"not a civil war"

a rose by any other name... So, we'll just parse the definition of 'civil war' and find new ways to rationalize and minimize the signficance of the bloody reality that has plagued Iraq over the past 2 days:

AP: Gunmen shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad Thursday as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine. Sunni Arabs suspended their participation in talks on a new government. At least 111 people were believed killed in two days of rage unleashed by Wednesday's attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, a mostly Sunni Arab city 60 miles north of Baghdad. The hardline Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked around the country, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted since the shrine attack.