I am so proud of you Nicole and the "Fury". Ultimate frisbee requires explosive power, speed, agility, stamina, balance, coordination...can you see where I am going with this. I am honored and proud to have been able to coach you. Congrats on the Championship

I just wanted to give a shout out to all the Aggies out there. Congrats on the win and if you are ever in CS stop by!

Dutch

WHOOP!!

yeah Ultimate! congrats Fury!

any other crossfitters play ultimate?

no rest for the weary .. what to do what to do????

#4, funny that you ask. I missed the back squats for Ultimate practice. I'm playing on the U of South Carolina club team. I'll bee doing back squats in the morning.

Nicole...it was impressive to see you play live at UCSC...I am glad they could capture your talent on film!

Yes Syria killed Hariri,yes they killed Gemayel.What are we going to do about it?....nothing!besides a little wrist slapping.Its called "realpolitik".
Re. stable sovereign states who have an interest in stability - Oh for the good old days of Sadamm Hussein.Ruled that place with an iron fist,kept it real quiet like any dictator worth his salt knows how to do.Sure could use someone like him in Baghdad about now.

#8 It's not too late, he's not dead yet!

So, can we spend this rest day talking about real strategies to help democracy--or not--in the region instead of arguing over minutia, restating past mistakes and/or labeling each other's beliefs?

Where does our foreign policy go from here? And I mean specifics, not just "cut and run" or "stay the course" platitudes.

What do we really do? And before you pose the question, personally I don't know, that's why I'm asking you.

Political victory- As Donald Trump said on Larry King the other night.Bring em' home now,declare victory and spend the $20 million Congress has already appropriated for a victory celebration.

Real Victory-Mc Cain is right,need to send in another 100k troops asap.Kill Sadr now.Kick ass on those militias,it'll get down & dirty for a month or so.Pull the rug right out from under Iran.Need a strong man President,proably a Kurd.Guarantee Sunnis solid share oil revenues,and proably their own army.Future Iraq will be a loose federation.
You want real peace in the region.Send 50k troops to surround Israel,no in or out of Israel or Palestine till a deal is done.Take the leaders to a secluded place and break em down until they do a deal-a la Dayton(Yugoslavia).

Need a real President to do that,and a public ready to make some real sacrifices for a part of the world most can't find on a map.Don't have either right now.

#10 - forget about democracy in the middle east, if that's what your suggesting. pipe dream pal.

#11 - another 100k troops? man, the real shame of this is that we should've never been there in the first place -- the world would be a far better (and safter) place if we hadn't started this insane war.

i and several others on this site have recognized for a long time that the attempted democratization in iraq has been a total fiasco, a neo-con wet dream gone bad. (MAXIMUS, wherever you are, is it time for us to gloat, or are we above i-told-you-so's?)

now, even the conservatives realize this is the case -- witness today's admission by bush's aide that iraq is in civil war. even red staters now realize the real scope of this utter disaster -- witness the midterm elections.

with the dawning of this reality on conservative minds, i'm not surprised that pro-iraq war articles are no longer posted on rest days. hallelujah for that.

#12: I've also noticed a quiet discontinuation of pro-Iraq articles recently. Are we to assume this is tantamount to a retraction of their views?

As far as the article goes - and I've only skimmed this I'm afraid - I do enjoy his homogenising of "the left". George Galloway is hardly a spokeperson for everyone who opposed the Iraq war, and less still a mouth piece for those who now recognise the need to involve Iran and Syria in any plans to stabilise the region. He is a political oddity, and comands little 'respect' in his home country.

The article also misses the point IMO; the coalition may well have gone into Iraq as the would-be champions of democracy, but they've lost. What good is it clinging on to those noble ideals if it is going to result in more blood-shed?

An alternate thesis for the goals of the Iraq invasion can be found at:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

To summarize, the invasion was a response to Saddam's threat in 2000 to sell oil for Euros instead of U.S. dollars. If other oil producing countries followed suit, it would precipitate a calamitous plunge in the value of the U.S. dollar and an implosion of the U.S. economy. The result of the invasion was to send a clear message that disaster would result for any state that followed this path. From this perspective the invasion was a success.

We could build a wall around the Middle-East, let them kill each other and encourage the last person standing to commit suicide... That is usually the solution to political problems posed on rest days (see "Let Africa Sink")!

Okay, sorry about my sarcasm. I don't think there is a simple solution, so I'll be on my way ->

I'll always remember reading "Hegemony or Survival" by Noam Chomsky. It made my jaw hit the floor a few times. I don't profess to understand the nuances of foreign policy but I always wonder why the administration never listens to Chomsky, Pilger and their peers.

Oh for the world peace that I will never see.

If the NYT editorial reflects a new policy direction for the US and its allies in the middle east, then it is little wonder that Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and their patrons have been celebrating the election results. The proposal is that we now "engage" the regimes that have been fomenting civil war in Iraq, and if they don't behave that we should "shun" them. The prospect of being shunned must have them quaking in fear, and saying, "Please, please don't throw me in that briar patch."

Victory in Iraq is impossible without addressing the center of gravity of the enemy.

Which is the Democratic Party in the US and their lick spittle propagandists in the media, for whom losing the war in Iraq was always a cheap price to pay for the more urgent business of beating George Bush. They have got their wish, and now the world will reap the whirlwind of resurgent islamic terrorism and 12th Imam apocalyptics.

The second center of gravity is in Tehran, but that can never be addressed until the enemy legions in Washington are persuaded by clever counter-insurgency strategy to buy into US national security strategy.

When the democrat/media/left wake up from their champagne hangover we will still have this basic problem: the nexus between extremist islamic fanatics and rogue regimes provisioning them with WMD. Giving Khalid Sheik Mohammed Miranda and habeas rights is not going to solve that problem. Having a "dialog" with Iran and Syria and NoKo is not going to solve that problem. Our defeat in Iraq compounds it and feeds jihadi triumphalism beyond measure.

Since I am from Hungary (but now living in London) and there are some references at the end of the article about comparing the democratic process in eastern europe to that of the middle east, I thought I will summarize my thoughts from this angle.

Since the change in the system at '89, while Hungarians may have the illusion of a democratic process, what actually is happening is populist politics being used to swing the power between the liberal and capitalistic right wing and the conservative and socialist left wing. One sold out the country by privatizing national companies for fractions of their value and inviting investment with huge tax breaks, even as they would acknowledge that those companies will move on to Romania and Bulgaria as the tax breaks expire. The other put the country into a debt spiral equaling a budget deficit that of Lebanon, by spending and subsidizing for the benefit of their voting base without making actual investments.

The rest of the region is not faring well either with the Polish having an "anti-corruption" bureau which effectively operates as a secret police removing unwanted political figures and operating on the whims of the twin control of the prime minister and the president.

It has been more than 16 years and 4 election cycles and large majority do not see the benefits of the new system as key political and financial figures managed to concentrate more wealth and power, not unlike what is happening in Russia.

Still I am a long term optimist, remembering that even in the US, democracy did not happen overnight. It took many generations to go through a civil war, women's getting the right of vote and black people being able to sit where they wanted on a bus. Only in the second half of the XX. century can you consider the US a modern democratic state. Thus while some point out that the Americans have now spent more time fighting in the second gulf war than they have in World War II, the change of the system will not happen overnight. There will be lots of pain and suffering as tensions and hatred built up during the previous decades will need to be dissipated, and this will take many generations. Looking back to history books again, France and Germany were lethal enemies with dozens of wars and squirmishes between them in the past millenia. Similarly, sectarian violence in the middle-east is not going to away overnight, but it will eventually. While the situation may look to worsen in the short term, I believe it is the painful path needed for future stability, as often short term artificial solutions worsen the already dismal conditions.

So what now ? I will tell you what now. Define core directives, make a plan and stick to it. Warning: it may take a couple of decades to execute. But as in Hungary, while blame the politicians, when the voters are the ones encouraging short term solutions and populist agenda ? When the powers that may be in the west and east sense that the voters and the public want long term solutions, hard work and dedication to the peace process then that is what we will get.

Until then, why always place the blame on the other side when all we want is the immediate gratification of instant success ? Instead of pointing the finger to Bush, Saddam, big oil corporations or Syrian assassins and crying foul for causing human suffering, our energy may be better spent by working towards a common goal. For me the direction is clear, even if the destination cannot be seen on the horizon. All we need to do is make one step forward after another.

Marcus #12,

Could you elaborate on your view that democratization of the Middle East is a fiasco? Are Arabs incapable of self-rule? Are they not smart enough, or just sub-human? Would you identify other peoples for us unworthy or incapable of living free?

Marcus, Iraq is a better place today than it was under Saddam Hussein. It’s safer. It’s freer. We’ve improved the place. You Liberals have way, way, too much regard for the stability of concentration camps. Why is that?

Finally, you and Maximus have nothing to gloat about. The Left’s profound hope for failure of American foreign policy has you morally confused.

America needs to clean up its own backyard!

We have made it a policy of exporting death and destruction in Central Asia the name of our national security while ignoring history and the cultural differences inherent in the region. We have moved from the champions of democracy, defending the weak against fascism to imposing our will, our version of democracy and our worldview upon those who only want to make a living and feed there kids (I speak of the average citizen). We can take this endless pseudo intellectual debate on the regions citizenry as far as we want with our rhetoric and all our polarizing rants, yet our boys are still dying while we try to save face and find a new enemy to combat. Perhaps it is time to look within instead of without....without placing this harsh intellectual light on ourselves.

Can anyone really say our current policies are working?

#12 - I like how libs refer to the midterm elections to support any argument in their favor... Why is it that when the GOP wins it is called a "hostile takover of the house" and when the dems win it is a Mandate from the People?

Can't we just chalk Gemayel up as one of those "birth pangs of a new Middle East"?

For starters I think we need to stop doing a few things:

Stop fuggin w/people's right to self-determination. If they are not willing to stand and/or fight for democracy and/or human rights - they will never be able to hang onto them once "given" them.

Stop thinking that we can change other people's perception of reality to match ours. We can't re-meld a mindset that has been shaped by unique cultural evolutions over many generations with critical ethnic and religious under-pinnings.

Stop meddling in the affairs of other Nations by supporting strongmen when it is of convenience or supporting undemocratic regimes when it is convenient or supporting democracy only when it is convenient or supporting human rights only when it is convenient.

Stop being such Hippocrates.

Stop arming the world.

Stop blaming the Left or those with opposing points of views for failures.

Stop being so paranoid - commies and zealots are not going to take over the world. Human greed will and since that is what our society is based upon, we will ultimately win the day. Hmmm...

Stop thinking that we are the answers to everyone's problem.

Stop strategically investing in the chronically unstable regions - strategically divest in them.
Invest in people - education, health-care and FAIR trade. NOT in regimes that take the wealth, that we largely give them, and distribute next to nothing. Foster the distribution of the wealth and equity and not the consolidation of wealth and power.

If anyone raises a weapon against us...
- Raze the place to the ground with absolute certainty.

Yay Ultimate! I've been trying to convince my teammates to try CrossFit as well. Maybe Fury's example will help...

Wow!!! Some really good posts--Dan, Harry, Coach, Tamas. I agree fully.

I'll add a couple of thoughts. It occurred to me a while back that a good summary of leftism--in its' cultural expression--is that it believes in nothing but the freedom of others to believe something.

Theoretically, Israel should be excoriated for being racist and imperialist. They hate Arabs, we are told, and they pushed them off their land, and deprived them of their rights.

The form the criticism of Israel takes is that they are Zionist pigs and should be run into the ocean. Thus, we see prominent leftists embracing Hezbollah--the same group that bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut--as an agent of freedom and decency. Why? Because, by mathematical deduction, if the Israelis are racist and imperialist, then their enemies cannot be. They are simply countering the "reality" they confront.

Thus, with all the rigor of Cartesian rationalism, we can proceed without an apparent sense of irony, to a policy supporting despotic nations which are committed to hurting America, and who are currently at war with us by proxy, and who are actively, virulently, anti-democratic, in the name of human rights.

Adding to the irony, moderate conservatives are regularly derided in their efforts to protect this nation as "Orwellian", as in, you know, "Peace is War." "War is Peace", or whatever he actually wrote.

I've said this before, but this is a form of inverted belief. You don't believe something, you react to something. Your beliefs exist only in opposition to something else. You can watch this process. It begins with a belief, say, that Israel is categorically wrong. Wrong as a nation, wrong as a people. This is especially easy if you are already Jewish, for the same reason black people can use the N word daily all day but nobody else can.

You take that as your foundational principle in articulating your philosophy. Logically, if X is positive integer you would prefer to be 0, then you need a "not-x". You find your "not-x", you've found your political raison d'etre. Hezbollah, of course, is a "not-x".

Obviously, this basic process can be applied to any number of basic issues. However, in the sense that America really does stand--better than anyone else, but still imperfectly--for what is good in this world, you will find that given almost any X, the "not-x's" will tend to aggregate in the same places, because the X will be something we define.

This is how you stand for human rights by opposing human rights.

With respect to my own opinion on the article, we need to stick to our ideals. We do best when we maintain an idealistic goal--in this case the democratic process, in some form, in the Middle East--and pragmatic methods. You can't make a good deal with a bad person. All you can do is buy time. Sometimes that's needed, but not here, not now.

We need to take Sadr out, and arrest the the players in this thing. If the blood of these guys runs in the street for a month, so be it. Better guilty than innocent blood, and if we do it right, at some point the violence is substantially reduced. Bush is still the Commander in Chief. He needs to make some effing decisions.

Wow. These are some really good (and unexpected) discussions of what is going on in Iraq, and, by extension, the entire Middle East. I'm new to Crossfit, but I never thought that it reached so far into the realm of the intellect as deeply as it does into the physical. I need to stick with this program... Hopefully it will make me smarter as well as incredibly fit!

There is a very interesting piece by Thomas Ricks in today's Washington Post reporting on a classified assessment by the Marine Corps that Al Qaeda cannot be beaten in Anbar with present force levels and tactics.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701287_pf.html

Ricks is a charter member of the defeatist chorus in DC, but the USMC is not.

Then, there is this Michael Fumento piece - he's embedded in Anbar and he says we are winning, or at least that some of the stuff we are doing is working.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=845851a2-af6c-4fd0-8b79-f841cb6e5e85

It also seems discordant with reports from Bill Roggio that 25 tribes in the Anbar Salvation Council are in the fight against al Qaeda and are whacking and stacking them. http://billroggio.com/archives/2006/11/anbar_the_abu_soda_t.php

Not sure who is right, but I'm guessing the USMC assessment subsumes Fumento's analysis. I'd also bet a dollar that the USMC report mentions the victory of the democrats in the midterms as signficantly and negatively affecting Iraqi and insurgent perception of US willingness to stick it out, but that Ricks left that out of his reporting.

Re #20:

"Marcus, Iraq is a better place today than it was under Saddam Hussein. It’s safer. It’s freer. We’ve improved the place."

I certainly hope so, or if it isn't that it will be some day. I'm no fan of our involvment over ther, but I'm not so resigned to say that it will never have been a god thing. It'll take a lot of time to tell and even after 20+ years we'll never know what would have happened otherwise. I really honestly do hope that 20 years or so from now I can say "You know, things really are better as a result of that war". We'll see.

As far as it being safe and better: Unclear. How you could measure such a thing, maybe death toll? We have a better idea of how many Iraqis are dying each year now, but it's tough to quantify during the Hussein era (I don't even know what the guesses are). Has anyone here had conversations with Iraqis regarding how their average 24x7 was before and since our invasion?

"You Liberals have way, way, too much regard for the stability of concentration camps. Why is that?"

Strongly put. However without using any labels ("liberal"), one thing I totally agree with is that there is a fear of disorder, even at the cost of freedom and individual rights. This has nothing to do with political views, just more of a natural human instinct to fear change and unkown, despite how poor the quality of life may be. It's sad, and as much of a part of the human condition as anything. That said I hope I'm never in a position where I have to trade a hand or a foot for some of the freedoms I'm afforded now.

There's a typo in my previous post...

"god thing" -> "good thing" ;)

Tyson

Jim #11:

“Need a real President to do that,and a public ready to make some real sacrifices for a part of the world most can't find on a map.Don't have either right now”

Your comment is sadly, 100% correct.

Adam #16:

“I'll always remember reading "Hegemony or Survival" by Noam Chomsky. It made my jaw hit the floor a few times. I don't profess to understand the nuances of foreign policy but I always wonder why the administration never listens to Chomsky, Pilger and their peers.”

Perhaps because Chomsky is a far left wing radical, and while an expert in linguistics, is sadly ignorant on the realities of foreign policy?

Just my thoughts.

I had coined a term, "forgession" some time ago, to stand for conscious forgetting. We have a term, remembrance, for conscious remembering. It seems to me that in our day to day life, remembering is something that takes effort, and forgetting is something which goes with the passing of time. "Remember 9/11", 'Remember the Maine". "Remember the Alamo." We assume that with the passing of time things will be forgotten, as indeed they are.

However, that process can be accellerated, by the intervention of volitional effort. You can force things out of your mind by just not thinking about them, by conditioning yourself, every time that thought occurs, to "change the subject". People that do this about fundamental issues, like courage and integrity, necessarily become "shifty", because they don't want to be reminded of certain things. As you burrow in deep, they feel an almost compulsive need to escape.

You see this in debates by an inability to follow a line of thinking to its' conclusion, and the unwillingness to acknowledge relevant facts. You see it in the reflex release of factual flack--irrelevancies that serve solely to alter the path of the discussion.

The fact of the matter is there used to be two buildings in downtown New York, 100 stories or more, that were full of people when two hijacked airplanes were flown into them at top speed. The resulting devastation made anything but cleanup impossible for many blocks around.

This fact, while disputed by apparently desperate leftists, is consistent with a pattern of attacks dating back to 1992, which is when the first effort to bring the towers down was made, by people we are very certain are guilty. It fits the rhetoric of Islamic extremists, and they were quite happy.

Even though, through a highly directed propagandistic effort at collective forgession, many people have forgotten that these people exist, they have in no way shape or form forgotten we exist. We are a burning obscenity to them, because we remind them of how backward they and their ideas really are. There is no reason to doubt many of them are still searching for ways to hurt us. We have them on the run, because we did not play our part in the script and run, while muttering leftist apologetics for what would have amounted to cowardice. Syria pulled out of Lebanon when they were worried we might take them on next. Now, we see the result of the cessation of that worry.

