November 27 - Pet Peeve Monday - Uncivil War?

This week’s PET PEEVE MONDAY has to do with NBC deciding to declare that the Iraq War is now a CIVIL WAR. Their Press Release stated:

“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."

Now, I don’t care if it’s a war, a battle, a skirmish, or just irreconcilable differences.

I don’t care if it’s Iraqi War I, Persian Gulf War II, or a Civil War.

Is it important that the next Stallone film is named Rocky Balboa or Rocky VI? Either way, Rocky V left many questions unanswered, so the important thing is the film content not the title.

What I do care about is that NBC took it upon themselves to decide to call it a Civil War. They even came up with some new graphics. It also happened to be November and sweeps month.

It doesn’t matter what it is called. It’s only semantics and shameless self-promotion.

I would have expected this out of CNN or CBS, but NBC? Come on guys, I hold NBC to a higher standard; they got rid of Katie Couric.

For the record, GlobalSecurity.org, an online source of military information, defines "civil war" this way:

"A civil war is a war between factions of the same country. There are five criteria for international recognition of this status: The contestants must control territory, have a functioning government, enjoy some foreign recognition, have identifiable regular armed forces and engage in major military operations."

Under this definition, the war in Iraq does not qualify for "international recognition" as a civil war on several points.

•The insurgents do not control territory.

•The insurgents have no functioning government. They are mostly members of religious factions.

•The insurgents do not have "identifiable regular armed forces." Many are civilian suicide bombers or armed civilian attackers who don't wear uniforms and blend into the citizenry.

•The insurgents don't engage in major military operations; they make sporadic attacks, mostly against civilians rather than directly against armed troops of the government.

So there you have. NBC, I now declare you a lame network. How about REPORTING the news and stop trying to BE the news.

See my new graphic and it’s NOT a show about weight loss. It’s a show about the NBC News organization.