Most News Organizations Buckling To White House Pressure, Won’t Call Civil War In Iraq A ‘Civil War’
Most News Organizations Buckling To White House Pressure, Won’t Call Civil War In Iraq A ‘Civil War’
Today, MSNBC and NBC News announced their decision to call Iraq a “civil war.” The Los Angeles Times has consistently used that term to describe the violence, and the Christian Science Monitor started to do the same today.
But most media organizations, caving to White House pressure, continue to avoid the phrase. Some examples:
Fox News:
WARD: In response to today’s attacks and snowballing sectarian violence, a curfew has been imposed in Baghdad and the international airport closed to all commercial flights. [11/23/06]
Washington Post:
But fear ran high that the fighting would not end, as clashes in Ghazaliya and elsewhere illustrated the inability of Iraqi security forces to rein in the violence that has propelled the country closer to full-blown civil war. [11/27/06]
USA Today:
Abizaid didn’t have much to offer besides faith, hope and the familiar but elusive objectives of stabilizing the country, reining in sectarian violence and preparing Iraq to manage on its own. [USA Today, 11/16/06]
Boston Globe:
It was one of the largest mass abductions since the US-led invasion in 2003, startling even by the standards of a nation reeling from sectarian strife, daily bombings, and death squads. [11/15/06]
San Francisco Chronicle:
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki faces intense pressure from the United States to eliminate the militias and their death squads, which are deeply involved in the country’s sectarian slaughter and are believed to have thoroughly infiltrated the police and security forces. [11/15/06]
Chicago Tribune:
As the prospect of civil war in Iraq festers, the U.S. military has identified three options - add more troops, start a graduated retreat or embrace a speedy one - according to a Washington Post account that quoted sources familiar with the written Pentagon options. [11/26/06]
New York Times:
The two [Bush and Maliki] are expected to talk about the widening sectarian war in Iraq and to try to reach agreement on ways to stop it. [11/27/06]
CNN:
FRANKEN: But President Bush is focused on what can be done in Iraq without leaving behind a country consumed by sectarian war. [11/27/06]
Sort Comments By: Top Rated | Date
47 Responses to “Most News Organizations Buckling To White House Pressure, Won’t Call Civil War In Iraq A ‘Civil War’”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Think ProgressContact Us
Donate
Seems like most of the media is being conservative in thier description of things in Iraq, or is it just me….
November 27th, 2006 at 3:32 pmAnd what if they all start calling it a civil war? Will anything change here in Zombieland? I doubt it.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:35 pmSo the Bush administration says that it’s not a civil war and most of the media follows right along. Same old, same old.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:37 pmThe media has definitely been conservative in their depiction of the war. It has been a civil war for over a year, but MSM cowers to Republican operatives and has refused to call it as such.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:38 pmMSNBC just listed 5 major news sources who are now referring to Iraq as in a CIVIL WAR.
Surely more will follow.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:45 pmI am sure the Iraqis are really concerned that what is happening in their country is being labeled as sectarian violence here in the US. Even the BBC won’t call it a Civil War. Their favourite is “rising violence” of cycle of violence”. Massive amounts of deaths are massive amounts of deaths. Its a Civil War along religious lines.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:49 pmHow about “it’s really, really f*cked up?”
November 27th, 2006 at 3:51 pmHow about “it’s really, really f*cked up?â€
Comment by ForTruth
I’d pay money to hear Katie Couric say that.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:52 pmIt’s a clusterf**k, sir.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:55 pmIt’s just a crime wave.
November 27th, 2006 at 3:56 pmI’m surprised the MSM and the bushed administration doesn’t jump on calling it a civil war…… it would help them spin it away from what it started as, and still is… an invasion and occupation of a sovereign country, on false pretenses.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:00 pm“It’s sectarian violence.”
“No, it’s Islamic civil war.”
Iraq; it’s two quagmires in one!
Either way you spread it, it tastes like blood.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:04 pmMass delusions anyone? Pass the grape-flavored beverage please, Reverend Jones.
It’s interesting that the MSM who flogged this war are still buckling to pressure from the Lamest-Duck Preznit in recent memory. Preznit Delusional Deciderer is just getting an early start on that 500 million-dollar revisionist, er… legacy library at SMU. I wonder how many copies of “My Pet Goat” you can buy for half-a-billion dollahs.