You can't deal with sociopaths with compassion, reason, or anything but naked force and the threat of force. That is a fact of history I would challenge anyone of a leftist persuasion. I offer as Case One Chamberlain's wildly futile and unsuccessful role as Hitler's willing dupe.

Catch-up day.

PU ladder 12 rounds on the nose (PR)
Back Squats, details posted ystd.

All of my numbers keep going up, albeit modestly c/w the elite here. Finishing my 11th month, with continued gratitude and respect for Coach and all here.

D.

Back on the wagon.

did cfwu x 3
then 185 bench 5x5 alternating with 95-105 OHS 5x5

Feels good to be back. Pullups were weak during the cfwu. @206lbs now, want to get down to 185lbs.

There's a human aspect to this discussion that I feel many people don't want or feel a need to deal with. American citizens are ultimately comfortable in the stability that has been afforded them by 200 years of hard work, political strife, and bloodshed. Everything we have and are today is a direct result of our past, and yet most Americans today couldn't tell you what decade the civil war was in. They can't tell you the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. Why is that?

Every year the percent of the population that votes stagnates or gets smaller. I feel this stems from one of two emotions. The first is apathy. I often ask people if they voted in the last election (after any election) and if they say they didn't, I ask why not. I'd guess that 90% of people respond that they feel that their one vote isn't going to change the outcome of an election. What they don't realize is that if every person who felt this way voted anyway, elections would have a very different turnout then they do.

The other emotion people seem to have is over-reliance on our government to take care of them. During a charity drive at my work one of my coworkers actually said "I wish I could just give a little more in taxes and let the government take care of this." Needless to say, I nearly fell out of my chair. But this is a serious example of how many citizens just don't want to get involved in the world around them. They want to just worry about getting that next promotion at work and then going home to stuff themselves with buffalo wings and beer and watch Monday night football. And when the commercials with the starving African children come on, they change the channel. They don't want to be bothered with the chaos outside their controled world.

Too many people in this country are riding the democracy wave without realizing the SACRIFICE necessary to maintain that democracy.

When was the last time YOU sacrificed for your country?

I know I just posted, and this is off the subject, but I want to show what democrats think of the military that PROTECTS THEIR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.

"If a young fellow has an option of having a
decent career, or joining the Army to fight
in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would
not be in Iraq," Mr. Rangel, a Democrat
representing Manhattan and Queens, said
on "Fox News Sunday."

"If there's anyone who believes these
youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon
and some generals have said, you can just
forget about it. No bright young individual
wants to fight just because of a bonus and
just because of educational benefits. And
most all of them come from communities
of very, very high unemployment," the
congressman said.

I know there are a lot of military and ex-military on this site, so I'm curious,
1) What Branch
2) What years
3) What compelled you to join (be honest, I'm curious not trying to judge anyone)
4) What education level did you have when you joined

I'll start:
I'm currently a Captain in the Air Force. I've been in since 2002, not including 4 yrs of ROTC (ROTC is just a step above boy scouts, and with women). I joined because males in my family have done military service since the first Schwab came over from the old country. When I joined I had received my BS in Physics, with minors in Archeology, Math, and Aerospace Studies (ROTC).

It's amazing.....people continue to directly link the war in Iraq to solving the 9/11 problem. Somehow Iraq and not Saudi money, Bin Laden etc. has has everything to do with the attack. Repeating the same propaganda (and that's what the "fact gathering" was leading up to the invasion) over and over, with spin, pseudo intellectualism and poor fact gathering doesn’t make it fact or correct in any way. If we as a country and a people do not get our collective heads out of the sand and THINK of a way to truly solve this problem it will happen again. Punching the guy beside you does not stop the bully in front of you.

ricky

"Victory in Iraq is impossible without addressing the center of gravity of the enemy."

Which, according to you is "the Democratic Party in the US and their lick spittle propagandists in the media, for whom losing the war in Iraq was always a cheap price to pay for the more urgent business of beating George Bush."

So, apparently, the Democratic party is the center of gravity of the enemy that is preventing victory in Iraq? You really think that a political party which to date (until Jan) controls not one branch of government is what has been holding us back from victory? Oh yes, and the all familiar boogeyman of the media. The same media that gave the current administration a pass in the run up to the war.

The Democratic Party has not yet stood in the way of a single thing this administration asked for in prosecuting this war. If victory is impossible, conservatives have no one to blame but themselves. It was this White House that wanted war at all costs and yet failed to plan for just about anything after toppling Saddam.

And one last point, please stop with the "liberals want us to lose" crap. No we don't. I can't speak for all "liberals" but I can tell you as someone who was at the WTC on 9/11 that I wanted this country to hunt down and kill the terrorists that attacked us. To me, that meant doing afghanistan for real with as many troops as needeed and not being distracted into a war in Iraq that squanders American lives, treasure and goodwill. I believed (correctly as it turned out) that the war in Iraq was a war of choice and was a mistake that we will pay for for years. Just because I don't think we ever should have gone into Iraq, however, doesn't mean that I want my country to lose.

Had to make up Linda on this rest day. Ouch. I didn't see Pukie, but I met his friend Dizzy, ya know, the one that makes you have to sit down for a second and close your eyes to keep from falling over.

Coach: Iraq is now safer???? How is a civil war, (in all but name) safer than anything? Compare the mortality rates in Iraq from the past month with what it was like 5 or 10 years ago, I'm pretty sure it's higher now.

As well stated and eloquently put some of your positions on Iraq are, I'm afraid while your typing history is judging your views to be wrong.

Howard:

We cannot sustain a prolonged military conflict in Iraq or anywhere else without the entire American polity buying in. That is a fact of life. We had it when we started in Iraq. We do not have that condition in our country right now because the Democrats and the left and the media perceived an opportunity to wound their enemy #1, GWB, over the war. They took that opportunity and it has with the midterms finally had the desired effect for them. The bad news is that this EXACTLY dovetailed the strategy of our enemies in Iraq. They sought specifically to induce that outcome in our domestic politics. That has been obvious from the start, but the dems did it anyway.

The perception that we are bailing out is disastrous to all we have undertaken in the ME and a huge triumph for the jihadis, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and islamic extremism everywhere.

This was also obvious in advance, but the dems did it anyway.

Regards,

Barry C # 26,

I seem to recall that last rest day you bemoaned the lack of sensible argument from the 'Left': too much name calling, ad-hominems, blaming 'big oil' and 'racism'. Now I read "Wow!!! Some really good posts--Dan, Harry, Coach, Tamas. I agree fully." Now I have no doubt that you agree fully with the named posters, but are they 'good posts" by your own criteria? Some of the following points are petty and picky (and feel free to pick my own nits - I'm feeling punchy today), but I think you are holding the 'Leftists' to a high standard, so your guys should be held to the same...

1. Dan McD: paints the NYT axis of Leftists as believing that 'shunning' regimes reflects what should be 'a new policy direction... in the middle east' - they actually talk about shunning Hezbollah if Hezbollah tries to grab further power in Lebanon. What they say is that Damascus would get 'scorn, isolation and sanctions' if found to be involved in assasinations of anti-Syrians. The article focusses on Lebanon and Syria, not the wider region.

2. Harry McD: Starts fine, we do need to the engage the centre of gravity of the enemy, but follows with: 'lick spittle propagandists in the media', 'enemy legions in Washington. Ends by assuming that the 'democrat/media/left' are unaware that here is a problem if WMDs proliferate to fanatics. (Really? or do they just have a different view of how to proceed than Harry McD?)

3. Tamas: I'm going to agree with this one as a 'good post', probably the best post on the thread. Tamas presents a different, interesting viewpoint; stays clear of abuse and mischaracterisations; presents useful historical analogies; presents a real point of view: This will take time, it will be painstakingly slow, we need perseverance, there are no easy answers. Full marks Barry.

4. Coach: misquotes Marcus - 'Could you elaborate on your view that democratization of the Middle East is a fiasco?' ; Marcus said the democratic process in Iraq has been a fiasco. Presents an aggressive false choice 'Are they not smart enough, or just sub-human?'; (Hmm, maybe they are culturally not ready and democratisation will take time, ask Tamas). Asks a leading question: 'Would you identify other peoples for us unworthy or incapable of living free?' (And by the way Marcus are you still beating your wife...?). Slips in the evocative term concentration camps and accuses the Left of a 'profound hope for failure of American foreign policy'; (is that right? Is he sure the Left wants America to fail or just has a different view of how it might succeed?)

Personally, since we are keeping score, I think the posts by Jim #11, mwu #12, RC #13, ricky #21, Chris - Ottawa #24 (btw you may mean 'hypocrites', Hippocrates was a 5th century Greek physician) are just as good or better, certainly on your criteria (apologies to later posters - this took a while); they don't all agree with each other, but are generally clear of ad hominems and blaming 'isms like Leftism, the media or Democrats'.

I think you need to challenge your views, not just reinforce them with similar ones. Here is Francis Bacon in the Novum Organum all the way back in 1620: 'The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion ... draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises ... in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate." This quote introduces and summarieses the following article: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=13&articleID=000CE155-1061-1493-906183414B7F0162 Enjoy.

Borat

People like Rangel piss me off! I earned my degree in Aerospace Engineering. Some of the brightest people I knew in my major were in the military. I myself have been putting the effort in to train in hopes of enlisting in the next few months. (That is how I came across CrossFit.) I am a native Washingtonian, DC where I live and work in the metro area. I know people who influence American policy on both sides of the isle. I see the disdain for the military among those on the Left. I also see the unmitigated ignorance, niavete, and arrogance on the Hill and within the "Intellectual" class.

The disdain is not simply for the military, but for law enforcement and even the Secret Service. You can tell a lot about a President by how he treats the Secret Service and Military staff. Likewise, you can tell the Character of those in Congress by how they treat the Secret Service and Capitol Hill police.

Having said all this, there are good men and women on both sides of the isle. End of rant.

I'd like to remind everyone that Saddam Hussain (or however his convicted ass is spelt) tried to WIPE KURDS OFF THE PLANET. Try doing a search for Iraqi death toll pre-war. Not possible, because no one cared. I feel we have have an obligation as the world's superpower to stop atrocities to the max extent possible. That being said, we'll never get them all or stop them fast enough.

Borat,

That article, as I read it, summarized a new potential policy, which in effect appeases the Iranians and Syrians in exchange for their help ending a war they have done much to create and sustain. An element in that appeasement was potentially giving Syria greater latitude in its' imperialistic take-over in Lebanon, against the will of the majority of Lebanese. It doesn't appear to me there are ifs, ands or buts, but that they just assassinated another prominent Lebanese leader, in no small measure because he refused to accept as "just one of those things" their LAST assassination of a Lebanese leader.

Leftists are big on talking tough, then rationalizing backing down. They say they will "shun" Hezbollah if they grab power in a vacuum their policy created. OK, let's say they grab power. How exactly does "shunning" work? Do they not get invited to the office Christmas Party? Do we issue long and impressive-sounding perorations on the necessity of playing fair? What sanctions exactly are we going to levy? How much business do we do with them anyway, and can we get it through the United (third world) Nations? That's horse-poop, plain and simple.

What is the plan Democrats have for denying the terrorists WMD's? Negotiations? Unless you all have been asleep at the wheel, you should know THE TERRORISTS THEMSELVES have called Iraq their chosen central front in the GWOT. If they can get the United States to cut and run after 3,000 dead, then there is no place we won't run from, Iran has no worries, Syria has no worries, North Korea only has her normal worries, and everything moves forward one space on the game board.

With respect to Coach, surely it is obvious that things on this planet change. Change--as Heraclitus stated--is a constant. You can't even get in the same river ONCE. Thus, the error in the phrase "the democritization process is a failure" is in committing the cardinal intellectual error of essentialization. He is attributing to a dynamic evolving system of events a static, closed quality. IF we choose to view it as a failure--which is what the Leftists wanted us to do, oh, before we started--then we can get our failure by quitting. That's what is being proposed. Part of that proposal is pretending our enemies are our friends, and calling it "realism" because it otherwise stinks to high heaven.

IF we choose to view it as a system evolving slowly, by ugly lurches in all directions, towards our desired outcome, and persist in our action towards achieving that end, then we can get our success, over some period of time.

It used to be a commonplace to say "winners never quit; quitters never win". You saw it everywhere. I don't see it any more, presumably because the words "winner" and "quitter" are excessively value-laden and consequently unpleasantly judgmental.

I'm quite conversant on philosophy. I have studied the process of thinking, and how thinking atrophies in favor of rote habit and reflex far more than anyone I know, and more than likely most people on this planet.

What I see is conservatives proposing solutions, and leftists levelling criticism. What I don't see are constructive, actionable solutions.

You tell me what you think we ought to do, and why. I'm saying I believe we know the who's and the how's, and could put a plan into execution within a day that within six months would have kids riding their bikes on the streets again almost everywhere in Iraq. It would involve arresting Al Sadr, breaking apart his militia, and probably scaring the crap out of both the Syrians and Iranians. We CAN do it.

Where the Democrats come into the equation, is that almost ANY substantial use of force that is anything other than perfectly sanitary and cleancut gets roundly criticised, and then politicized. They used Iraq to take power here they are ill-equipped to handle. I don't think it will be long before the American people realize what's happened, and get pissed. We don't like losing wars, and there is no reason whatsoever we can't win this one.

I'm not saying "stay the course". I'm saying, let's qualitatively alter our tactics because what we're doing isn't working. Sort of like George Washington in Trenton. How many of you know what I'm talking about?

Just to clarify and not further reinforce stereotypes being a “liberal” and all: I love the military and I respect and admire the discipline, commitment and patriotism.... but I truly hate the way the current administration is using up and discarding some of our countries best and brightest.

Ricky

Here you go: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h679.html

It seems to be an unstated assumption, often on both sides of the debate, that the existence of civil strife in Iraq is evidence of the failure of our democratization policy. I don't think this assumption is correct. Look at our own history. The American Civil War had more American deaths than all our other wars combined. Was that because we were not ready for democracy? Was the North wrong to fight to preserve the Union? The cause of freedom in the Iraq should not be abandoned in exchange for the stability that the left's friends in Iran and Syria, in Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, would provide.

Stability is easy. Give the bully what he wants. All you need is a brutal dictator. Cuba has had a stable government for 50 years.

The Bush doctrine as I understand it is that the longing for freedom beats strongly in every human breast, and that it is in our long term (perhaps not short term) interests to help that longing come to fruition. Thus I don't see the Bush doctrine as being any different than John F. Kennedy's appeal that , "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge—and more."

I would like to see Bush and the American military get much more aggressive in Iraq, instead of half measures designed to appease critics, and guaranteed to fail.

Huge congrats to Fury on their big win and strong showing the last several years. A good friend of mine is on the team and is one of the reasons I've been playing Ultimate for a number of years now.

I'll echo #1 in saying that competitive Ultimate requires tremendous amounts of "explosive power, speed, agility, stamina, balance, coordination". I recently stopped playing for several months to focus on Crossfit. I was a little worried that without playing or practicing AT ALL for a period of several months, I would have a tough time playing in even a semi-competitive tournament. Turns out that even though I was still ramping up on Crossfit, it still put me in good shape for a grueling Ultimate tournament. It'll be interesting to see how things progress after I have some long-term Crossfit under my belt.

#12:

We should wait to gloat until Fox News calls for the troops to get out of Iraq. Oh yes, it will happen. If you doubt my prescience go back and read my rest day comments from the last year point five.

And, in all seriousness, I would not gloat: it is just awful what both the people of Iraq and our people in uniform have suffered and for what? An aborted attempt to steal the riches of the middle east for a few greedy, cynical, amoral super-rich families (AKA Bush-Cheny,etc.) Perhaps they never truly cared about the outcome: Haliburton, etc. have gotten rich on the death and destruction of the innocent and the guilty alike, and we a weaker as a nation because of it.

# 45 Barry- THANK YOU!!! You essentially said in that post what I was thinking and getting to write in much less eloquent terms.

Borat- you really like to point out everyone elses typo's and slight confusion of facts. Where is your mirror? Are you that perfect that is the only way that you can attack someone's opinions? How about voicing your own instead of saying how we are wrong?

Ricky- we are still in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, trying to snuff them out. Not only are Americans dying there but we have lost a lot of Canadian and English brothers, and Dutch as well as some from many other countries.

I've got to say, that being with my husband in the military community for 17 + years we have heard a lot from liberals throughout those years. The "Baby Killer" statements have given way to the "You Chose to sign up and do this" if we ever complained about the op tempo, or about the fact that my husband hasn't been able to go to college or take classes for the past 12 years. Or to see his kids grown up.
What I still hear the most is "You chose to do this". Well, that's right we did and we have sacrificed A LOT, and our kids have sacrificied alot without having an opinion originally in the matter. They are proud of their Dad and he is still their hero (at ages 14 and 12) and truly understand what sacrifice means. N just recently held an unprompted moment of silence with her class for one of her friends whose dad was killed last year. Even they know what will happen if we pull out of Iraq now. Talk about a house of cards falling down.

Joe- My husband has been in the Army for 17 years, (SF for the past 10) from a bit before the Gulf War until now, prior education was high school diploma, reason for joining was that there weren't very good long term job possibilities in rural Maine.
On a side note- Tomorrow is My husband and I's 20th anniversary. I don't just love him, I'm still "in" love with him, very proud of him, and he truly is my best friend! Uh oh, speaking of love and mushy stuff during a "war" conversation, that'll get me kicked out... :-)

Kate

#12 Coach:

I hope you are not calling me a liberal: you should know better! However you seem to have too much regard for the "liberty" of a slaughterhouse.

The UN said this month 100,000 people a month are fleeing Iraq. What are they fleeing from Liberty? Safety?

#36 Joe

1. Captain, US Army
2. 6 years, direct commission. Still serving. Two tours in Iraq with 10th SFG/CJSOTF
3. Joined simply to serve. Honestly. Walked away from med school tenured faculty position with NIH and AHA funding.
4. PhD

Ethan

Re: comment #35 (Joe)

I agree with just about everything you said, sadly. However I have one thing I want to point out reagarding...

