The Iraqi Civil War compared

War	Dates	Deaths	Deaths per day
Finnish Civil War	19th January 1918 - 7th May 1918 (108 days)	36640	339.26
Irish Civil War	28th June 1922 - 24th May 1923 (330 days)	4250	12.88
Lebanese Civil War	13th April 1975 - March 1991 (6138 days)	100000	16.29
El Salvador Civil War	24th March 1980 - January 1992 (4331 days)	75000	17.32
Iraqi Civil War	1st May 2003 - 1st March 2006 (1035 days)	30260	29.23

Sources: Wikipedia and Iraq Body Count Website (click on hyperlinks in table)

Note that the figures for the Iraqi Civil War begin on 1st May 2003 - the day George Bush declared the ending of major combat operations (his "Mission Accomplished" speech) and do not include the amount of Iraqis who died during the invasion proper.

As you can see, defining the current situation in Iraq as a "civil war" is consistent with other civil wars throughout history. Although nowhere near as bloody as the American Civil War, the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War, the Iraqi Civil War compares favourably with other civil wars that were fought during the 20th century.

In terms of casualties, the 30,000 in Iraq compare well to the 36,000 who died during the Finnish Civil War. However, the civil war in Finland lasted just over 100 days making it a short but very bloody conflict.

The civil wars in El Salvador and Lebanon lasted well over a decade with casualties at least twice that reported in Iraq. However, the length of these two civil wars has led to lower deaths per day compared to Iraq. In Iraq at present, just less than twice as many people are dying per day than those who perished in El Salvador and Lebanon.

The Irish Civil War in 1922 and 1923 killed less people in total, and killed less per day, than the current situation in Iraq.

Comparing civil wars is obviously frought with the inevitable apples vs pears situation. Indeed, more people have perished in some civil wars than have died in some international conflicts. Obviously one of the problems is trying to answer the question "What defines a civil war?"

I won't even try to address that particular question now, but I will point out that history has generally named certain conflicts without any real dispute among either historians or ordinary people. Thus it is acceptable to define the conflicts in places like El Salvador, Lebanon, Ireland and Finland as being "Civil Wars".

And if these particular conflicts are defined in this way, then all the current evidence from Iraq suggests that a civil war has been occurring since George Bush announced "Mission Accomplished" to the world. Therefore it is no longer appropriate to report or define the situation in Iraq as merely a "conflict" or an "insurgency". What is occurring in Iraq is a civil war. Let's stop playing around with words and call it as it is.


© 2006 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/

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