Worst Preznit Evah
November 27th, 2006 at 4:08 pmHow the MSM can look at itself in the mirror in the morning is beyond me. Oh, I guess that never happens, the MSM is too busy gazing at its navel. This bizarre reluctance to call Iraq a civil war shows just how deeply in thrall the MSM is to its corporate Republican masters.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:12 pmCome on you liberal weenies, you know that the situation in Iraq is no more than “a full-blown snowball of sectarian violence escalating in its ever widening slaughter and consuming wave of destabalization”, not a civil war. Sheesh!
**sarcasm off**
November 27th, 2006 at 4:14 pmI’m sure the name of this violence doesn’t matter to those who are being killed or their families. The reality is that no one from the “green zone” is safe outside which tells us that the level of violence cannot be controlled. If bush/cheney/rove want to insist that it’s not civil war, that is their right, but for the rest of the world, it’s civil war….! No matter how hard they pressure the media, it will not impact what is happening in Iraq and the sad truth is that Iraq will suffer for years because of bush/cheney/rove.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:15 pmNot a shred of credibility do these assclowns have left.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:17 pmThey could resort to Spoonerisms, with tongue in cheek, call it a wivil sore.
My geezwhaddadumbassometer is shaking loose from it’s mounting bolts.
I think they’re just a thumpin’ each other.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:18 pmIt’s a duck.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:20 pmThis will not make a difference here at home, hence the reason they’re changing their tune.
Wake me when they start saying ‘redeployment is a viable solution’ and stop saying ‘cut and run’. THAT will be headline.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:23 pmOK let’s name Iraq My Pet Warsince its the sequel to another book that never was finished….
November 27th, 2006 at 4:24 pm[…] Read more Civil War […]
November 27th, 2006 at 4:49 pmBoycott every one of these organizations for not”working for the people” in knuckling under to gag orders and pressure. If they can’t stand the heat, then they all need to leave the kitchen! We’ll get other people to bring us the news and circumvent them all together….which many have already done. Who needs sycophantic boot lickers to report “cherrypicked” news - besides what exactly are they bringing us if it is biased, propagandized reporting?? It’s garbage that’s what it is! People need to hit them in the pocketbooks - boycott, cancel papers, and do what ever is necessary to let them know that they’ve become totally irrelevant.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:54 pmWhat about “truth in reporting” laws? Maybe these are precisely the spinners who need to be investigated about the lies they are spinning to the people. We used to call it payola but this is far more heinous and sinister. People went to jail for payola for people with good memories.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:55 pmFAUX NEWS…CNN….NY TIMES….USA Today - all sycophantic propagandizers.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:56 pmAs my old boss used to say, Iraq is “totally FUBAR.”
November 27th, 2006 at 5:17 pmFUBAR is the term most fitting the Iraq situatuion….
November 27th, 2006 at 5:21 pmSorry for being OT here but whatever happened to the soldiers who have been kidnapped in November? The married one is still there, but in the week before two others were missing.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:21 pmKofi Annan Caves to White House Pressure…
Kofi Annan is the latest to become a poodle of the Bush administration. There can be no other explanation for his reluctance to call the situation in Iraq a “civil war”. None….
November 27th, 2006 at 5:31 pmThe problem is as much one of definition as the desire by the White House etc to avoid using the phrase ‘civil war’. Violent conflict today rarely fits into the neat categories of the past. Even warfare itself is being radically redfined - see New and Old Wars by Mary Kaldor and The Utility of Force by Sir Rupert Smith, ex-Deputy Head of NATO.
What we have is an incredibly confused and messy conflict - in some parts of the country it’s almost everybody against everyone; in other parts there’s hardly any conflict at all. With no emerging front line and no single goal - e.g. independence/federalism v unity; Sunni state v Shia state v Kurdish state - it’s very hard to call. Except to say that in some parts it’s very bloody indeed and will get a lot worse. Expect a lot of ‘ethnic cleansing’…
November 27th, 2006 at 5:31 pmThis is again the corruption of our media, CNN, FOXNEWS, MBC, CBS, and the list goes on: very old incompetent journalists still practicing poor and deceitful journalism. We are ready for change, we need new blood.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:43 pmI lost interest in the media for almost a decade, not planning to get interested again as long as Oreilly, Dobbs, Katie, Chris Mathew, Hannity, Greta V., L. King… are still reporting.
