Semantics as Warheads: Iraq's Civil War, and Ours

[This is the second part of a two-part piece. The first part is available here.]

Is it, then, or is it not a civil war in Iraq? Merely to ask the question, post-Samarra mosque shock, suggests that those who ask it can probably trace their ancestral gray matter to the dim side of that vapor-filled moon around Saturn that Cassini just centerfolded. The question has no relevance in Iraq , where it answers itself day in and day out. That’s not keeping the parachuting propagandists from finding vehicles for their one-hand clapping: they’ll drive about in the US military’s armored convoys for a few miles then report back, with glee, that they were welcomed, applauded, cheered and, who knows, propositioned a few times. If Oliver North, that paragon of truth-telling and loyalty to all things lawful, could do it in the early days of the war, why not another lieutenant colonel cut of the same tripe-adoring cloth? Read the rest...