"When was the last time YOU sacrificed for your country?"

Anyone who pays taxes every April sacrafices the first 4 or 5 months of their work year to fork over that money to pay government salaries. I'm not complaining since I have no better solution, but it's just incorrect to say that working Jan through April (roughly) just to pay taxes is not a sacrafice!

#36 Joe-
In addition to the what I listed above my husband is an E8.

Kate

Awesome picture. Ultimate Frisbee rocks!

Hey-

In the past 5 days we have lifted both the Front Squat and the Back Squat in sets of 3reps.

My FS was 80% of my BS. I'm pretty happy with that.

-K

Kate,

You should be proud of yourself. As hard as it is being an operator, I've heard it can be harder still, in some ways, being the wife of one. Hang in there. You have my respect, gratitude, and love.

I would add, aren't we in some respects talking about love throughout this thread? Love of our nation? Love of freedom? Even love of the Iraqi and Syrian and Iranian and Lebanese peoples? There are a lot of decent people in Iraq especially that are getting blown up, shot, and tortured. Yes, that was happening before, under Saddam. The difference is we're there now, and we can do something about it.

I have developed an ethical system based upon 3 core principles: the rejection of self pity, an attention to detail, and perseverance. You can build all traditional virtues from those three principles. Love, for example. How much use is love as an emotion if you are constantly feeling sorry for yourself? If you are oblivious to someone else's true needs? If you quit the moment things get tough?

In point of fact, love is giving others what they need, not what is convenient for you. It hurts to discipline kids, even though its' in their (and ultimately your) best interest. What gets you through that? Rejecting self pity, understanding the factual need for it, and the committment to do right by your kids. Not "love".

Love as it has come down to us is something immersive and which comes upon you. The Romantic conception of volitionless rapture. It's always about feeling good, and as soon as the feeling stops, you call it quits on "love". If it is painful to discipline your kids, you quit. This is the opposite of love.

What we are in effect seeing in the Democratic calls for withdrawal is their tacit sense that, "gosh, I'm just not feeling the whole "war vibe" thing any more. It was cool for a while, but all this death and destruction stuff is just wrecking my buzz. You know what I'm saying?"

The feeling is gone, and there never was a principle to begin with. They more or less went along, kicking and screaming, because the country wanted to send a clear message in the wake of 9/11.

That message--listen up all of you who persist, obstinately, and in vapid defiance of Bush's own articulated goals, in linking the Iraq War SOLELY to the purported link between Bin Laden and Hussein--was that America was once again prepared to use military force based upon abstract principles of international law, and her own self defense. Hussein was openly flouting the UN, and the ONLY nation willing and able to take him on was us. The Europeans--with the likely exception of the British--are by and large out of the military business. Yes, they contribute troops, which is good, and admirable. But the Dutch would not have been able to mobilize 250,000 people or whatever it was, to do the job.

If people will recall, Hussein told the inspectors to get out, Bush mobilized a credible force, Hussein started allowing inspections again, but kept playing games. Bush told him to stop, he didn't, and we invaded. Had we not invaded, we could not have afforded to keep that force there forever. The political will would have evaporated quickly. The second we vacated, Hussein would have once again kicked out the inspectors, and at some point felt sufficiently secure to go back into weapons production. That scenario, in my view, was so likely, it might as well be considered fact.

We went in, scared the crap out of the Iranians and Syrians, and shut them up for a while. The Syrians withdrew a lot of troops from Lebanon. Then, they realized that if they could get enough bombs and guns into Iraq, they could find people willing and able to shoot them, and destabilize the whole country. By destabilizing the country, they put us--not in a war of attrition, since we have taken relatively few casualties--but in a war of perception and will. They created political ammunition for American "failurists" (if I'm the first to say that, I'll claim it), and of course our actual enemies, such as Hezbollah and Al Queda.

Now they are offering to step in and help. I may have been born at night, but it wasn't in the process of landing on my head while falling from a turnip truck, to mix metaphors.

We seem to have become a nation of suburbanites who no longer have to deal with sociopathic violence, who no longer understand the evil that men do while claiming to do good. Who by and large have avoided their entire lives violent crime, violent people, and who consequently listen to rap music, and put up Scarface posters.

This stuff is real. It's not made-up. We're dealing with people who get off on watching people get decapitated, and who smile and laugh at it. Bin Laden was giggling after 9/11. Have we forgotten that?

Barry,

You must have as much time on your hands today as I do...

What I always enjoy about your postings is your absolute certainty. Unfortunatley, I don't have that certainty most of the time, so it is instructive to read it in action.

Here, perhaps, is how we think differently.

I'm glad you brought up GW at Trenton - and yes to your last question. I believe you also brought him up a while ago in the context on your reading the book 1776. As I recall, one lesson you took from the book was that a key to success in the American Revolution was the quality of perseverance and the strength of character of GW. You supported this with some reference to Ross Perot and concluded that this was an indication that the US should stay the course in Iraq (qualified today with: 'qualitatively alter our tactics because what we're doing isn't working', fine).

When I first read that I thought 'nice point, Barry'. But then I also thought, while in many cases perseverance can pay off and people often do quit too readily, can that be right in every case? How do we judge it in the case of Iraq? Further, what would a Jihadi who read 1776 think? If one puts oneself in his position I find it easy to see that his conclusion would be: our Resistance position in Iraq is akin to the Revolutionary position in the American colonies, where they were fighting to overthrow the English yoke, we the US; almost by definition the US is less committed in Iraq than we are (as with the English in America) - we can go nowhere else, they can go home - therefore we take the lesson of George Washington to be perseverance and strength of character will win us the day; we will use the lessons from the enemy's own history against him. This is exactly the same conclusion you reach from the other side. Who is right? I don't know, you are certain you do...

As for the article, I have a few issues with it, but they can mostly be summarised by examining the first couple of sentences:

"The emerging realist hypothesis plays regional stability off against democratic reform. We're presented with a choice: Peace or Freedom, i.e., to get to peace, we are apparently supposed to give up on freedom."

Actually, that is not the 'choice'; he is basing his whole article on a false choice he has made up. The choice is probably more along the lines of 'some peace now and maybe freedom later' (realists) or 'some freedom now and maybe peace later' (someone, not Berman, clearly, who sees things in black and white). The choice faced is messy, whatever the US chooses to do; there is no magic bullet. There are any number of factors economic, geopolitical, moral, etc. that need to be fed into a strategy in the region.

You say "What I see is conservatives proposing solutions, and leftists levelling criticism. What I don't see are constructive, actionable solutions." I see both sides proposing solutions (Engaging Syria and Iran and disengaging from Iraq at an appropriate time is a proposed solution, not a criticism; in fact to a Democrat it probably seems like 'let's qualitatively alter our tactics because what we're doing isn't working'. The fact that you don't see it as constructive or actionable is your opinion). I also see both sides levelling criticism - some fair some not.

Finally I don't share your optimism that your solution to Iraq "within six months would have kids riding their bikes on the streets again almost everywhere in Iraq." It didn't work for the French in Algeria; it hasn't worked for the Israelis against Hamas, Hizbollah, Fatah, whoever. The US faces resistance from people based on what they see as their land, who have no where else to go. My opinion, as of today, is that your strategy would not solve the Sunni issue, would antagonise the Shiites and drive the militias underground. Without some form of compromise Iraq will be a very long and gruelling struggle.

Since you are fond of historical analogies (as am I), the last time the world was going to implode if the US cut and run was supposed to be Vietnam - the dominoes would fall, no one would respect the US etc. What happened? The dominoes didn't fall; Vietnam didn't act as some base for evil communist plots; despite having the sht bombed out of them the Vietnamese actually appear to have minimal animosity against the US; while not democratic or 'free', they are experiencing the joys of commerce and one day will probably be democratic (there's a high correlation between economic prosperity and pluralistic political systems). It may take 50 years, but are you sure Iraq would not eventually follow a similar path?

Borat

PS Kate #51

I was under the impression that the rest day discussions were to encourage rigour in thinking after 3 days of rigorous WODs. Whether I offer opinions on this site should be neither here nor there - in fact, many opinions in the world at large are expressed with minimal thought. I'm sure Barry C, for one, would agree that an important component in exercising one's thinking is by someone 'saying how we are wrong'; similarly an important component in thinking is to try to establish where you see someone as wrong. Further, unlike some, I don't find any of these topics easy - I don't have easy opinions on them; in fact, my opinions often change as the facts on the ground change; nor do I have time to study them in the depth I would like to be able to state a firm conclusion. I am however using this forum as one means to educate myself on them.

Kate I am aware we are still in Afghanistan, we are losing that one also. We had a shot but may have blown it by our invasion of Iraq which let to a major insurgency and civil war. Our attentions were diverted from the good fight to the oil war.

Again, this liberal supports out troops. I also support REASON and abhor blind faith in institutions that require and perform best under scrutiny by an active citizenry. I respect your familial commitment to the military. I respect my family’s commitment to the military but labeling someone as a liberal because they don’t fit the YES MAN mold is silly.

Our allies, especially the English are paying dearly for their support. Blair is known as Bush’s lackey around the world.

ricky

Did yesterdays WOD today back squats
3x20lbs
3x30lbs
3x50lbs
3x50lbs
3x60lbs
3x70lbs
3x70lbs
felt good today!!!!!!!!!!

Sporadic fire from a passer-by.

1. Borat - your last post is well reasoned, polite, and worthy of emulation.
2. Whoever is "gloating" deserves a smack. Gloating over what? Hahaha - we were right? About what? What was your initial premise? The troops withdrawal proves you were right? Now THAT's some ascendant logic.
3. Ethan # 53 - Currently back on active duty after 12 years previously. Marine O4. Former Cobra guy, now attorney. Had a chance to study astronomy and physics at Carnegie Mellon out of high school but went for an ROTC scholarship at BU instead - why? because I saw Tom Cruise kissing Kelly McGillis and I thought that would be WAAYYY cool. Life happens.
4. I was against the invasion of Iraq because I thought it detracted from Afghanistan, where the terrorists were. They've moved about 15 miles east, into the FATA of Pakistan and that's where they sit now, plotting and planning. (No accident that the London Bombings were by people with ties to Pakistan and the aborted recent plane bombings were by Brits of Pakistani origin.) Despite that, once we went into Iraq, we had to do it right or risk becoming the next recruiting poster for jihadis, like the Russians leaving Afghanistan. Yes, I know, we had our hand in that - arguably, however, it helped hasten the demise of the Soviet Union. At the time, hard to argue with that foreign policy position.
5. Take my word on this from conversations with friends in that part of the world, the perception among jihadis is that they (the mujahidin) defeated the Russians single-handedly. They do not care about the effect of the Stinger missile (provided by us) or other aid pumped in by the ISI from Pakistan. Bin Ladin has played on that sentiment repeatedly. If we simply pull chocks on Iraq now, it will not be in our long term interests. By any stretch. Maybe Maximus and others will be able to "gloat" then, but our kids will be reaping that whirlwind for a long time to come.

Oh, and one more -
I don't know enough about Lebanon to comment intellligently on the article and this discussion has obviously digressed (like almost all rest days) to Iraq. But I remember joking way back as a new LT that when the troops were in the first Iraq War, we should probably take a left and clean up Syria before leaving.

That regime is covertly and overtly doing everything it can against us and has been for a LOONNNNNG time. It's too bad, because a friend from Damascus tell me the city is beautiful.

RC #40,

Several months back I checked the sites of Amnesty International and a handful of other NGO’s keeping score of the body count accrued through the ongoing exhumations of Saddam’s mass graves. I took the most conservative (lowest) of these estimates and added the Iraqi war dead from Saddam’s ill fated attempt at taking Iran. Amortizing these deaths over Saddam’s 30 years produced a daily body count far in excess of the wildest estimates (liberal) I could find of the post invasion toll. Easy math. Do it yourself. You tell me. I didn’t need historians’ permission to make the comparison.

BTW, a regime where innocent men, women, and children can be killed by random acts of violence (terrorism) is a preferable existence to one where moral, intellectual, and leadership talent is routinely and systematically eliminated – regardless of relative body count.

Borat #42,

If you reread my post and Marcus’s, you’ll see that you’ve made a couple of obvious errors. I neither quoted Marcus nor misapprehended his point as you seemingly have. How could you have missed: “forget about democracy in the middle east, if that's what your suggesting. pipe dream pal.”? Now, I’ve quoted him, and my characterization was perfectly accurate, wasn’t it?

I was hoping that Marcus would offer the “not ready/it takes time” response, because that sentiment is the capstone argument of Libertarians and Conservatives (NeoCons) urging restraint on Liberals proposing sanctions for authoritarian regimes while habitually heaping favor, toasts, hugs, and kisses on totalitarians. (Ask for examples!) (“Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and Reason in Politics” - Jeane J. Kirkpatrick is a brilliant analysis of this problem.) The “not ready it takes time” angle is a losing (and wholly disingenuous) gambit for Lefties and I wanted Marcus to play it.

For the record, and to partly answer your question, I believe that Democrat leadership 1) doesn’t think that freedom is worth fighting for – anywhere, 2) are saddened by the lower than the pre-invasion projected American GI toll, and 3) would support any policy that looked popular enough to win elections.

Finally, I’m amused but not surprised by your objection to my reference to “concentration camps”. Borat, the Left has no problem befriending the builders of concentration camps and is quick to heap totalitarian attributes on all but brutal totalitarians. (Ask for examples!) I’ll not make that mistake nor use the language of totalitarian reality in hyperbole (ghetto, mass murder, genocide, Nazi, Fascist, concentration camp, etc.). Saddam’s Iraq was little different than a nation transformed into a concentration camp. (The realities of Baathist Iraq were wildly sufficient moral justification for deposing Saddam, or invading Iraq and deposing Saddam.)

Coach,

I almost forgot the reason we are all here, I got caught up in the debate at hand.

My presses are all way up; I am running faster, punching harder and generally kicking more ass while reshaping my body and losing weight. I am at 179 from 195, but much stronger than I was and 2 inches slimmer in the waist.

This works!!!! Plain and simple. My boxing team is on board as well as the wife and some of my friends. We are all making amazing gains and becoming truly well rounded, better athletes.

THANK YOU COACH.

Ricky

couldn't get to my swim practice tonight because of a mess diner...had to do my own little workout
Four times for time of:
10 pull-ups
20 push-ups (10 lbs weight on shoulders)
30 sit-ups (10 lbs medicine ball thrown on wall)
40x 20 lbs overhead squats
50 wall-ball (10 lbs ball)
200m sprint
200m jog

age 20
BW 150
time 24:35

As a life long Conservative (Business/Libertarian wing specifically) with a very demanding day (and often night) job I never get to go to the rest day party. I do, however, try to read up on the weekends or whenever I get a break. Well, screw the company for a few minutes, there’s one thing that’s been troubling me, if anyone has the time to explain. Thanks in advance.

I'm always bothered in the rest day discussion, and it's always the same discussion, by the overly simplistic notion equating an anti-war position with liberalism.

Now I'm sure that I too am guilty of over simplifying the situation, but as I recall a couple of the basic tenants of Conservatism include limited government, and the notion of self reliance (i.e. individual liberty and responsibility). That being the case could one not make a sensible and valid argument that the Iraq war specifically and the Middle East democratization process generally are, at the core, liberal undertakings.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to make that argument in full, but anyone still reading this is certainly aware of the rapid expansion of government and governmental powers over the course of this experiment. I don’t have the numbers (or the inclination to pursue them) but with the creation of an entirely new (and thus far incompetent, Katrina) bureaucracy alone, we must be closing in on something of Great Society proportions.

And individual responsibility? I’ll turn Mr. Coach’s initial question on it’s ear:

Are Arabs incapable of self determination; can they not decide for themselves how they want to live? Are they not smart enough to want to live like us? Can we identify other peoples whom we’d like to mold into our likeness?

If self determination and individual liberty are so damn important for you and I, why would we take that opportunity away from Joe Iraqi? By forcing our vision on him we have obliterated any notion that he can determine his own destiny without our assistance. A liberal notion if ever there was on, affirmative action anyone?

The obvious response is that today’s Arabs don’t have the freedom necessary to pursue any concept of self-determination under the repressive regimes in place (regimes that in many cases we installed, but that’s a much longer treatise). The interested reader needs look no further than our own bloody quest for liberty for a template. Not discounting the Naval contributions of self-interested Frenchmen, we pulled that off ourselves…because we wanted it.

An alternate response is that the world has changed, and we need to change with it. To which I respond, a belief system that can be cast aside so readily was not truly held in the first place.

When the Arabs want it they’ll do it, and all our meddling will not expedite that process and is likely slowing it. We cannot force liberty on people, people must take/make liberty. The notion that we can give someone self-determination is non-sensible, hence SELF. But how will people know how to be without us showing them the way? Isn’t that what you’re really asking? Where is the conservatism in that?

Having already spent more time on this than I intended I’ll offer up a few words on “Next Steps”. In short, I support the China model of international relations, live and let live, can we do business? Does that mean that China is not guilty of international meddling? Of course not, 6 million Tibetan can’t be wrong. Does this mean that I support the Chinese government’s repression of its own people? I could care less about how China treats its own people. I respect the Chinese people and support them in whatever path they choose. If they want to change it they will. As long as they keep loaning us money, buying our stuff, selling us theirs, and not shooting at me and you I’ll be happy. I should also note that in all my years of international travel the only negative comments I’ve ever heard directed at the Chinese government were spoken by native Chinese. And as I told my son recently, if he plans to follow me into business he needs to study Mandarin next year in college.

And with that I conservatively turn it over to you, thanks in advance for an intelligent exchange.

Coach #64,

You are quite right, you did not directly quote Marcus on the fiasco point, my mistake. I presume that you misread him and your question should therefore have been either: "Could you elaborate on your view that democratization of the Middle East is a [pipedream]?" or "Could you elaborate on your view that democratization of [Iraq] is a fiasco?" (How's that for petty, Kate?)

Thanks you for the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick book tip - looks interesting, although a quick look on Amazon indicates it will be hard to come by.

As for concentration camps, I expressed no objection to your use of the term other than the fact that Barry C has accused Leftists of using similar evocative terms, implying that others don't, while my observation would be that similar terms are used indiscriminately by all sides.

