: war between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation.

Well, not exactly the most descriptive, but certainly an accurate depiction of what's going on in Iraq. The opposing religious sects could absolutely be referred to as "political factions" in this case. After all, we're dealing with a part of the world where most people make no distinction between politics and religion. Polls taken after the highly touted "democratic elections"  showed that Iraqi's voted overwhelmingly along sectarian lines. What's more; despite the best efforts of the Bush Administration, the Iraqi people elected a decidedly uncooperative, anti-American, Shiite death squad-friendly government. Perhaps reflective of the fact that now nearly two-thirds of Iraqi civilians claim to be supportive of attacks on U.S. troops. For an article on U.S. behind the scenes involvement in the 2005 Iraq elections, click here.

So, I guess the big question now is: "Why is the White House and Fox News still denying that it is, indeed, a civil war?" Well, my best guess would be that by conceding that; they would then have to reconcile that fact with their unwillingness to get our troops out and just leave the Iraqi's to it. Of course, they are keenly aware of the public's disdain for the war, and the Administrations shoddy execution of it. To publicly admit to the grim prognosis would be to invite a firestorm of national outcry that would jeopardize the Bush/Cheney doctrine of "stay the course no matter what", as well as to admit to near total failure of the policy thus far.

Besides, it's against Bush Administration domestic policy to deal in honest, non-politicized dialogue. Baseless rhetoric and meaningless slogans are the official protocol. We should be used to it by now.