"Civil War" in Iraq

Krauthammer points out that Iraq is a civil war. By definition, the fighting by some Iraqis (backed by many fighters and money from other countries) against the vast majority of Iraqis is a civil war. Of course, by the same definition, the domestic terrorists of the marxist revolutionary Weather Underground and the United States were locked in a "civil war" in the sixties and seventies.

The whole point about the use of the term "civil war" is about context. The MSM uses the term to communicate the idea of a completely chaotic land which is totally immersed in violence and death. "Civil War" is used to convey the same idea of the Balkans -- tribes divided by a blood fued which will endure for centuries; a fight to the death which the USA is crazy to get involved in.

My objection to the use of the term "civil war" is not definitional. It is all about the context in which the term is used by the MSM.