Civil War or Not?

NBC recently chose to use the word civil war to describe the situation in Iraq. Bill O'Reilly attacked NBC in his radio show saying "a civil war as NBC wants you to think" and "they're all Muslims, and they're doing what they do. They're killing each other. And they're killing Americans."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200612010007

From his television show: "[T]he American media is not helping anyone by oversimplifying the situation and rooting for the USA to lose in Iraq."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200611300006

The War in Iraq has included a lot of rhetoric. I think people agree that there is a war going on in Iraq. It is a matter of classifying what kind of war it is. Perhaps O'Reilly should be attacking CNN and MSNBC for calling the situation a war. Even the right wing commentators have been calling the situation a war, they don't disagree with that. They don’t want us to "cut and run" because they know that the void our troops leave will erupt into a civil war and we will end up with a terrorist state.

I pose this question. If we didn't have the hundred thousand plus soldiers in Iraq at this moment, would there be a civil war then? Our troops are artificially holding the situation in check right now because the Iraqis would be unable to do so on their own. It would escalate if we withdrew now. Our troops are holding the situation in check. That is the most we can do at this point.