Michael Ledney # 67,

Very nice post, very deserving of a response. Unfortunately, no time to do it justice now; please check back in a couple of days...

In fact, Mr. Coach, how about rustling up an article on the subject, or approximately, on one of these rest days?

Borat

i'm not going to waste time debating any ludicrous assertion that iraq is safer now than it was under saddam. please.

michael ledney #67 -- you win best post of the day award. thanks for sticking to your conservative values, all of which i share.

(i only wish republican politicans were similarly conservative. perhaps we wouldn't have sunk $1 trillion into iraq. and perhaps 40% of every tax dollar wouldn't have to be spent on interest on national debt. very sad.)

Borat- yes, it is always good to have someone point out our faults and weaknesses, so we can correct them and change and hopefully become better human beings. My point was that it appears as though you like to nit pick the details of other posts and in doing so miss the meaning of what the person was saying. No hard feelings.

I come from a very liberal family (Bra burning, peace/ anti war marching) and they were some of the people that called my husband a baby killer, and it was not in jest. Only a few of my relatives respect our decision to remain in the military, most of all of them I have lost touch with because of their unacceptance of our decision to stay in.

We are not all 'Yes men'. Actually, I know of no 'Yes Men', I do know a lot of very opinionated men that will tighten their jaw and stiffen their back when someone is spewing anti war statements. But they will not go after the other person the same way out of respect. They can respect the other person's statements against the war but it sometimes feels like that same respect is not reciprocated.

Sometimes it is unclear what someone's intent is when the say that they are "for the troops" but want the troops to pull out. Sure, I want my husband to come home, more than anything, but I also know that if we pull out right now from Iraq and Afghanistan then there will be this immense vacuum and all of the Terrorists will look at each other and then yell, "Let's Get 'em!" and come down our streets and get us on our land. It will be for moot that our guys were dying over there. They are dying over there so we don't have to die over here. If it came to the Terrorists fighting us here on our land would you pick up a gun and fight them? Would you do as they did in the Revolutionary war and pay all that you had to financially support the war and still go out in the fields and fight hand and foot to defend your property?

Kate

Barry,

You state: "I have developed an ethical system based upon 3 core principles: the rejection of self pity, an attention to detail, and perseverance. You can build all traditional virtues from those three principles."

You also state: "I'm quite conversant on philosophy. I have studied the process of thinking, and how thinking atrophies in favor of rote habit and reflex far more than anyone I know, and more than likely most people on this planet."

One quick question: can you derive modesty from your three principles? Just wanted to know...

"BTW, a regime where innocent men, women, and children can be killed by random acts of violence (terrorism) is a preferable existence to one where moral, intellectual, and leadership talent is routinely and systematically eliminated – regardless of relative body count."

I would accept the validity of this statement ONLY from someone who has lived in both conditions - eg a resident Iraqi. Otherwise the words are utterly hollow.

I would also like a link for the death-rate studies you mention. The Lancet report, (which found the death rate post war to be FAR higher) was slated, mainly due to the difficulties they encountered in determining a pre-war figure. However, various sources, ranging from the US Cencus Bureau to the World Health Organisation place the post war mortality rate higher than pre war. I am interested to see what other studies have been done - especially ones that contradict this.

i'm infamous, among those who are forced to listen to me on a regular basis, for far-flung analogies. i'm going to try one here.

our situation in Iraq is kinda like this:

there you are, barreling down an empty road late at night, in a hurry because you're late for an appointment. you spent a little too much time sippin the ol' sizzurp. there happens to be someone walking on the shoulder. you clip this person, who in turn nails a tree and dies. you have two options:

cut-and-run. just keep driving, act like you didn't see anything. you'll probably be alright long-term (no vehicle damage, most likely no witnesses), but you'll definately be better off short-term.

stay the course. pull over. call for help. you can probably hide the mild intoxication (besides, you DO have a cold), and anyway, he was walking in the street! yea, it'll be difficult, and you might just get a dui. but if nothing else, decency and honor compels you to do right by the victim.

of course, none of this would have happened if you weren't driving drunk in the first place (http://www.alternet.org/rights/44815/). but you were - now what to do?

and i think a lot of the debate about what to do now is informed overmuch by the fact that we were driving drunk. it's no small coincidince that those who want to cut and run are also the most preoccupied with the drunk driving bit.

trying to shrug off the consequences isn't going to undo the initial action.

...i suppose the usefullness of analogies (especially mine) can be debated, i just felt like contributing.

Harry MacD (#28): There is a longer version of the Fumento piece on Ramadi up on The Weekly Standard:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/985qugel.asp?pg=1

It's worth reading for his closing section, "Are We Winning?"

The print version of that issue of The Weekly Standard pays special tribute to Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor who sacrificed his life to save those of his comrades.

To the "Cut and Run" supporters:
You're right... We're not safer here now, nor is Iraq safer. Their fearless leader only gave money to the families of suicide bombers, shot at our's and NATO's planes patroling the Kuwait/Iraq border everyday. Raped and slaughtered his own people at will. Not to mention had enough weapons and munitions stockpiled to outfit his military 3 fold. But hey you're right. We're not safer at all. The whole world isn't a better place.

If you could of seen the looks on the faces of the poeple of Iraq when they finally were taken out from under his reign of terror, you would have a whole different opinnion. Especially when you heard the horror stories of the late night raids by the Bathists for women to rape and have their way with. How would you feel if a group of militants kicked in your door, put a gun to your head and was going to make a permanent window in your dome if you fought against them taking your wife. And if that didn't stop you, they would do the same to your kids before they smoked you.

The first time an Iraqi lady came up to me in tears holding her daughter saying thank you in Arabic, it all made sense. I know that Iraq and the U.S. is better because of us as a nation and what we've done there. We just can't lose sight of the mission and remember that Japan wasn't rebuilt and made an alli over night.

I know my spelling is not up to par. I banged this out at the gym w/people all around getting ready to workout in hopes that some of the J-Holes that think we need to cut and run will read it and at least give some thought that turning Iraq over to insurgents would only make it a bigger mess. Then again some people may want to see a terrorist training camp the size of a small country. I agree... It was a big Concentration Camp.

RC- I never lived there, other then some "Visits". So I don't know if you'll accept the validity of my above statemnet or think that they are hollow as well.

please stop using "cut and run." this term was developed by the imbecile zealots who got us into this mess in the first place. stop being sheep.

Kate (#51): Congratulations on your 20th! Bless you and your family.

Can't we just get everyone in the Middle east to play Ultimate? The winner gets all the oil!

Honestly, I don't comment on these rest days, but I really enjoy the disscusion and dialog. I have gained alot of education from everyone's posts. I truly feel we as Americans must educate ourselves more on many different issues if we want to play on the world stage.

Thanks for the conversation Coach.

#36 Joe

I am an Army Staff Sergeant with 8 years in. I joined straight out of high school because someone has to serve and not everyone will. I also kind of figured I owed it to those that came before me to carry on. I have completed over 150 credit hours towards a college degree (got to stop switching majors), learned Chinese, and did a volunteer tour in Iraq to do combat forensics of post blast, IED, VBIED, and bomb maker homes; in the attempt to stop those making the bombs killing our guys. I did all of that not because I am less than intelligent or couldn't get a decent career, but because it is something that has to be done and well I really love my job. I have to say though that it always makes me laugh at the ignorance of some people when they say that no intelligent person who could get a decent career would ever join the military. I happen to know a lot of military people that have given up six figure jobs because they love this work. So props to all the military and ex-military on this site for what you do on a day to day basis, and to all of those that support them.

Kate,

My major congratulations to you on your 20 years of marriage. I have always thought that spouses have it worse than we do. You are an inspiration.

Very well said Kate. I don't pretend to know a lot about the political ins and outs of war, but I do know that I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for everyone in the military. Where would the rest of us be without those willing to fight for and defend our country? Prayers out to your husband and all others.

Crossfitters come and go, but the arguments about rest day posts unite us all.

Just back from vacation where I consumed nothing but fat and warm flat beer. Getting back into the CF groove. Yesterday I did 7 rounds of full warmup in 20 minutes (+20 secs). Today did 5x 1000m rowing sprints. Times 3:58, 4:08, 4:13, 4:08, 4:04.

Tariq

Hey-

HS wrestling warm up,

DL 335 x 5x5

Cool down with an Amber Bock, ... or two.

-K

CFWU x3
5k row- :21::12

Had to get out and do something. Rowing felt ok on my back, so I took it easy and just cruised.

MWU- It's like Deja-Vu. If you know a better way to describe a policy that would basicly be "cutting" your losses and "running" home, let me know. Hmmmm, Sounds like something that I heard before. Oh that's right.... Somalia. It worked there right?

Time to go home and work on that 6 pack. The one in my fridge. Arrrrggghhhh!!!

Get some, Go again!

we finally squeezed in a workout after our a fire. We did a the 3 bars of Mediacroty(Death on a diet). With 5 guys and limited supplies we did 200#DL, 60#BP w/DB, 135lb Cleans, and 10 hammer blows each side after each set and finished around 20 min.

Had to improvise at work before Vball tonight. The batteries on the ghetto C2 rower were dead hence timed rowing instead of distance.

6:00 row
75 squats
15 bar dips
4:00 row
50 squats
12 bar dips
2:00 row
25 squats
9 bar dips

22:02

Today i worked out with my dad

I did 5 rounds of

hill sprint
10 45 pound backsquat
10 handstand pushups

My time was 26:25

Today i worked out with my dad

I did 5 rounds of

hill sprint
10 45 pound backsquat
10 handstand pushups

My time was 26:25

Very proud of keegan. Handstand pushups have eluded him until today.

My workout:
3 Rounds
Hill sprint
3 Rope Climbs
10 Monkey Swings
10 HSPU

17:30

Zach,

My friend. Don't you know the answer to that? Of course.

It falls within the detail section. The more you know, the less you know. The deeper you drill, the bigger the topic becomes, and the smaller you get. Ask anybody that is a genuine master in anything. They know nothing. I have dozens of pages written on this topic.

The thing is, there is a continuum between what we might call the "spirit of exploration", and what we might call "where the rubber meets the road". In situations like this, decisions have to be made, perceptions have to formed.

I know I could be wrong. So could you. One of the possible benefits of this forum is that, in the course of hashing out ideas on controversial topics, we might actually come up with new ideas.

I'm throwing new stuff out there all the time.

I do have to say though, that for some of us anyway, there is this moment where it feels like the mind control chip has been removed, and we're like: what the h@#$ is these people's problem?

You know what? We could achieve peace in the Middle East within 2 years or less. Who is creating all the trouble, besides the drama we have in Iraq? Syria, Hezbollah (proxy for Iran, and more proximately Syria), and the Palestinians. Iran is threatening to add their name directly to the list, but hasn't yet.

If those groups, collectively, didn't feel they had substantial political constituencies in the West they could rely on, they would quickly be forced to negotiations. As it is, every time the Palestinians kill Israelis, it's too bad, but what they had coming. Every time the Israelis kill Palestinians, it's a war crime.

If Ahmadinedjad wants to say the Zionist racist pigs should die, then he's allowed poetic license. Anti-Zionism is so 80's, it's almost like retro-chic.

If an Israeli ever calls any group of Arabs depraved amoral sociopathic cretins, expect to read about in every language available on this planet. Hell, if there are Martians, they will know about it, too. And the editorials will make them wonder what's wrong with those racist Israelis.

Once you get through this mental fog, the fact that these issues are even discussed from a position of moral ambiguity makes you feel like your brain is being fried in Nancy Reagan's frying pan.

Good evening all,
I thougt I would post. I know that many of us are in the military and have our own views. I have heard republicans and democrats accuse and point fingers, but in the end America chose that partisian politics needs to take a rest. There is no simple way out and there were way to many WTF moments as to why we went into this war but now it is here and it will cause historic changes. In my opinion, we need to pull out. I heard an argument for the complete withdrawel and I looked at the historic evidence when we have done just that. Overall, it has led to a lessening of violence. Many folks are being recruited to combat us in the name of fighting the infidels. Iraq is in a civil war that is plain and simple. We had ours and they now have theirs but it must be left in the hands of the people of that nation. We are proud of our nation and the ideals that we represent. They must find their own way through the fog so to speak to find a peace. In conflict however it usually comes down to who can mobilize and fight harder and smarter. In the end we need to stop bickering amongst ourselves and begin to see that be it Dems. or Reps. in the end we are different people with different ideas trying to find a soultion to a hard problem. Enough with the back biting and let's get to solving our issues. Have a good night. I don't support the war but every night I pray for my brethern for a safe return.

Barry,

Thanks for the kind response. I was just joshing you. (But you knew that.)

We've voiced our disagreements in the past (and civilly), so there's no need to rehash them here. I would argue, though, that "we" can't achieve peace in the Middle East in two years. The "Middle East" might be able to do so, but, for an area with hundreds of years of colonial history under its belt, any intervention by a foreign power -- whether it be benign or benevolent -- will be seen as an irritant and opposed as such, whether it be on rational or irrational grounds. Peace in the Middle East, whether it be in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, etc., has to be an organic process, which, admittedly, is an open-ended and indeterminate affair.

I'm interested to know what your training in philosophy is. I'm a year away from my doctorate in philosophy and theology (at Claremont Graduate University), though I could have attended your alma mater, UChicago. Having been baptized in the Continental tradition, your articulation of "thinking" sounds somewhat familiar, though I have a hard time dissociating the notion of thinking from my Kantian/critical theoretical training. At least with critical theory, thinking "thinks outside of thought itself," and tries to consider possibilities yet unknown. I think you're occasionally headed in this direction, though I often sense a more Lockean strain to what you are terming "thinking." Am I headed down the right path, here?

~Zach

Rest day workout = cut/split wood 1 hour.
Run one mile

Comment on article: amazing how someone could write a whole article and not mention the elephant in the room - A Christian leader of a traditionally Christian nation was assasinated by Muslims who are in the process of trying to take over. World War III in a nutshell. Like it or not this problem will not go away by itself nor will it be contained to the Middle East. The few Lebanese people I have known over the last 20 years all said the same thing, "Leabanon is a Christian country. It was stolen from us and we want it back."

You know, Tobias, I understand what you are saying. It may seem contradictory, but I am a peacenik. I have never been in war, but I've had good friends who have, and from what they tell me, there is nothing beautiful about it. It's an awful, awful, thing. I have zero romantic illusions about it. It's pools of blood, and pieces of bodies strewn all over the place. It's something good people find their way through, not something they enjoy. It's fatigue, flies, dust in your crotch, and feet that want to fall off. There's likely more, that others can fill in.

I think about withdrawing, and even though I'm not the one there, it makes me feel good. It's a relief. Finally, the damn thing is done.

Then, it hits me: it isn't done. The people--however many they may have been--who trusted us, who took our word when we said we would cover their asses when they became mayor/police chief/battalion commander/your pick, still want us there. They want people they can rely on, as they try--against the odds--to build their own country.

These people are there. There are heroes, I believe, arising out of the Iraqi people. People who are willing to risk their lives for a better future for their people and their families. There are no doubt many corrupt elements, and people with less noble ideals, but the people we need, the people with dreams: I believe they are there. I'm not there, so I can't say I've shaken their hands, but my gut tells me that--as different as Iraqi and American cultures may be--there are people in Iraq who genuinely want freedom.

Michael Ledney,

I read your post a couple hours ago. Your point is well taken. Where is the flame, the spark, of intense desire for freedom? Shouldn't the whole country be on fire for freedom, for self determination?

My take on this is that, historically, the "George Washingtons", as Coach has put it, have been exterminated. What we have left, are the next generations of George Washingtons, who have seen what happened to the last generation. Something about being tortured to death tends to put a damper on many peoples' political aspirations.

At the same time, many people are making the effort. They made the effort to vote, and they are frequently caught in whatever line the terrorists find them in now, such as police, or military. And killed.

It takes a tough SOB to persist in that sort of environment, and as far as I can tell, they are doing it.

Zach,

I depend a bit on Edward de Bono, who I like a lot, and a bunch on my own set of what I call heuristics. I make up my own stuff when I can't find anything that suits the purpose.

I've read quite a bit of philosophy on my own. I was compelled to read Kant, Hegel, Leibniz, and some others in grad school. Descartes, Plato, Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, Camus and many others, I've read on my own.

All that stuff, it makes sense up to a point. What interests me, though, is not so much the content of thinking, as the form it takes. What is the process.

I learned a long time ago that I could create a compelling argument for darn near anything, right or wrong. I could probably argue the case of the "Endloesung" or the Southern approach to race, if I had to. That doesn't make either right, of course.

I would probably be a darn good attorney. Not that there's anything wrong with that. (with apologies to the appropriate parties).

My big hit on career aptitude was "advertising executive". Well, I've met some ad folks, and that is a tough, tough, ethically challenged business. I'll stay where I'm at.

Did we meet in Santa Cruz at the May Cert?

Thank you all for the well wishes for my husband, kids, and me. Here's looking at another 20, 40 or 60!

Kate

# 96 Barry-
Race relations in the South? Now That would be an interesting rest day topic!

Kate

Ray: 1 hr weight training
Will: 1 hr weight training and 30 min cardio

QA4, Afghanistan

Barry,

Unfortunately, I've not been to a CrossFit certification seminar. I'm still not an "orthodox" CrossFitter, though I've used a lot of the principles (I had the honor of taking classes on kinesiology and resistance training from Stephen Fleck -- who trains Olympians and has written a number of books on the topic -- at Colorado College) in designing my own personal program.

I also agree about the "arguability" of just about anything in philosophy. Some are troubled by the seemingly recent move towards relativism in the West, but the open-ended nature of philosophical discourse has been around for some time. It is a bit troubling, though, and one of my advisors has often remarked that graduate education ends up making everyone a relativist.

A process orientation to thinking is fairly recent, and not many -- despite modern discoveries in science -- have yet to see that thinking is a process that is often iterative, inordinately complex, "irrational" at multiple levels, and meaning oriented. Of course, the often irrational or unconscious values that inform thinking are the bedrock of the process itself, and the process of thinking should normatively include a concept of self-criticism which brings even these values to light...

Just my thoughts after a post-workout dinner...

