Iraq: The war there didn't end, we just are terminating our participation in it

Reading Joel Wing's
roundup
of violence stats from Iraq, and thinking about today's bombing
and yesterday's massacre of 22 Shiite pilgrims, I began to wonder if the
U.S. withdrawal from the war is succeeding -- that is, not ending the war, but
simply decoupling from it. According to Wing, even as no American troops were
killed in Iraq last month, the upward trend in violence increased. Here is the
average daily death count:

April: 7.1

May:  8.1

June:  9.4

July:  8.0

Aug: 10.2