My antenna went up when Matt Lauer opened this morning's "Today" with these words: "Good morning. Civil war. A bloody weekend of sectarian clashes in iraq and no sign it's letting up."Posted on 11/27/2006 5:28:39 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
My antenna went up when Matt Lauer opened this morning's "Today" with these words: "Good morning. Civil war. A bloody weekend of sectarian clashes in iraq and no sign it's letting up."
Civil war? I was certain I hadn't heard Today employ the term before. And sure enough, Lauer shortly thereafter declared: "For months the White House rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. For the most part news organizations like NBC hesitated to characterize it as such. After careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted and what is going on in Iraq can now be characteritized as civil war."
Lauer later brought in retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey to make the case for the change in terminology.
Lauer: "Is the situation in Iraq a civil war or is it something else? Retired general Barry McCaffrey is a military analyst for NBC News. . . We should mention we didn't just wake up on a Monday morning and say l'et's call this a civil war.' This took careful deliberation. We consulted with a lot of people. You were one one of the people we talked to. Why did you weigh in on the side of calling this a civil war?"
McCaffrey: "I have been calling it a civil war, a low-grade conflict, for 18 months. Now it's on the verge of spinning out of control. We clearly, without question have massive levels of violence. Thousands are being killed each month. And it's a struggle without question between two factions -- in this case Shia and Kurds [sic, Sunni?] -- who have separate political agendas. It's a fight for power and therefore survival in the world the Iraqis expect to encounter after we withdraw which they now expect to happen in the next year or so."
Lauer: "I am going into the definition of civil war here. 'Must be at least two clearly-defined and unified groups,' and we talk about the Sunnis and the Shia. We have 'groups using violence as a means to gain political supremacy' and we've got not only a government in place that is unable to protect the Sunnis and Shia from each other but innocent civilians civilians as well. Any of that bother you in terms of the criteria?
McCaffrey: "No, not at all."
And later, Lauer: "The White House objects to the terminology that NBC News is now using, and here is part of the statement that they've released: 'While the situation on the ground is very serious, neither Prime Minister Maliki nor we believe that Iraq is in a civil war.' It goes on to say that 'the violence is largely centered around Baghdad, and Baghdad security and the increased training of Iraqi security forces is at the top of the agenda when President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki meet later this week in Jordan.'"
"What about that idea, General, that the violence is primarily centered in Baghdad, that the country hasn't erupted into all-out civil war?
McCaffrey: I think a lot of that is nonsense. Baghdad is 25 percent of the population of the country. It's the central battlefield."
Video of McCaffrey's "nonsense" comment here.
The MSM has experienced embarrassing episodes of premature declaration before, notably in Florida 2000. Is the case stronger here? Is this quibbling over terminology, or is there something larger at stake?
Note also Lauer's statement that NBC News consulted with "a lot of people," and that McCaffrey chose to "weigh in on the side of calling this a civil war." That seems to suggest that there was another "side" among people NBC consulted who took the opposing view. But Today never told us who they were or what they had to say.
Finkelstein recently returned from Iraq. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
Today-declares-civil-war ping.
Civil war, sectarian violence. Whatever.
Civil war or interfaith war?
General McCaffrey, "Was the decades-long violence in Northern Ireland a civil war?
let'er rip, civil the population down to what they can control
on a side note though, why don't they ever mention that the problem areas are few, and success is going on in the majority of Providences
"For the most part news organizations like NBC hesitated to characterize it as such."
So the last 1,000 days of "Chaos nearing Civil War in Iraq", or, "Is it a Civil War yet?" repeated hundreds of times daily by the talking heads was?
Sounds like a self-fullfilling prophesy to me...
there needs to be some lower limit to size.
the Mahdi army has what? 5000 guys?
is that a civil war?
The MSM is ginning up the position that Iraq is an unwinnable civil war and that the US should bug out ASAP so as to give the Dems an easy excuse to cut and run. Since the election the MSM has become even more of a one sided propaganda machine for the liberals.
The current Iraqi government was elected democratically a little over 6 months ago. It is a unitary government composed of reps from all sides. It is still holding together. Let's talk about civil war when it falls apart.
There they go again .....
RETIRED GENERAL WAYNE DOWNING, (an MSNBC/NBC military analyst), I can't ttell you how much my husband respects this man. it's total, and from personal experience.
Downing calls it "a situation out of control", a government that is not working, a corrupt police force, "it is what it is". "for my money, Iraq does meet the criteria for what is a civil war. He also calls it "politically charged" . Downing says it's Iraq's problem to solve, it's not our problem. Until you solve these political problems, our soldiers won't be able to fix it. Downing tells the MSNBC anchorbabe, "I can't tell you how strongly I believe we must not cut and run, but this is an Iraqi problem to solve.
NBC knows so much , but then again they hired a protestor to head the Today program. If ever anybody looked like she did not want to be at the Thanksgiving Parade she did. I thought she was bad on Halloween. Katie was bad but Merdith is worse by far. All she wanted to do is run the I hate Bush and the US club. Time to hire and fire and fast. Put her back on the view with Roise the hater.
CNN shows video of terrorists killing American soldiers.
NBC, deeming themselves "experts" on Iraq, now decides to call the conflict a "civil war".
Dan Rather defends fake documents to this day.
They're all engaged in detestable behavior.
You're right. It's too bad the Republicans dont have the spine to say so while on the air with these vermin. If we cut and run in Iraq - the Republican's will share some of the guilt because they decided not to take the MSM to task with their propaganda.
Yup.
Someone at NBC should tell the leader of the Anbar Salvation Council a Sunni Baathist whose group accounts for an estimated 80% of Sunnis in Western Iraq. They might not know his, but he and the other 26 Sunni tribal leaders pledged their loyality to the Shia led government.
Lets see we have Iraqi Sunni tribes loyal to the Shia led government fighting insurgents. You have Iraqi Sunnis in government. You have Iraqi Shia trying to undermine the Shia led government. You have Iraqi Shia fighting with each other in terrible battles for power in Southern Iraq. You have Iraqi Sunnis (ASC vs insurgents) killing each other in large numbers in Anbar province.
Iraq today is in a situation were there is many rival armed groups all doing their own thing. But, even a glancing look at the major players and what they are doing tells you that you don't have the Sunnis lined up against the Shia and vice versa, instead you have a situation far far more complex.
The media doesn't like complex, it wants to dumb down the situation so the US public gets the message they want to send about the conflict. What the media is doing is called framing the issue how they want it framed too bad the frame is bu******. That doesn't mean there isn't a terrible sectarian problem in Baghdad caused by militias. But, unlike what the TV shows in their 30 second clips that isn't the only thing happening in Iraq.
Which side called the gray and which called the blue?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.