Reply #5: We seem to have a very perverted view of what a "Civil War" really is. [View All]

[TahitiNut]

The (so-called) "Civil War" in the United States is, I believe, more aptly called "the War Between The States." Like most Americans, it never occurred to me until recently, after long thought seeded by the alternative name ("War Between The States"), that ours was, at most, a very unique kind of "civil war." When I studied the English Civil War, I knew there were no internal political boundaries ... and that the war was competing political claims over the entire country. Likewise, the civil wars in Africa and the Western Hemisphere weren't geographically-based. It is perplexing to me that states, who can through a vote of the citizens of those states, choose to JOIN a 'Union', cannot by the same peaceful and democratic process, choose political self-determination as separate and sovereign nations. It seems to me that the overarching principle is political self-determination. In what we regard as "civil war" elsewhere, there exists little democratic process to begin with and no geographic political subdivision. In the only examples that come to mind where disaffiliation (akin to the "War Between The States") of separate political subdivisions was sought, it was peacefully achieved. Those examples include Canada's autonomy from the British Commonwealth, the independence of the former states of the Soviet Union, and the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Iraq IS engaged in a civil war and the General, despite his claims to study of civil wars at West Point, is full of American propagandistic bullshit.

I once marched in unthinking lockstep regarding Lincoln's "saving the Union." I now regard that as nonsense. I must now think of it in terms of two results - one positive and the other contrary to other principles I hold dear. I'm not really certain that the two results had to be inseparable.