It Depends on What the Meaning of "Civil War" Is

The big linguistic news today appears to be the fact that NBC has made an editorial decision to refer to the situation in Iraq as a "civil war." The Washington Post has a long examination of the issue, digging up definitions of the term from several sources. It also notes that the Bushies continue to refuse to acknowledge that the term could possibly be appropriate.

All this reminded me of an intriguing article I saw a bit over a month ago in the Albany Times Union. Keying off a definition of "civil war" provided by Donald Rumsfeld and General George Casey to explain why Iraq was not experiencing one, Eric Rosenberg provided a few examples of other armed conflicts that didn't quite qualify, including the U.S. Civil War, the Russian civil war that followed the 1917 October Revolution, and the civil wars in Lebanon and Bosnia.