At Six Flags Great America with Kev, but pull over for quick phonecon with Dobbs producer.

Question: Bush says "death squads" and others say "civil war." Who is right?

My answer?

Both are, to extent. Enough sectarian violence to describe as low-grade civil war. Also clear death squads are tools for minorities on all sides with designs on score-settling, secession strategies, full-blown civil war goals with eye to reconquering whole, etc. Also clear vast majorities of all 3 sides on side lines, not sure which way to jump.

So use either term, I don't care. Just having the discussion moves us collectively toward more realism on squiggly-line outcomes (or transition eras) for pretend straight-line Iraq.

The faster we move toward realizing that Yugoslavia's break-up-leading-to-today's-integration-"race" was actually a great predictor of short-term-zero-sum-fights-leading-to-nonzero-sum-outcomes, the smarter we become on how we're going to turn lotsa straight lines into squiggly ones in the rest of the Gap.

In the end, the neocons were a necessary but strategically immature phase for America. Now the serious thinking begins on inescapable truths, ones that are a whole lot more inconvenient than global warming.

As my lingo may indicate, emailing now with Bob Wright, thanks to Banning Garrett intro. Trying to lure him to possible Resilicon 2006 mini-blogger conference that Steve is threatening to hold!

DeAngelis really should try sleeping some time. I get tired just listening to his sked and he's constantly dreaming up more inventive stuff, venues, deals, concepts.

I gotta get Dobbs and Esquire on his case--you know, slow him down a bit with celebrity!