Chris Allbritton at Back to Iraq 3.0 responds to the new right-wing talking point -- that the reduction of violence since the Samarra mosque bombing is a sign that there can't possibly be a civil war going on. Allbritton's writing about Ralph Peters, who's been "rolling with" (Peters's words) the 506th Infantry Regiment and other units and writing columns for the New York Post, all of which can be summarized as "Nyah-nyah, I'm not dead, so there's no civil war!":

Just because people aren't curled up in the fetal position under their beds all the time doesn't mean there’s not a war on of some kind. In Lebanon, for 15 years, people went to the beach, cafes, bars and, in general, tried to live a normal life. For long stretches, a neighborhood would be calm. And then the shells would come, or a running street battle would break out and civilians would go running inside to hide. The violence would eventually pass, like a breaking wave, and they would come out into the light. That's the way war works, and that's what's happening in Baghdad right now.

Go read the whole thing.