Response to number 36:

I served from 1989 - 1994 as a Navy corpsmen, primarily with the Ist Recon Bn/Co, and briefly with 1st Force Recon. I served in the gulf (shield/storm) and Somalia (restore hope). I am currently a physician with a wife and two kids. As a descendent of William Bradford, my forefathers have fought in every war and skirmish the U.S. has ever been involved in, including both sides of the Civil war.

I joined the military after 1.5 yrs of college. Ran out of money. Worked in an iron foundry for three months after college, but decided after some conversations with the old timers that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life there. Talked to a Navy recruiter on Friday and left on Monday. Why did I join? Wanted out of my hometown, didn't want to be the first generation not to serve, wanted to test myself, wanted to be part of something bigger than myself, secretly wanted to be a Navy Seal (found out that colorblindness excluded me after basic - made it to dive school/recon/force anyways after becoming a "doc" and basically doing my own dive physical; FTS). Anyways, when I signed up it was not because I wanted to save Arabs from other Arabs, or save Somailians from other Somalians. But, doing so gave me the opportunity to acheive some of the other things on my list. I don't believe that most of the people currently serving signed up to prevent Iraqis from killing other Iraqis. Did you? As for the mission of setting up a democracy, was that our original intention? Or was it to rid Iraq of WMD's/terrorists. When no WMD's were found, the reason for the ivasion/occupation seemed to change to first dethroning Sadame for crimes against humanity, and and then to establishing a democratic government in Iraq. Only time will tell if the war made the world a safer place, or just turned Iraq into a petri dish for anti-U.S. sentiment and future terrotists. While the war may have allowed some military members to achieve some of their goals, I suspect that this is little conselation for the families of the thousands of soldiers/sailors/marines who have died.
Just my 2 cents.

Marcus #70,

Not only will you not waste time “debating any ludicrous assertion that Iraq is safer now than it was under Saddam”, but you’ll also not engage meaningfully on the criteria for which I make the assertion – body count of innocents. You have a Liberal’s fondness for the seeming calm of totalitarian life. (“With Saddam the trains were on time”.) Step away from Pelosi and Katie Couric for a moment: If far fewer innocents are being butchered everyday, doesn’t this support my contention?

If you’re unwilling to waste time debating my contention, why don’t you offer a scintilla of evidence for your contention that Iraq is more dangerous post Saddam? I believe you cannot, but more importantly that it is essential to your world view to never let any quantitative or otherwise substantive argument challenge the “Bush Lied; Millions Died” logic of the Left.

RC #73,

Of course you found my words to be hollow. What I offered was a moral observation on the value of liberty, and you drew a blank – heard nothing. Your education has failed you.

Studies? Mortality rates? Lancet? Are you kidding me? Mortality rates published by totalitarian regimes are, like their reported literacy rates, and their history books, never trusted by intelligent people. Bodies can be hid but can also be dug up. (They’re harder to hide than most facts.) Count the corpses instead. (Assume not all of them have or will be found.)

Saddam was engaged in genocide and mass murder. You’ve chosen to ignore it. History will not be able to distinguish your and Marcus’ “peaceful Iraq under Saddam” view (my characterization, not yours) from the Holocaust deniers’ pitiful claims.

http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/pdf/iraq_mass_graves.pdf Tell me this is faked, or U.S. propaganda and I’ll bring you the same info from NGO’s historically and reflexively critical of U.S. policy.

Tell us all, RC, that the current rate of butchering innocents in Iraq is remotely comparable to what transpired under Baathist rule. Go ahead.

“More dangerous today” my ass.

"Of course you found my words to be hollow. What I offered was a moral observation on the value of liberty, and you drew a blank – heard nothing. Your education has failed you."

Actually, what you offered was a personal opinion about a situation you have no direct experience of, made from the saefty of your computer.

I do not deny or choose to ignore the butchery that went on under Sadaam, so please don't twist my words to better suit your argument. I merely asked for you to direct me to the studies you quoted before, particularly the one from Amnesty International. Nice touch with the "holocaust denier" parallel though. Not at all applicable to my argument, but hey lets not let such trivia stand in the way of yet another triumphant soundbite.

Probably a little late in the conversation, but this thread has been troubling me since I started reading it yesterday. What's really bugging me is the gulf between our own left and right. The left accuses the right of lying about why we're there, the right accuses the left of treason.

If it's so hard for us to settle our own differences and determine a course of action that's best for US, I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for the Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds, faced with the choice of keeping their country unified or carving it into pieces, with the unhelpful pressure of the local and international jackals and vultures waiting to pick over the spoils.

I dunno. Seems to me Gandhi was right more often than Hitler, and that Christ had a more lasting influence than Caesar. Maybe I'm just a diehard peacenik (though I earned it honestly, with 4-1/2 years of Army service), but my point is, courage and violence don't always go hand in hand...sometimes the most courageous action is to respond to violence with kindness and love. (Yeah, I know, kumbaya, but I can nail a target at 400 yards with an M-16 more often than not, too.)

What I'd really like to see is a more honest dialog within our political system about our true goals in the Middle East. I mean, if we can't agree on what "victory" (or even "mission accomplished") means, how the heck are we supposed to help Iraq achieve it? Saddam's gone, yet Iraqis and Americans are still killing and dying brutally every day. That's the situation we're in today. Let's stop swimming in the backwash of how we got there and start moving forward.

RC #103,

“Actually, what you offered was a personal opinion about a situation you have no direct experience of, made from the safety of your computer.”

That is exactly correct. I needn’t experience, first hand, the barely imaginable brutality of a police state to reject it. I needn’t have members of my immediate family stacked like cordwood to recognize the horror of mass murder. I needn’t be of targeted ethnicity to speak out against genocide. I don’t have to toil for years in a Gulag to reject despotism. (I am not a liberal.)

Your acknowledgment of the butchery under Saddam well enough answers your question, “Iraq is now safer????” Unless, of course, you’re willing to maintain that the current chaos is consuming lives at a rate that maintaining the Baathist regime did. I’ve not seen anyone willing to make that claim.

The claim that Iraq has been made more dangerous fails the test of examining pre-invasion Iraq.

Coach, RC, it seems you need to tighten up what you are arguing about or you will stay in your present sht fight, cleaving to your own definitions and arguing past each other. Pick your own definition and you can both win this thing...

Coach says he has figures showing that annualised over 30 years more died under Saddam than have died, annualised, since the US went into Iraq (over and above the steady state rate, which is difficult to prove). Got it.

But, what's the annualised figure for the 3 years leading up to the invasion versus the period after? For the 4,5,6 years leading to the invasion? Take the Iran/Iraq war out of Coach's numbers and what do they show? Ask the average Iraqi whether it's safer or not pre or post US and (regardless of his answer), do you think he is thinking "hmm, over the last 30 years xyz", or on a shorter timescale?

Or is he thinking locally? It's probably safer in Kurdistan and Basra - is it safer in Baghdad and Ramadi?

Coach: you offered your sources, RC asked for the studies.

Borat

Richard # 14. Oil price manipulation? Nice guess, but why guess? US Policy and the reasons for the war and its major campaigns are set out in Public Law. You should read PL 105-338, 107-40, 107-235, and 107-243, the latter signed with great unanimity by the left and the right, and ignored by the media, left and right. Your fanciful theory is without support.

Mark #101. Same advice as for Richard. What passes as the dialog on the reasons for war, and which you reiterate, don’t find support in the historical record. Bush’43 was morally convinced Saddam had stockpiles of WMDs, but he was unable to convince anyone. He failed at the UN and he failed in Congress. Read the 23 reasons for the Iraq campaign in PL 107-243.

Adam #16. Chomsky is a totally predictable leftist, and it infects his science. Linguistics: the science of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and historical linguistics. Random House Unabridged Dictionary on-line. All form and no substance. Chomsky could make his mark here because his chosen field included neither logic nor rationality.

Dan #17. As ill-defined as civil war is, it excludes war fomented by an outside power. Civil war is so loosely defined it encompasses the Hatfield-McCoy feud.

Regardless of the definition, labeling the Iraq campaign as a civil war serves a couple of purposes. First, intervening in a civil war is forbidden by the UN charter. That makes Bush’s War illegal! Second, Bush (& Congress) called Iraq a thrust in the GWOT. If instead it is a civil war, then Bush is a liar.

The Democrats want to control, and the core of the Party is unconditionally anti war and pro left. They are pro the Troops and pro US, but each in defeat. They won’t repeat their PR of Vietnam veteran abuse, but they are pro US in the sense of how they would reshape the country – socialistic and anti-capitalistic, with them in power, of course.

The left successfully defeated the US in Vietnam by a strategy comprising maybe a dozen tactics. One was to declare the conflict a civil war. In that way, the Vietnam War was divorced from the US policy of containing Communism, and made the War illegal to boot. What is going on domestically in the GWOT is nothing more than the concerted strategy of Vietnamizing the War.

Harry MacD #18. The Democrat Party? OK. The only way for us to lose the war on terrorism is for the democrats/Media to have their way. Unfortunately, W is making the war take forever. The drip, drip, drip is unbearable, and may be irreversible. But the Democrats are not the enemy in the ME. Its Islam, or better, Islamic Jihadism.

One transcending Democrat goal: defeat Bush ’43? Agreed.

I take a metaview of the War on Terror. It’s not about such minutiae as assassinations, or horrors like immolations and mass murders. It’s about a union of jihadist states, successfully hiding behind surrogate armies: e.g., al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Wahhabis. The union by design capitalizes on every weakness of the West: respect for borders and nation states; respect for religion, i.e., clerics and their trappings; the practice of diplomacy; protection of civilians; respect for uniformed combatants and even the dead; unconditional press freedom. Jihadism is defined by its exploitation of these tenets of Western civilization.

The War on Terror is now in the phase of reversing the Balkanizing of the Jihadist movement. We installed democracies on the West (Lebanon), on the East (Afghanistan) and in the Middle (Iraq), leaving three big terror-sponsoring states isolated, even from one another. The new, fragile democracies must be undone, and the robed Jihadist leaders can count on the Democrat Party along with Al Jazeera and the US Main Stream Media. Defeat lies at home, precisely where terrorism is targeted.

Terror is all about outrageous, uncivilized, criminal acts committed to instill paralyzing fear in a populace. The public is aware of the acts through the media.

If Bush’43 loses this war, and that looks likely, the failure will not lie with the Defense Department, nor with State. It is to be lost at home, mainly along the PR axis of Karen Hughes and Tony Snow. It is a failure to counter the leftist propaganda of the Main Stream Media and the Democrat Party. It is Bush’s failure to subjugate Al Jazeera. It is our leader’s failure to recognize the enemy post-Saddam and post-Uday/Qusay, and to take out the enemy and their Mosque armories before the propaganda could hold sway.

The great Civil War in the US was not between the USA and the army of the Confederacy. It was between the USA and the Confederacy. Nor is the enemy now the phantom militias. It is the Jihadist leadership – clerics and a smattering of Sheikhs. Besides, the surrogate armies are gophers. When we wait for them to attack, we take a purely defensive posture, with no way to win. In football, the defense can win the game. Not in war.

Coach #20 vs. Tyson Kamp #29. This little dialog between Coach and Tyson Kamp is a rational discussion about irrationality! Name calling might be appropriate in such situations.

Can a rational human admire concentration camp stability? Yet is that not what liberals imply? Or to admire socialism? Or to be anti-corporation? Or to cut and run? Irrationality and worse infect the liberal platform.

In the Goldwater era, I had a sign over my desk that said, “Liberals come to the wrong conclusion for the right reasons. Conservatives come to the right conclusion for no reason at all.” Back then, Conservatives were lucky because of America’s greatness. The movement has come a long way since then, and not all for the better.

Liberals are liberal because they are free from such constraints as solutions that actually work. Take capitalism, for example. It is a consequence of freedom and little more. Nowhere are people better off at any tier of society than under modern capitalism. In the name of the poor and downtrodden, liberals would chuck it all. To believe that would work is irrational and flies in the face of all evidence.

What motivates the modern American liberal movement is unabashed political power founded on populism.

Liberals stand for a strong central government, eschewing the proven good in federalism. Democrats organize their national party accordingly –– strong central control, as monolithic as it can be with the inevitable multiplicity of leaders. Republicans organize their national party along federal lines –– to their leaders all positions are equally valid. The Republican national party is a galley with the oarsmen out of sync, all equipped with rudders, and as many destinations.

barry cooper #58. Is perseverance the same as persistence? In Webster’s Second International, persistence is perseverance in the face of difficulties.

>>Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. Calvin Coolidge.

Stay the course. Don’t quit at Dunkirk, or Normandy, or the Battle of the Bulge, or Iwo Jima, or Iraq. All anti-liberal, eh? “Time for a change” is the universal political slogan for those out of power. It degenerates into change for change sake.

Michael Ledney #67. Are the Arabs smart enough for self-rule? Not yet. They live in abysmal ignorance, in the dark ages with cell phones, females denied education, males robotized by madrassas. They’re no more capable of self-rule than a clutch of Harvard professors.

Second, do they have the right to live in a Ba’athist state, so to commit crimes against humanity? Do they have a right to attack other nations, to commit and export terrorism? Do they have a right to develop and export weapons of mass destruction? I’ll vote No.

Besides, self-determination is not the question, and that has not been offered to them. What is offered is a form of democracy, and their response is encouraging though denied by the Bush whackers.

The real question is, are the Arabs capable of self-defense? The answer is again, No. Over 12 million Iraqis ignored death threats to vote for the present, fragile government. The left would have us abandon them and surrender to a few Imams and their horde of ten thousand automatons. We tried that pretty much with Bush’41, and it just led to a larger war.

We’d have a lot better chance in Iraq and the War on Terror if we acted with decisive power, so to look like winners and leaders.

Kate #71. “I support the troops” is liberal code for “I won’t repeat my Vietnam mistake, but I still don’t support the United States.” The troop position is settled: everyone supports them now. What is lacking is patriotism. Supporting “my country, right or wrong”, is anti-PC, and thoroughly out of vogue. The left attacks its country, right or wrong, especially when its low on power.

Zach #72. You challenge whether modesty derives from perseverance. How about patriotism?

mwu #78. Imbecile zealots who got us into this mess? Are you talking about 9/11? Not cut & run? What exactly do you call Murtha’s position? Is that not Pelosi’s, too, soon to be a couple of heartbeats from the Presidency? Murtha fought too long without his helmet. He fought in a war lost at home, and that must be the pattern for all wars. Sheep? Something’s fundamentally wrong with a party that will rally around a turncoat as its leader. Kerry is a self-made man, especially his war record.

Jeff,

Excellent post. I've always had Vinegar Cal's quote, or Kipling's "If" posted on the wall everywhere I've ever worked. The last part, Press On, is usually omitted on most posters. I would still view persistence as a subset of perseverance, in that difficulties are sure to come the way of anyone who persists in anything. Including quitting. Funny how life works.

With respect to the issue of casualties, I really don't think the absolute numbers matter all that much. Basically, the issue is: do we contextualize things, or do we pretend they exist in a vacuum? 100,000 or whatever Iraqi dead in our invasion, or killed by other Iraqis since, that's a lot of people. That's obviously, to understate it considerably, a bad thing.

If I'm a Leftist, I say that blood is on our hands, we've committed an atrocity, a war crime. The Hague should press charges against us.

This is basically the approach Leftists take across the board. All deaths whatever that touch in any way any Western regime are all their fault, and abominations.

However, I'm not a leftist. What I say, is death and violence are constants in human history. Let's go back to Africa for a second. They were killing each other at alarming rates before the Brits and others got there, and would have continued had they never set foot there. In some cases, policies were followed that made things worse--as in the Hutus and Tutsis--but the argument that absent imperialism substantial violence would not have happened is simply unsupportable. Now, in most cases premodern tribes were taught the basics of Western style centralized organization and government, and they then proceeded to use those organizational principles, and modern weapons, to kill their enemies more efficiently, but that doesn't change the fact that they were violent to begin with. We didn't invent that.

In Iraq, you had a Stalinist state that was run efficiently in the sense that potential dissent was crushed rapidly, and future dissent very effectively discouraged. It was a stable system that was not going to change for many, many years to come, and which consumed the lives of millions of its' citizens through either direct governmental action, or through the tacit violence of starvation. Again, that wasn't going to change, and anyone who argues otherwise is ignorant or stupid.

What we have created is a situation where there is the potential to create a stable society, without the violence. We have created the possibility of hope, if we finish the job.

We could have avoided a LOT of civilian casualties in Europe if we had not invaded in World War 2. For all of you who have seen Saving Private Ryan, don't you think there were a lot of families who got caught in the crossfire? Let's say you're French, and in the Normandy area. What do you do? Head down the road, with bombs and strafing and mines? Stay where you are and get taken out by a tank or Germans?

Trying to wage war without civilian casualties is a noble ideal, but is not going to happen. It staggers my imagination that people can be so stupid as to not see through the tactics Hezbollah, and the Palestinians and others use, of hiding shooters in civilian areas, and ambulance, etc.

You know why they do that? To generate sympathy from stupid people. I think you could literally and accurately argue that the responsibility for those civilian deaths could be squarely placed on the laps of the target audience of those Islamic propagandists: Western Leftists.

Borat,

Thank you for stepping in.

Oh, I get RC’s point perfectly (and Marcus’). Prior to our invasion Iraq was peaceful. Lot’s of happy people, smiling kids lofted skywards by a fatherly, loveable, Saddam. There were no American GI casualties, no IED’s, no suicide bombers, no internecine Islamic conflict, and no “civil war”. And now…well, it’s dangerous, even for reporters!! What a hell hole. Their view is exceedingly simple and dead wrong.

The reality is that Saddam ground up at least 500,000 men in a failed attempt at taking Iran, gassed well over a 100,000 Kurds through weekly and sometimes daily WMD attacks over months, and slaughtered maybe as many as 100,000 Shiites in 1991. And now we have 270 mass graves of which only 55 have been excavated.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.N. are charging genocide with yet uncounted tallies. The current Iraqi leadership claims over 1,000,000 million “disappeared”. Every estimate that can be found of the human toll will make my point. Weighed against every estimate of the current human carnage my point is buttressed.

Here are more sources and references than I can count:

Iran Iraq war dead: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=iran+iraq+war+dead
Iraqi mass graves: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=iraqi+mass+graves
Genocide Kurds gassing: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=genocide+kurds+gassing
Shiite uprising Iraq:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=shiite+uprising+iraq

Take the lowest figures from any source you find even marginally credible and compare that against any source you wish for current atrocities. Share the findings. My point is supported.