First of all, Bush did make a comment some time ago that if the situation in Iraq became a civil war, we would pull our troops out in that case. Heard an interesting comment today. Some of those who are refusing to call it as a civil war argue that as the violence is not happening ALL OVER the country, it doesn’t qualify. However, as any of us should know about our own American Civil War, there were NOT battles being fought all over the U.S. either.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:50 pmFrom McClatchy Company’s Baghdad bureau (second-largest newspaper pubnlisher in US):
Neighborhood by neighborhood, Baghdad descends into civil war
By Hannah Allam and Mohammed al Dulaimy
McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sectarian violence has turned Baghdad into a deadly jigsaw puzzle of contested neighborhoods where armed bands of Shiite and Sunni Muslims battle daily for control in fighting that is far more similar to an organized military campaign than is generally acknowledged.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:52 pmYep. And Korea was a “police action”. Why do these people masquerade as journalists?
November 27th, 2006 at 5:52 pm[…] UPDATE: Some in the so-called liberal media are still debating on whether Iraq is in "civil war" or not (via ThinkProgress.com): […]
November 27th, 2006 at 6:16 pmThe pressure and arm-twisting upon the media/UN by the White House seems similiar to what has happened to Air America Radio by being boycotted by advertisers led/directed/told by ABC. Peace
November 27th, 2006 at 6:33 pmIts a bunch of angry commas.
November 27th, 2006 at 7:49 pmYeah the media helped Bush sell this war so I don’t blame them; I wouldn’t want to call it what it really is either, if I were them.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:58 pm[…] Source: Think Progress Posted by Michael Kolanos Filed in Iraq War, Propaganda, Mainstream Media […]
November 28th, 2006 at 12:03 am[…] Source: Think Progress Posted by Michael Kolanos Filed in Propaganda […]
November 28th, 2006 at 12:09 amWhat more can you expect from Faux News, and the Republican waterboy wanta bees and CNN like Wolf Blitzer, Paula Zahn, Soledad O’Brien, and Carol Lin. I’d be shocked if Faux News ever uses the term Civil War even if W finally admits it. Ruppard Murdock is the puppet master who controls not only what Faux News employee say, but what they think.
If you noticed the one guy who had any integrity got let go. The gay acting black guy that used to do the Faux and Friends didn’t toe the line enough so he got canned. What really gets my goat is the Murdock is from Australia and probably hates America.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:19 pmIt is painfully obvious that the main-stream media does not even know the meaning of civil war, must have got their degree from a Cracker Jack box? Have you listened to them lately, kinda like watching a bunch of kids during recess.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:00 amGreetings from England.
I’m not as well-informed on US politics as all of the posters here, but I do try to take an interest (especially as our Prime Minister is far more dangerous than Bush, as he actually has a brain and is not afraid to use it).
My thoughts are about this whole ‘civil war’ thing. What will happen when Bush finally HAS to admit that the situation has escalated far beyond insurgency (unless he’s hoping that he can hold out until the next election). Surely the US can’t withdraw from Iraq even if the American public demands it, as this would make the US even more of an international pariah than it is now for starting this mess and not clearing it up. Is he going to try and sit it out and dump it all on his successor?
(Can someone please tell me what a ‘Gentlemen’s C’ is? I can’t find it on the net and it’s bugging the hell out of me. . .)
November 29th, 2006 at 1:32 amWhat’s So Civil About the Iraq War?…
I don’t think the Iraq War is very civil at all….
November 29th, 2006 at 8:31 am[…] • Think Progress: Οι πεÏισσότεÏοι οÏγανισμοί ειδήσεων που Ï€Ïόσκεινται στο Λευκό Οίκο δεν αποκαλοÏν τον εμφÏλιο πόλεμο στο ΙÏάκ “εμφÏλιο πόλεμο” - ΠαÏατίθενται αÏκετά παÏαδείγματα από το Fox News, το CNN, την New York Times, την Boston Globe, την USA Today, την Washington Post κλπ. - Εδώ είναι που φαίνεται η αξία του ΔιαδικτÏου και γιατί σÏντομα θα Ï€Ïοσπαθήσουν να το φιμώσουν! […]
January 5th, 2007 at 1:37 pm[…] Here is a choice excerpt. I’ve been laughing my ass off for weeks now, because of something I saw on Fox News. With their usual oafish delivery of spittal, a Fox News mouthpiece called the Iraq Civil War, “snowballing sectarian violence.” This was after Tony Snow rejected public calls to use the “civil war” label, choosing instead “sectarian violence operations.” So the choice wording of “snowballing” just cracked me up. […]
January 15th, 2007 at 3:19 pmflights to australia
Also a ticket may be free, and serve as a proof of reservation.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:15 pm