Making the point that things are worse off today requires denial of the carnage in Saddam’s attack on Iran, the existence of the Coalition Forces discovered mass graves, the attempted chemical genocide of the Kurds, and Saddam’s repression of the Shiite uprising in Iraq.

All of these events and casualties have to be weighed against the current situation and whatever peace and stability appeared on TV prior to our invasion. RC and Marcus are correct only in comparing what we can see from our TV sets of Iraq today versus what we saw on TV from Iraq years ago. That is a point I’ll eagerly concede – the “TV peace” of Iraq has been shattered.

If the liquidation of as many as one million innocents was the prerequisite to the more stable and safer Iraq that Marcus and RC remember and long for, then safety and stability have taken on Orwellian meaning.

(I wonder if they believe that Saddam had gotten to a point where he was done with his brutality and terror. In other words, Saddam led his people through some pretty tough times but from there on out it was all going to be wonderful and peaceful.)

Thank you, everyone, for making this an exciting, engaging, and relaxing Rest Day!!

Coach #109

'Take the lowest figures from any source you find even marginally credible and compare that against any source you wish for current atrocities. Share the findings'.

OK, Coach, but just as Barry C says he can argue from any side with competence, one can usually do what one likes with numbers...

I will take the highest estimate I can find for post US Iraq deaths - Gilbert Burnham et al, Lancet Oct 2006 - which gives a high-end estimate at 793,663 deaths caused by violence (which I think is not very credible, but that's not my point). Annualised over 3.5 years comes to approximately 227k deaths pa. To exceed that Saddam needs to have killed 6.8m over 30 years. Your sources show 1.1m at the low end (assuming 400k in mass graves), maybe 2m at the high end.

Jeff Glassman, totally off topic. Thanks for the post a while back regarding Mauna Loa CO2 figures. Food for thought. Anyway, I have come across these guys, Global Atmosphere Watch, http://www.wmo.int/web/arep/gaw/ghg/ghgbull06.html who are saying global average atmospheric CO2 levels as of 2005 are about 380ppm, not too far away from Mauna Loa's readings. They base this on results taken in 44 countries at many locations - Mauna Loa is one contributor. Obviously global average can mean significant regional variations and your original paper uses Vostok readings as a source. Any other thoughts?

Borat

"Oh, I get RC’s point perfectly (and Marcus’). Prior to our invasion Iraq was peaceful. Lot’s of happy people, smiling kids lofted skywards by a fatherly, loveable, Saddam"

And now I get YOUR point; you are merely trying to wind me up. Ya got me!

Jeff Glassman-
I completely agree with your statement that Liberals say they support the troops so that they won't repeat their Vietnam mistake. I have had many people at the begining of OEF and OIF say that very thing to me. Just like we used to see American flags in front of every house in our neighborhood immediately following 9/11. The flags are all gone now except for the one in front of my next door neighbors house and he flew that before hand. He also happens to be a retired SGM (his wife is one too) that did 3 tours in Vietnam. I was talking with my brother a few years ago and I mentioned that sometimes saying that people support the troops rings hollow, because what are they actually doing to support the troops and his reply was that he still sees flags flying everywhere, as if that were enough. Flag flying is a great thing to see, especially to drive through a community with no military ties. There are times though when you need to reach out. By the Liberals saying that they want the troops sent home is almost like they are saying that the work being done is sh!t. They don't seem to understand at all the motivation behind being in the military.

If we could see a resurgence of patriotism like we did after 9/11 that would bolster people up to continue supporting. I like what Barry C. talks about perserverence. I think that is essentially what a lot of people are talking about when they talk about not "cutting and running".
Perserverence and Patriotism are big pieces to the puzzle.

One of the most sobering sights that I saw this summer was when we went to Arlington National Cemetary to witness one of our friends being interned there, was the acres and acres of freshly cleared land within the cemetary walls. That sight said more about perserverence than anything else.

Kate

Kate,

Thanks for everything you and your family do! I recently had the opportunity to visit the Normandy Beaches and Drop Zones. My visit also included the American and British cemetaries. Talk about a testiment to perserverence! To think about what those soldiers went up against, knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that they would not live through the day, already exhausted from bailing water for hours on end, sea sick, etc... and yet they went on because they "didn't want to let anyone down". They knew what had to be done and they did it. Period!

I agree that the "I support the troops, but not the mission" rings hollow at best. I personally find it insulting - "we don't believe you are risking your life and/or dying for a worthy and justifiable cause". Add to that what the Charlie Rangel and John Kerry types say on international TV.

I could go on, but I'll settle for going to workout. Easy day today - 20 rounds for time: 20 pushups, 25 situps, 15 ring dips, plus 5 rounds of 15 pullups mixed in.

I thought that the following was a good response to the feeling commonly expressed here that if we just 'push on through' we can win in Iraq, a foreign polcy of perseverence if you will.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/blog/yglesias/2006/jul/10/the_green_lantern_theory_of_geopolitics

A follow up to this idea by the same author:

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/green_lantern_tries_analogies/index.php

Neither post is very long and your understanding of the Iraq war is woefully lacking if you don't read them.

i think my first attempt at this post didn't fly due to length. so briefly:

"...intervening in a civil war is forbidden by the UN charter. That makes Bush’s War illegal!"

well. if we are now to consider international law, the UN charter specifically, perhaps the legality of "Bush's War" could be debated without any mention of a civil war:

http://www.ulb.ac.be/droit/cdi/appel_irak.html

and US law as well. i found PL 107-243, and i think it would be interesting to address the fulfillment of sec. 3b.

furthermore, on the identification of my enemy:

"...the enemy in the ME. Its Islam, or better, Islamic Jihadism."

Your "Jihadism" seems closest to reality, but I don't quite believe you meant it as i came to understand it. Primarily because of your "Islam" qualifier.

http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/insights/insight9908.html

I'll admit to only skimming that link (thus far). But even my minimal knowledge of Islam allows me to identify the xenophobia that exudes from statements like "Its Islam, or better, Islamic Jihadism."

after all, if i really wanted to i could easily portray christian adherents as quite dangerous:

Deuteronomy 13:6-11, Ezekiel 9, Deuteronomy 23:1-2 (sucks for Lance Armstrong), and on and on.

as for the apparently common inability to appreciate the simultaneous existence of "troop support" and "war disapproval", try thinking of it this way:

"i dearly appreciate your personal sacrifice of time, energy, and safety for the protection of me and of the US Constitution. unfortunately, i also think your commander-in-chief is not making the best use of your sacrifice."

perhaps because we have a volunteer army people assume that participation in the army requires agreement with the way it is utilized (hence "we don't believe you are risking your life and/or dying for a worthy and justifiable cause"). i encourage the dismissal of this assumption.

Borat,

Thanks again! You've allowed a beachhead from which we can have an evidence based discussion on the relative safety of pre and post U.S. invasion of Iraq. (We've, with your help, slipped the all too compelling "Bush lied; Millions died!!" and "It's so because Katie Couric said so!" lines of reasoning.)

Now we can look at the Lancet article and assess its validity and relative merits. I'd like to make the article a Rest Day topic. I've been eager to see it scrutinized by our crew. (The idea of comparing corpse counts on one hand to statistical inference on the other is intriguing.)

IF the Lancet article can withstand scrutiny THEN Iraq is a much more dangerous place today than I've claimed. If the article is fatally flawed then we'll need to reexamine the issue, i.e., ask again by what measure or criteria is Iraq presumed to be worsened by the U.S. invasion and Saddam's ouster.

RC? (Marcus, could we entice you to reconsider your stand that the issue is off topic for logical discussion?)

Finally, Borat, thanks for your patience.

I still don't think the absolute numbers matter. What matters is the direction the Iraqi people is heading in. Borat apparently read part of what I wrote, but ignored entirely the major point, that Saddam's Iraq was a stable, brutally murderous nation, with no viable opposition, and which was well-supported by oil revenuee. It wasn't going any where.

The point about legality was not about a concern that we could "slip" from a legal war to an illegal war. It was purely and simply about the PROPAGANDA war, which I think I have argued reasonably effectively is the larger issue.

People need to understand this world is a violent block in the 'hood, and THERE ARE NO POLICEMEN. Repeat, if you get your sorry ass in trouble, about the only cowboys with the sack to do anything about it, are us. But we aren't the police. We don't have any judicial mandate. At the same time, the group who theoretically should help maintain international law is dominated almost entirely by small nations who envy what the West HAS CREATED, culturally--and only much later, as a result of that cultural development--economically. Democracy and capitalism work as vehicles for increasing wealth and power. The fact of the matter is that historically, empires never paid for themselves. That's the real reason most European nations got out of that business. There's no profit in it.

Thus, people act concerned that the UN may or may not sign off on what we want to do. The UN is not on our side, and is not really on the side of law and order. What did it do about Rwanda? Somalia? Currently in Sudan? If it's going to happen, if any nation is going to have the political will to send combat troops to do combat--as opposed to standing by with a single Colt .45 sidearm in the middle of genocide, like the Canadians were forced to do Rwanda, for political reasons--it's going to be us. Like it or not, no other nations are willing and able to lead the way.

Iraq was in open revolt against the UN, who thought it more politically expedient to ignore that obvious fact. Self-evidently, the French, Germans (who in my understanding sold them much of their WMD technology) and Russians had business interests in Iraq, and for that reason very little interest in the Iraqi people. Saddam paid his bills. He had the money, because he kept it from his people. Those three nations also understood that the US was his main enemy, and that by providing him what he wanted, they were in effect--or would have in effect--lowered their status on the "Most Wanted" list. Appeasement, in other words.

I read the "Green Lantern" article, but really didn't see much content. For people whose political views are shaped largely by analogies and rhetoric, and not by available facts, no doubt he presented a compelling argument.

The key point, as I read it, was the argument that all the factions should be allowed to have their militias, to defend themselves. This is hog-wallow. You cannot have armed militias in a civil society. Do they have them in Europe?

We had them for a time here, and as long as no laws got broken, they were more or less tolerated, but watched.

The situation in Iraq is totally different. We have armed groups, led by people we know, openly organizing in mosques and other places we have voluntarily declared off-limits, and they keep going at it. This is not self-defense so much as the recipe for full scale civil war.

The thing is, we know who the generals on both sides are. We have a pretty good idea how they are organized, and we are just standing on the sidelines watching all this happen.

For you leftists, I don't know how many military people you have met, but we have got some really, really smart people out there. People that could easily run most companies, and do a much, much better job than the bulk of our politicians.

In particular, I think our Army Special Forces have got this thing pretty well scoped out. And when I mean scoped out, they could put a scope on the top 30 guys or so on every side, and pull the trigger pretty quickly. Insurgencies need leadership. Take the leadership out, you make it much harder for all sides to prosecute.

In my formulation, I understand full well that perseverance, absent informational feedback and behavioral flexibility, is in many cases going to become an albatross around our necks. At the same, on a detail level, I believe that we have troops who have a plan, who are capable of executing the plan, and who lack leaders at the top of their food chain willing to make the decisions necessary to keep this thing from becoming a debacle.

This has nothing to do with the Green Lantern. It has to do with the intestinal fortitude to take risks.

barry cooper #108. Persistence is a proper subset of perseverance. I.e., every instance of persistence is also an instance of perseverance, but the reverse is not true. This is rather like patriotism the virtue. Supporting one’s country is nothing when one agrees with what his country is doing. It only becomes a virtue when one supports his country in doing something with which one disagrees. Perseverance absent difficulties seems empty, or worse – an example of some mental problems.

Re casualties, war & nation building. Whatever the casualty figures, they clearly aren’t enough. War is hell, but technology lets us make it more civilized – surgical and efficient. (Insert compulsory PC remarks here.) For over a century, the US has progressively reduced collateral damage as a matter of policy and through investment in technology. The Iraq campaign is no exception. Collateral damage is not proof of unconscionable warfare. Compared to World War II, the War on Terror seems to unfold in slow motion.

Several times before March ’03, Bush’43 eschewed nation building as a national policy. Regardless, he seems to have been finessed into it. The administration often boasts of progress and success in the Iraq campaign measured in electric power, oil shipments, schools in operation, election participation.

War is about killing people and destroying things. Judging by the media, only innocents and Americans seem to get killed or get their property destroyed. The public gets almost no information on offensive engagements. John McCain and his former campaign advisor, Bill Kristol, think we need more troops! To do what? Be targets? If the CentCom generals aren’t asking for more troops, then they aren’t being asked to do enough killing and destroying. What happened with the last deck of cards, and where is the new one?

The US can’t be primarily concerned about nation building simply as a matter of practical and political limits. Some of it is necessary to secure what we’ve gained in the Middle East. But the heart of Africa? The US has defined no compelling national interest in the Sudan beyond sympathy for the human tragedy. Darfur is in the news, like celebrity African adoptions, and much for the same reason. But Darfur is also left–evidence that Bush’43 is misguided.

The national threat in the War on Terror is Islamo-fasciism or Islamic Jihadism. Whatever one calls it, this movement gained enough technology, influence, and mobility to bring about 9/11, the proverbial last straw (to Bush ’43). To his ever-lasting credit, and distinguishing him from his predecessors, Bush ’43 had had enough. He diced and neutralized the IJ bloc, and is now losing the struggle to hold our gains. That effort could be extended to the genocidal Islamic government in the Sudan, but that brand of terror is not presently an imminent threat to the US. Could it be given priority over the nuclear threats from Korea and Iran?

Borat #110. The Lancet report shows a heavy bias in the casualties in military aged males! It has a weak rationalization, including that these men spend a lot of time out of the home. Why don’t we assume that the excess body count were combatants, deserters shot by Saddam, and collateral damage? That’s got to be as good as the statistical assumptions Lancet used to stretch less than 600 death samples from 30 regional clusters into perhaps as large as 942,636 deaths nationwide! Maybe Lancet got it right, but it should make its raw data freely available to the public.

Keeling’s climate results from Mauna Loa have similar problems. He reports that many other stations have yielded similarly high CO2 concentration measurements. But he admits that his data reduction included influences from à priori considerations, whatever that might mean. À priori means from reasoning, as opposed to à posteriori, meaning from experiment or measurements. Was he reasoning that the CO2 must be ACO2?

He also admits to adjusting data from other sources so that the records match! His rationalization is that the calibration methods may account for the differences. Keeling reported that the rise in concentration, after removal of seasonal effects, is anthropogenic. He knows this from isotopic measurements, plus assumptions about carbon isotope concentrations in the ocean and the biosphere. All this may be true! However, the raw data are not available. The data published by the government is all processed and adjusted. Keeling’s statistical methods cannot be verified by an outsider. None of the published data includes sample temperature, but a strong correlation is apparent between the seasonal CO2 fluctuations and seasonal temperatures.

In both the casualty and CO2 studies, statistical techniques are available to test whether the conclusions drawn by the scientists are valid. First, though, the data must be made accessible.

Jeff,

In the spirit of the sort of irony that I really enjoy--and hope you do too--I would like to submit the following definition of perseverance from Dictionary.com:

1. steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., esp. in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

Coach #116, sounds interesting.

Barry #117, in fact my whole post failed to address your post - I was focussing on Coach and RC's number tussles.

However, my eye was caught by your statement: "Democracy and capitalism work as vehicles for increasing wealth and power". I seem to recall the evidence (sorry, no time at moment for tracking down sources) shows that Capitalism, but not necessarily democracy, works as a vehicle to create wealth. cf. China, Vietnam, Chile in the 80s & 90s for non-democracies installing capitalist systems and growing strongly. What does tend to happen is that as countries grow richer the desire and ability of the country to support democracy increases (the bourgeoisie really do have the last laugh on Marx). Here's my tip: if you want proper democracy in the ME don't invade and piss them off, just encourage them to become capitalists...

Borat

A little late here, but I came across a great observation regarding the "cut & run" policy (however you want to word it). Does anyone recall al-Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi (http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/203gpuul.asp)? In it he first stated that Al Qaeda's goal was to drive the Americans out of Iraq. He continued with this point:
"[T]hings may develop faster than we imagine. The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam -- and how they ran and left their agents is noteworthy. Because of that, we must be ready starting now, before events overtake us, and before we are surprised by the conspiracies of the Americans and the United Nations and their plans to fill the void behind them. We must take the initiative and impose a fait accompli upon our enemies, instead of the enemy imposing one on us, wherein our lot would be to merely resist their schemes."

I ask you this, how is an action in compliance with our enemies stated goal in any way a good thing? The object in war is to demoralize your enemy and break his will to continue the fight. Who has the better understanding of warfare - Al Qaeda or the Democratic Party?

So you're saying Iran, Syria, and Hussein's regime loved us before? Do you think they need capitalism when they have oil? Oil is the Muslim's curse, not their blessing, in my view. It has enabled them to enter the 21st century with no economic pressure on the ruling classes for political liberalization. Money has to come from somewhere, and the Chinese, after killing an unknown number of people--but at least probably in the tens of millions--in the Cultural Revolution, then struggling to keep even dirt roads in repair, hit upon the solution of allowing some, contingent investment. They were forced to it, especially after Tiananmen. It remains to be seen, if political liberalization is in the works. I understand that argument, but I'm not 100% sure that's the direction things are going. Hell, Castro is still in power.

It should be added, that socialist models rely largely on theft, and the Chinese have stolen billions in intellectual property, in the forms of music and movies. That has been part of their "capitalist" strategy. One thing Hayek is very clear on, is true free market economics necessitates honesty to work. Thus, I am far from giving even dishonest American corporations a free pass.

Since we have brought up the weather, I wanted to put something in there that I read a few weeks ago, that is interesting, from the book Chaos, by James Gleick.

"The modern weather models work with a grid of points on the order of 60 miles apart, and even so, some starting data has to be guessed, since ground stations and satellites cannot see everywhere. But suppose the Earth could be covered with sensors spaced one foot apart, rising at one-foot intervals all the way to the top of the atmosphere. Suppose every sensor gives perfectly accurate readings of temperature, pressure, humidity, and any other quantity a meteorologist would want. Precisely at noon an infinitely powerful computer takes all the data and calculates what will happen at each point at 12:01, 12:02, etc.

The computer will still be unable to predict whether Princeon, New Jersey, will have rain or sun on a day one month away. At noon the spaces between the sensors will hide fluctuations that the computer will not know about, tiny deviations from average. By 12:01, those fluctuations will already have created small errors one foot away. Soon the errors will have multiplied to the ten foot scale, and so on up to the size of the globe."

This is called "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", or, more colloquially, the "butterfly effect".

One of the very first--in my understanding, the defining use--of early computers was weather prediction. They (With von Neumann being the most important member of "they") assumed that weather was a linear system which, given mostly accurate data, would yield mostly accurate results. However, in a chaotic system--which weather is--small difference can become MAJOR differences almost instantly.

More: "The modifications, the compromises, the approximations needed to digitize systems of nonlinear differential equations [are] suspect. Simulations break reality into chunks, as many as possible but always too few. A computer model is just a set of arbitrary rules, chosen by programmers. A real world fluid, even in a stripped-down millimeter cell, has the undeniable potential for all the free, untrammeled motions of natural disorder. It has the potential to surprise. . .Whenever a good physicist examines a simulatino, he must wonder what bit of reality was left out, what potential surpise was sidestepped. Libchaber liked to say that he would not want to fly in a simulated airplane. He would wonder what was missed."

More: [1987 or so]"Climatologists who use global computer models to simulate the long term behavior of earth's atmosphere and ocean have known for several years that their models allow at least one dramatically different equilibrium.. . the White Earth climate: an earth whose continents are covered by snow and whose oceans are covered by ice. Computer models have such a strong tendency to fall into the White Earth equilibrium that climatologists find themselves wondering why it has never come about. It may simply be a matter of chance."

He goes on to describe how most of these models are basically like playing cards in Vegas. They can build models of relative equilibria, like a flame is more or less constant, but never repeats itself, but how things actually play out is luck of the draw. They are definitionally chaotic.

Correction: I just noticed I conflated Arab, Islamic oil states, with Muslims generally. That is of course inaccurate. It is, however, accurate, in my understanding, to place oil-financed Wahhabism behind most of the problems we are having, even in Indonesia, and other far-flung reaches of the world.

Just a few observations:

The conservatives in this discussion get one thing right: there is such a thing as right and wrong. On almost every other issue they are wrong.

Persistence is a virtue if you are right. Persisting when you are wrong is merely stubborn and destructive.

Here's an analogy for the situation in Iraq now: a kid gets tired of a bully at school so he gets his gun and shoots the bastard. The he gets arrested and gets convicted of murder. Then he blames his parents for not having done enough to stop the bully in the first place and for having no good way to get him out of jail.

Just like that kid, Bush has created a problem for everyone by solving a serious problem in a stupid way.

Bush and company have created such a royal mess in Iraq that absolutely no one has a good solution right now.

Many people opposed the war in Iraq before it started. Too many members of congress voted for it. Now many people (Republicans and Democrats alike, and almost 80% of the military serving in Iraq according to one poll) feel the war was a mistake and has been executed poorly.

Does that mean we should just pull out? Like many people, I think we now have to stay and fix the mess Bush stupidly created. But I'm not at all happy about it. And I don't trust Bush to suddenly start being smart.

Coach thinks Iraq is better off now than under Saddam, and perhaps -- in a coldly analytical sort of way -- he is half right. Few people fail to recognize that life under Saddam was brutal and hazardous to say the least. But tell that to the parents of the five girls killed by US forces this morning. Tell it to a fifteen year old boy who has spent the last few years of his short and brutal life under American occupation. He doesn't remember Saddam. Unless he lost a family member to Saddam, he probably hates us more now. Ultimately, it is not for us to decide whether Iraqis are better or worse. They need to decide that for themselves. It is paternalistic of you to make such simple declarations as if all who disagree with you are mere idiots. Such emotional judgments as "better" and "worse" can not be decided on mere numbers. Even numbers are debatable, as you know.

Some people have a LOT of time on their hands. But not the brightest lights of the "liberal" mindset. The liberals are busy running academia, editing peer-reviewed scientific journals, working for NASA, saving the environment, reporting for newspapers, preparing to take control of congress, etc.

It seems to be an article of conservative faith that liberals don't really do anything and don't deal with the real world. Prove it.

Too much of the conservative worldview I see expressed here is based on philosophy and not enough on what I would call reality.

Students from Patrick Henry College in Virginia defeated Oxford in a debate competition last year. Patrick Henry teaches in its science classes that the world began 6,000 years ago, and that evolution and global warming are both liberal plots. Six of the 100 interns in Bush's White House are from Patrick Henry, more than from any other school.

They sure are good debaters...

Barry #117

You say that all we have to do in Iraq is kill the leadership organizing the violence:

"In particular, I think our Army Special Forces have got this thing pretty well scoped out. And when I mean scoped out, they could put a scope on the top 30 guys or so on every side, and pull the trigger pretty quickly. Insurgencies need leadership. Take the leadership out, you make it much harder for all sides to prosecute."

I don't believe this would have any effect at all on the violence. When Zarqawi (spelling?) was killed there was no appreciable drop off in violence. There are many people who would take the place of the killed leaders.

Also, I believe the insurgency and the secterian conflict is primarily a grass roots movement, who the leaders are is relatively unimportant, the violence has taken on a life of its own and whether a specific leaders is alive or dead will matter little. The leaders and many potential leaders all have the same view of the conflict, there is no Ghandi waiting in the wings who will
emerge if given the chance.

You also say:"This has nothing to do with the Green Lantern. It has to do with the intestinal fortitude to take risks."

But that is exactly what the Green Lantern artilce is about, simply having the "intestinal fortitude" to do the job is not a good strategy. The opposition will always outlast us, out will us, because they live in Iraq and are facing existential questions. We live far away and will continue to live and exist as a nation no matter what happens in Iraq.

"He goes on to describe how most of these models are basically like playing cards in Vegas."

actually, what he is describing as cards is the ACTUAL weather, not the computer models:

"Lorenz [who discovered the Butterfly Effect as described in Barry's post] saw it differently [from Von Neuman, who sought to *control* weather]. Yes, you could change the weather. You could make it do something different from what it would otherwise have done. But if you did, then you would never *know* what it would otherwise have done. It would be like giving an extra shuffle to and already well-shuffled pack of cards. You know it will change you luck, but you don't know whether for better or worse" (Gleick p21 (i seriously hope that "whether" pun was intentional)).

now, Gleick does concede this:

"Computer modeling had indeed succeeded in changing the weather business from an art to a science. The European Center's assessments suggested that the world saved billions of dollars each year from predictions that were statistically better than nothing. But beyond two or three days the world's best forecasts were speculative, and beyond six or seven days they were worthless (Gleick p20).

A little different from "However, in a chaotic system--which weather is--small difference can become MAJOR differences almost instantly."

And to go a little further, in a latter section of the book (in response to the conclusion "but how things actually play out is luck of the draw. They are definitionally chaotic."):

"Where Lorenz used his tiny model of the earth's weather to print crude lines on rolled paper, [Philip] Marcus used far greater computer power to assemble striking color images. First he made contour plots. He could barely see what was going on. Then he made slides, and then he assembled the images into an animated movie. It was a revelation. In brilliant blues, reds, and yellows, a checkerboard pattern of rotating vortices coalesces into an oval with an uncanny resemblance to the Great Red Spot in NASA's animated film of the real thing. 'You see this large-scale spot, happy as a clam amid the small-scale chaotic flow, and the chaotic flow is soaking up energy like a sponge,' [Marcus] said.

"...The spot is a self-organizing system, created and regulated by the same nonlinear twists that create the unpredictable turmoil around it. It is stable chaos.

"...unlike most physicists, Marcus eventually learned Lorenz's lesson, that a deterministic system can produce much more than just periodic behavior. He knew to look for wild disorder, and he knew that islands of structure could appear within the disorder. So he brought to the problem of the Great Red Spot an understanding that a complex system can give rise to turbulence and coherence at the same time" (Gleick, Chaos p55-6).

So, Lorenz's hope that the discovery of the Butterfly Effect (and the study of Chaos in general) can improve the predictive and modeling capabilities of real-life systems comes closer and closer to full realization the more computers improve.

"Some people have a LOT of time on their hands. But not the brightest lights of the "liberal" mindset."

I take all comers. If they have anything to say, they should have time, between their blanket pronouncements--in judgemental terms--that the Iraq War is a failure, to debate with a moron like me and the others. That comment is almost farcical. I have had time this week, because I've MADE time.

"Ultimately, it is not for us to decide whether Iraqis are better or worse. They need to decide that for themselves."

Which Iraqis? The ones who want peace, or the ones who enjoy dissembling their enemies into clouds of blood and body parts? Is it your impression that another election, or some sort of political coalition is going to keep well organized groups of people from taking their guns and bombs and killing us and their enemies?

It seems likely to me that mistakes were made. I see some people say "success in Iraq was always impossible". I see others say "we failed the moment we broke apart the army", or "we failed when we failed to support infrastructure", or "we failed when we understaffed the mission." etc.

The theme is, the "failure" is in the past. It is now an unalterable condition on the ground, to which our only reasonable reaction is to withdraw with all reasonable haste consistent with decorum.

I do get one TV channel, and I was watching Tim Russert last Sunday, and I was able to identify the Democrat with the volume off. He had the demeanor of the passive aggressive boss in Officespace. "Uh, yeah, well, I guess you all know we, ah, sorta gotta pull out. Not my idea of course, but things are, uh, what they are". Yeah.

I addressed the issue on persistence. If what you're doing isn't working, you assess the situation. What is the dominant direction of movement? If things are getting better, you give some thought to possible improvements, but basically keep doing what you're doing. If they are getting worse, you change tactics. You see, there is a necessary feedback loop between perseverance (or persistance) and perception. They go hand in glove.

However, most of the people who get things done in this world rely more on persistence than talent, education, and intelligence, as Coolidge observed.

We have a situation where the people who trusted us are going to get killed, where the emergence of an Islamic Jihadist state is a specifically articulated goal of the people we are at war with, and where we have taken very, very few casualties, especially compared to the poor Iraqi, that nobody wants to talk about, who are voting, signing on to participate in our government, and who are getting killed because of it.

From where I'm sitting, if you exclude facts removed from their contexts, submitted as blanket proof of unrelated contentions, combined with sarcasm and ad hominem, you can't create a valid leftist argument.

Who cares if one of their science classes teaches orthodox creationism. Was that the topic of debate, or should you have also submitted that Prof. Smith drank too much at the Christmas party, and Prof. Jones sleeps with undergrads? And they have ugly wallpaper?

Barry, my mention of Patrick Henry College was simply a casual riff on your claim to be able to debate any side of any issue. But since you asked, debating skills and Biblical worldview seem to be the twin pillars of their educational philosophy. I say more power to them except that they're wrong. There are wackjobs to be found at any given point along the political spectrum, from right to left, e.g.:

http://www.phc.edu/about/BiblicalWorldview.asp

"Any biology, Bible or other courses at PHC dealing with creation will teach creation from the understanding of Scripture that God's creative work, as described in Genesis 1:1-31, was completed in six twenty-four hour days. All faculty for such courses will be chosen on the basis of their personal adherence to this view. PHC expects its faculty in these courses, as in all courses, to expose students to alternate theories and the data, if any, which support those theories. In this context, PHC in particular expects its biology faculty to provide a full exposition of the claims of the theory of Darwinian evolution, intelligent design and other major theories while, in the end, teach creation as both biblically true and as the best fit to observed data."

"The opposition will always outlast us, out will us, because they live in Iraq and are facing existential questions. We live far away and will continue to live and exist as a nation no matter what happens in Iraq."

Whose choice is this? We have the largest economy, and most powerful military in the world.

I think the people who face the "existential" questions want us there, if we can largely make the violence go away. The people on the ground are the ones who know better than me.

Let me ask this question: if you could be convinced we had a better than 75% chance to cut the violence by 3/4ths within two months, and a 25% to increase it by a factor of 2, what would you do? Those are the sorts of questions we need to answer, and life being a chaotic system, it's hard to say what the answer is, but I for one treasure our legacy of commanders who made decisions.

Failing is easy. At least, until the failure comes home radioactively.

Matt,

It took work to avoid the conclusion Lorenz made, in the next paragraph, which I almost quoted, but decided not to. Well, here it is,(page 170 in my book):

"To push the earth's climate into the glaciated state would require a huge kick from some external source. But Lorenz described yet another plausible kind of behavior called 'almost intransitivity'. An almost-intransitive system displays one sort of average behavior for a very long time, fluctuating within certain bounds. Then, for no reason whatsoever, it shifts into a different sort of behavior, still fluctuating within certain bounds, but producing a different average. THE PEOPLE WHO DESIGN COMPUTER MODELS ARE AWARE OF LORENZ'S DISCOVERY, BUT THEY TRY AT ALL COSTS TO AVOID ALMOST-INTRANSITIVITY. IT IS TOO UNPREDICTABLE [caps mine]. Their natural bias is to make models with a strong tendency to return to the equilibrium we measure every day on the real planet. Then, to explain large changes in climate, they look for external causes--changes in the earth's orbit around the sun, for example. Yet, it takes no great imagination for a climatologist to see that almost-intransitivity might well explain why the earth's climate has drifted in and out of long Ice Ages at mysterious, irregular intervals. If so, no physical cause need be found for the timing. The Ice Ages may simply be a byproduct of chaos."

also, Michael Ledney's #67 deserves more addressment (real word? who cares.)

Borat mentioned more would be said about his post in a few days, but nothing yet. . . .

if i may add to what little has been said about the post, in hopes that others will follow:

generally, i think, it seems like Michael's on to something good. the most obvious rebuttal to his point that i see is: letting Iraq do it's own thing would, as PL 107-243 seems to say, cause violent harm to Americans. this should be easy to prove, since such proof was necessitated *BY* '243 (sec 3b). but i myself haven't seen this proof - can anyone provide it to me?

so. . .awesome post Michael. I'll second that "best post of the day" nomination.

MC: "Like many people, I think we now have to stay and fix the mess Bush stupidly created. But I'm not at all happy about it. And I don't trust Bush to suddenly start being smart." ...word.

If you understand the principles of epistemology, their position is unassailable. I don't hold it, but yes I could defend it.

That still amounts to an ad hominem attack, in the sense that you are attempting to divert attention from the issue at hand, to a more general indictment of the Bush Administration as a whole. This is how this whole "debate" has been conducted. "Bush is a moron" is the starting point, not the conclusion. This sort of nonsense is in no one's interest. Since you all have already reached your conclusions, the debate is no longer about real world objectives, and the many options available to accomplish them--what we need to do to turn this into a victory--but rather about how any mistake or misstep can be used to further the leftist cause, which seems to begin and end with making Bush look bad.

I'm not happy with most of the Republican "leadership" either. They just seem more likely to at least attempt to address real world concerns. There are failurists there, too.

The next two years should be interesting.

Barry,

Two observations about the book "Chaos."

1. It's 20 years old and advancements have been made in computers and computer modeling during that time.

2. Gleick himself would not agree with the conclusions you seem to be drawing from his work. He is a firm believer in anthropogenic climate change. For starters, see these two excerpts from book reviews:

Review of "Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century?" By Stephen H. Schneider; Sierra Club Books; October, 1989
"Global Warming may be the ultimate insider's guide to the Greenhouse Effect. One of the nation's foremost climate experts provides not only a compelling assessment of the scientific prospects, but also a revealing backstage look at the recent politics of one of the central issues facing our planet." — James Gleick, author of Chaos

Review of "The End of Nature: Tenth Anniversary Edition" (Paperback, 1997) by Bill Mckibben
"Whatever we once thought Nature was--wildness, God, a simple place free from human thumbprints, or an intricate machinery sustaining life on Earth--we have now given it a kick that will change it forever. Humanity has stepped across a threshold. In his free-ranging and provocative book, Bill McKibben explores the philosophies and technologies that have brought us here, and he shows how final a crossing we have made." --James Gleick, author of Chaos

That's probably true. Science is political. However, the points he made were formal criticisms of POSSIBLE methods, and those criticisms stand. In what ways have we improved on sensors spaced at 1' intervals everyone, coupled with a computer of infinite speed? I've been meaning to get a newer print edition (mine was used and original) to see if he changed anything. He probably did.

The point stands that current models, to my understanding--which are supposed to be sufficiently accurate that we need to spend trillions of dollars on that basis alone--cannot account for past climate change.

Please think about this, we are being told that scientists can plot a linear increase in temperature from this point forward. However, they can't take that same line back more than 100 years, and ignore completely unexplained, much hotter temperatures in the Middle Ages.

Add to this Gleick's own, pre-global warming ideas, which are clear and coherent, and which are not invalidated by technological improvements, in my understanding, and there is plenty of room for skepticism. And that's not counting Dr. Glassman's own much more detailed ideas on relevant factors which should have been, but were not, included in the models. As stated above, any model, of any complexity, up to infinity, will be wrong if the starting assumptions are wrong.

I did want to add, that if we fail in Iraq, it is Bush's fault. I thought about it, and even if he feels political pressures on him, he is still the Commander in Chief, and as such ultimately responsible for the successful prosecution of our wars. It is not the job of the Executive to duck criticism, but to do the right thing. He doesn't have to worry about reelection. If I were in his shoes, I would ask the people what they need to get the job done, and then move heaven and earth to get it to them. I don't think that's being done.

Barry #122,

You will have to point me to where I say "Iran, Syria, and Hussein's regime loved us before?"; I can't find it in anything I wrote.

I should ghave been clearer on the capitalism/democracy point - I thought the quip about the bourgeoisie would help, but I guess not. The point, I think, is that as a country grows through a capitalist free market system, an educated middle class appears and this is what tends to encourage moves to democracy (although not always and not immediately).

You are correct that oil has enabled the oil states 'to enter the 21st century with no economic pressure on the ruling classes for political liberalization'; however they are not capitalist states, they are plutocracies.

I don't understand why you mention Castro: last time I was there Cuba was certainly not a capitalist state.

Finally, I expect the 'billions in intellectual property, in the forms of music and movies' stolen by Chinese have made little difference to the Chinese economy compared to the benefit they have had from stealing computer, electonic, biotech and other technology, not least US navy the EP-3 they got their hands on 5 years ago...

Borat

PS. Matt, you are right, the Michael Ledney post does deserve adressment. I'm trying, but it's hard - it raises a host of issues: this post is just me shooting from the hip in-between stuff, his post needs more than that.

in somewhat chronological order:

"Which Iraqis? The ones who want peace, or the ones who enjoy dissembling their enemies into clouds of blood and body parts? Is it your impression that another election, or some sort of political coalition is going to keep well organized groups of people from taking their guns and bombs and killing us and their enemies?"

While this question wasn't mine, I'll venture an answer: "all Iraqis". If I may derive a few things from the conservative point of view stated by Michael previously, it's really not our business to ESTABLISH democracy FOR anyone else. Removing Saddam? probably a good move (with atrocious timing). Attempting to stabilize the country post-Saddam? probably a good move (and a legal requisite if I understand the Geneva convention correctly). Staying at the party after our invitation has expired? probably not so much good.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22403-2004May12.html

Without the methodology, of course the numbers are suspect. But they come from the occupational authority, so I suppose I'll bite (if only to offer at least notional factual support) for this conclusion: it would probably be a good idea to let the Iraqi people choose the "interim government" who will assume "limited power" from the occupational authority come June. I think this is key to establishing a sense of self-determination among Iraqis, which is critical to an effective democracy. Holding their hands through this process would undermine our efforts. And is it so hard to accept that, despite all our good intentions, the Iraqi people aren't going to democratize? This is, after all, a perfectly possible option. Would a democracy forced upon a population that didn't want it REALLY be all that effective? And, is it our place to talk an entire population into wanting democracy? seems awfully liberal. . .

I will note, however, that it's really hard to make any sort of informed decision with shuch shoddy info. And I have a feeling MOST of the info used by most of us (left, right, middle, and quite possibly even those who are supposed to be making these decisions) is equally suspect. I've found this applicable quote from a 1964 "Face the Nation", and have been searching for the transcript but can't find it. I offer it anyway:

***

The show’s host on that 1964 telecast was the widely esteemed journalist Peter Lisagor, who told his guest:

Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy.

“Couldn’t be more wrong,” Sen. Wayne Morse broke in with his sandpapery voice. “You couldn’t make a more unsound legal statement than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old fallacy that foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States. That’s nonsense.”

Lisagor was almost taunting as he asked, “To whom does it belong then, senator?”

Morse did not miss a beat. “It belongs to the American people,” he shot back—and “I am pleading that the American people be given the facts about foreign policy.”

The journalist persisted: “You know, Senator, that the American people cannot formulate and execute foreign policy.”

Morse’s response was indignant: “Why do you say that? ... I have complete faith in the ability of the American people to follow the facts if you’ll give them. And my charge against my government is, we’re not giving the American people the facts.”

***

"I addressed the issue on persistence. If what you're doing isn't working, you assess the situation. What is the dominant direction of movement? If things are getting better, you give some thought to possible improvements, but basically keep doing what you're doing. If they are getting worse, you change tactics. You see, there is a necessary feedback loop between perseverance (or persistance) and perception. They go hand in glove."

word to the OODA loop. but,

"We have the largest economy, and most powerful military in the world."

"largest" doesnt equal "omnipresent", and "most powerful" doesn't equal "omnipotent". Being the king of the hill doesn't alone guarantee the maintenance of that status.

HOWEVER, i don't think this statement is very logically defensible either:

"The opposition will always outlast us, out will us, because they live in Iraq and are facing existential questions."

Absolutes belong in a category similar to assumptions, I think.

Speaking of assumptions!

"It took work to avoid the conclusion Lorenz made, in the next paragraph..."

I'm actually on page 106 of the book. So we'll have to postpone a discussion on almost-intransitivity. However, I will note that this description of almost-intransitivity seems to imply Mandelbrot's fractal view of self-similarity taken without respect to scale. Perhaps the effort to "at all costs. . . avoid almost-intransitivity" is due to an inability to recognize the scale at which the chaos begets/becomes/exists with order (or maybe our computers aren't ready to deal with the requisite scale). After all, it would seem thus far that Gleick is pointing toward a coexistence of chaos and order, not that one precludes the other. Hence, with greater computing power we are able to more closely approximate the chaotic order (orderd chaos?) of our world. Of course, I *am* in the middle of the section on fractals. Like I said, pause this one.

"That still amounts to an ad hominem attack, in the sense that you are attempting to divert attention from the issue at hand, to a more general indictment of the Bush Administration as a whole. This is how this whole "debate" has been conducted. "Bush is a moron" is the starting point, not the conclusion."

Hmm. . .what makes you think "Bush is a moron" is indeed the starting point? When I read the sentence "I think we now have to stay and fix the mess Bush stupidly created" I don't process it as "I think we now have to stay and fix the mess stupid Bush created". The accusation is that Bush created a mess in a stupid way, and thus faith in his leadership has been unsalvageably destroyed (and perhaps therefore we can conclude Bush is stupid). I don't think it's fair to assume that because a person NOW has no faith in Bush, that it was lacking before any evidence was offered. For example: I know that had I been old enough in 2000 (missed it by about a week) I would have voted for Bush, for a good number of reasons. Come 2004 however, I did not vote for him. Not because I'd been operating for four years with the presupposition that Bush's actions are by default stupid, but because his actions led me to the conclusion that I didn't want him to continue his job.

And before I break this transmission:

I'd still like to know how Sec 3b of PL 107-243 was officially fulfilled, and noone has disagreed with the legal findings of the International Commission of Jurists. While I do feel that the utmost importance lies with solving our current issues, this particular legal matter of the past does deserve a bit of attention, no?

In response to Matt #135, and to clarify my comments. Those who attack us in Iraq, and those who engage in sectarian vioence do so in the belief that the action they are taking will protect their own lives and welfare. The future of Iraq is always going to be more important to Iraqis than it will be to Americans. My point is that if we just make the conflict a clash of wills we are going to have diffculty outlasting those who live in Iraq and have a much higher stake in the outcome than we do.

That is why we need real solutions, not calls for stronger will. The will to do what is right is of course important, but the problem with the current situation is that the current policies are not working, all the will in the world can't make them effective. I don't have any great policy suggestions, but I can see that we have been on the same path for a long time and things have gotten worse not better.

Barry,

You wrote: "if you could be convinced we had a better than 75% chance to cut the violence by 3/4ths within two months, and a 25% to increase it by a factor of 2, what would you do? Those are the sorts of questions we need to answer"

I would argue that our being in Iraq actually increases the violence, and the longer we stay the more violent Iraq becomes. Also, I think we are at the point in Iraq where all we can do is prevent the absolute worst possible outcomes, it is too late to make things 'good.' So, if a policy is likely to make things only slightly better, but has a good chance of turning Iraq into Somalia, that would in my mind be a bad policy.

I also liked Michael's post #67, and wanted to take a stab at it.

I think that the Bush admin is not part of the libertarian wing of conservatism, and instead from the social conservative Christian wing of the party. I believe that libertarian values take a backseat to promotion of their religious social ideas. This is fairly clear in domestic politics, and it seems this mindset has bled into foreign policy. Thus, the rise of the neo-conservative movement which seeks to promote American values abroad through military force.

To be honest, I'm tired of listening to myself. I'm a self-important moron sometimes. I'm not unique in that, but I doubt many people swear at themselves as much as I do.

I took the day off to write, and wound up writing a novel here. This is only about 10% of what I got done, though, so I feel pretty good.

One thing on the mile high 1' stacks of sensors. I missed the point there. I see it now. If I ever go a full day without some form of idiocy, I don't know what I'll do. Presumably, I'll know then.

That should do me for a bit. Even perseverers need a Scotch and good nights sleep on occasion.

We'll talk later.

I rise to comment on recent posts in the hopes of honing the dialog into an even more useful tool.

Climate is neither linear nor non-linear.

Before man, there were no numbers, no coordinate systems, no mathematics. If we’re alone in the universe, then off this planet, including its space probes, those things don’t exist. Linear and non-linear are mathematical terms. They apply with great significance to models of the Real World, which is the stuff of science. Hardly any time goes by before some respected physicist says again that space is curved. I smile. It’s not space that is curved, but instead it is the best cosmological model that we can create, which happens to have a curved coordinate system.

No one has made a linear model of climate that has any predictive power.

Persistence/Perseverance and Liberal/Conservative

barry cooper tells us his philosophy is perseverance-based. Calvin Coolidge instead used persistence. What is the difference?

I chose to rely on Webster’s Second International Dictionary because it may be regarded as the last, great proscriptive dictionary of the English language. Every other magnum opus since has been descriptive. The essence of the descriptive dictionary is to define every significant usage, and not to proscribe right or wrong usage. It is another distinction between liberal and conservative.

In the liberal world, including their descriptive dictionaries, words have meaning only in context, (except now for the world of Political Correctness; ask Michael Richards. You’re white, you must say “n-word”). It is Alice in Wonderland. Words are slippery. It’s the way to win every argument. It is irrational.

In my definition of science, I postulated a set of axioms. The Axiom 0 (Roman Numeral Zero) was the Axiom of Rationality. Science is nothing if not rational. I suspect that is true of every human endeavor.

The cornerstone of rational thought must be an agreement on definitions. Please distinguish between weather and climate.

Libertarian Wing of Conservatism

In my definitions, Bush’43 and Libertarian are well off the conservative scale. Libertarianism is too much isolationist and laissez-faire. In my book, conservatives will rise to defend the country against foreign threats, including Islamic terrorism and the invasion of illegals. At the core of conservatism are two big ideas: Capitalism and Federalism. Capitalism is a consequence of freedom, supported by the federal government through the economic infrastructure of transportation, communication, utilities, a banking system, and a stable currency. It is free market, based on a protected auction for goods and services. It is only somewhat laissez-faire.

At the heart of Federalism is the Tenth Amendment. Liberal and conservative are impotent concepts at the state level.

Bush’43 is a big government guy, and too religious. The United States federal government is secular, made so by a dominantly Christian populace for the protection of their religious freedom. Freedom of religion is not just the right to choose one’s church; it is freedom from religious persecution.

The concept of a secular federal government completely escapes Bill O’Reilly. He is an ex-school teacher who couldn’t pass civics. (Remember civics?)

On the other hand, Bill O’Reilly raised himself well out of the intellectual cellar on his 11/30 TV show. He replayed a question he posed to Rosie O’Donnell and David Letterman: Do you want the United States to succeed in Iraq?

Bravo. Great question. Neither could muster a coherent answer. Nice going, O’Reilly! I wish I’d thought of it.

Warfare

Human endeavors are never perfection, least of all warfare. In hindsight, things could always have been done better, and we should concede any debate to the contrary. I had never heard of OODA, but found it helpful. It means Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action. I like it because it is forward looking. What say we debate whether we made mistakes in Iraq as the facts were known at the time, not in hindsight?

Certain false notions about the Middle East have become conventional wisdom. One that is emerging is that the resistance in Iraq is a grass roots movement. This is disproved with mathematics. It belongs on Numb3rs. The terrorist incidents in Baghdad are occurring with too much regularity. The uniformity with which they occur demonstrate that the terror is planned from above. That is, it is not grassroots.

Another current one is that the war can’t be won militarily. That’s just bizarre. It just might be won militarily when we withdraw our troops, leaving Iraq to the internal and external forces, collectively the Terrorists. The enemy can win militarily with a rag tag band of suicidal loonies! They can overthrow a democratic elected government with a dozen million supporters. Why?

Bush needs to give the Iraq Study Group an F before the report is even issued. Someone needs to tell Bush about the veto. He needs to instruct Baker to answer the question, How do we win in Iraq?

Iraq is the War on Terror. The Terrorists are turning up the heat, and they may have a lot more heat left. The slower we go, the more heat they’ll have. The question for Bush and the Congress is O’Reilly’s: do you want the US to succeed? Then make it clear, we are prepared to remove every Jihadist cleric and sterilize his mosque, shut down Al-Jazeera, including the NY Times outlet, and glassify much of Syria and Iran.

You know, we've discussed this "liberal media bias" thing. This week, we saw the shortest feedback loop I've ever seen. The New York Times leaked a stolen, classified memo--which should be a prosecutable offense, as there is a difference between freedom of the press, and freedom to steal--on the inside view of Malaki, and the VERY NEXT DAY got to gloat in what purported to be news coverage that Malaki abruptly cancelled his meeting with Bush.

They aren't just reporting the news. They're doing their best to MAKE it. To our collective detriment. The bastards.

Jeff G. #139

With regard to the second half of your 'warfare' section.

I think your definition of Grassroots is different from everyone else's: you seem to be defining it as a low level movement with no central control, in which case your maths can disprove it. I cannot see why a grassroots movement (my definition & I think others holding conventional wisdom) cannot be a broad, popularly based movement with, nevertheless, some form of a hierarchy over it; one would see a planned nuture in its activities, but since it is widely based, if you cut off one head another takes over and so on.

As for your strategy for victory, I don't think you go far enough. I think you need to add glassification of Pakistan and North Korea; also, on the assumption that after nucler strikes by the US on Syria and Iran, plus perceived general desecration of mosques, no Middle East government that has shown pro-American leanings will be left standing, you should probably also glassify Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The others can be glassified down the track as necessary. Since oil prices and supplies may be hit, I think you probably need to factor in an invasion of Venezuala, at least, to secure essential gas, and I would probably be spending a bit more time on the stationary cycle, as vehicular transport may get prohibitive. People will need to take any old uniforms out of mothballs, as there may be a broad requirement for sundry international occupations and punitive missions that cannot be supported on the current US military model. As citizens of an international pariah state, you should probably warn Americans abroad, regardless of location, to be careful; also warn US companies operating abroad that they may face boycotts, retaliatory action, perhaps even expulsion etc.. The OODA framework would be an excellent tool to monitor further glassification projects. Hope this helps.

Please leave Kazakstan alone - it is quite harmless.

Borat

Borat! Kazakstan is nice, I like! LOL

As for glassification... I have heard the idea of MAD flung around every so often with regards to Mecca. Not sure that is such a good idea, but it would leave us with a little less fallout... perhaps. I think this article summarizes a more viable and less destructive method for victory in Iraq and the ME.
(http://worlddefensereview.com/phares112006.shtml)

Borat, #141

oliver #125 said,

>> I think your definition of Grassroots is different from everyone else's: you seem to be defining it as a low level movement with no central control, in which case your maths can disprove it. I believe the insurgency and the sectarian conflict is primarily a grass roots movement, who the leaders are is relatively unimportant, the violence has taken on a life of its own and whether a specific leaders is alive or dead will matter little. The leaders and many potential leaders all have the same view of the conflict … .

And you suggested

>>I cannot see why a grassroots movement (my definition & I think others holding conventional wisdom) cannot be a broad, popularly based movement with, nevertheless, some form of a hierarchy over it; one would see a planned n[a]ture in its activities, but since it is widely based, if you cut off one head another takes over and so on.

Since everyone else has the same definition, it must be that in Wikipedia:

>>A grassroots political movement is one driven by the constituents of a community. The term implies that the genesis of the described political movement is natural yet spontaneous and imposes a dichotomy between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.

>>Technique

>>Grassroots organize and lobby through procedure including:

>> * door-to-door, also known as canvassing

>> * phone banking

>> * house parties

>> * meetings

>> * putting up posters

* talking with pedestrians on the street (often involving informational clipboards)

>> * gathering signatures for petitions

>> * setting up information tables

>> * raising money from many small donors for political advertising or campaigns

>> * organizing large demonstrations

>> * asking individuals to submit opinions to media outlets and government officials

>> * get out the vote activities which includes the practices of reminding people to vote and/or transporting them to polling places.

Rather than everyone, I would believe that no one has that definition as it might apply to the Middle East.

So let’s look for what you and oliver might have meant.

Is a grassroots uprising something like the French revolution? Or the Russian revolution? Actually I can think of no other models for “everyone else’s” definition, or for what I took the words to mean. Do you contend that these revolutions would have succeeded sans Robespierre, or sans Lenin? I doubt that.

Is it your position that maybe 20,000 militiamen in the Sunni and Shiite camps is a grassroots complement? Do 20,000 out of 27 million people, less than one in a thousand – throw in their all their families and make it less than one in a hundred – represent a grassroots uprising?

Or could it be that these militiamen are -- just perhaps, thinking out loud, just for the sake of argument – being led into street demonstrations, bombings, suicide and suicide by soldier by radical, fanatical, religious sect soothsayers and con men? This I believe is the reality of Iraq, one which Bush’43 has yet to recognize.

And without the militias, let the grass grow!

As for your consequential argument against winning in Iraq, you have made the very conventional case against any war. It is the antiwar movement. It is Borg – Resistance Is Futile!

You might recognize your arguments as an Argumentum ad Populum (appeal to widespread belief) and Reductio ad Absurdum (an appeal to fear or adverse consequences). Both are structurally fallacious.

Jeff #143 wrote that according to wikipedia
"A grassroots political movement is one driven by the constituents of a community. The term implies that the genesis of the described political movement is natural yet spontaneous and imposes a dichotomy between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures."

The definition does not preclude any power structure, but rather one that is traditional. I'm sure most movements have leaders, but in a grass roots movement the leaders come directly from the community, have widespread support in the community, and are outside of the "traditional" power structure.

We could argue about how to define "traditional power structures", but I think that the point still stands. If "traditional" includes the former government, than those outside of it such as the clerics who opposed Saddam (Al-Sadr)are a non-tradtitional power structure.

Jeff Glassman #143

OK with me.

I think there is broad popular support for the Shiite militias; I think there is a depth of command structure with adequate succession policy; I am talking not only about the Mahdi Army but also the Badr Brigade and other local militias.

On the Sunni side there also appears to be broad popular support. Both the Jihadists and the Basthist Sunni insurgents have lost leaders at one time or another and there seems to have been little diminution in their capacity for violence. They also seem to have a reasonably deep command structure.

I have refered to these as grassroots movements. You disagree with this definition. Our disagreement on definitions changes no facts, even if you have had to go definition shopping in Wikipedia (presumably your copy of Webster’s Second International is not at hand or has no relevant definition).

As for Robespierre and Lenin, the French and Russion revolutions would have been different but fine without them: the Tsar had already been replaced following the February revolution (Lenin, Trotsky, the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks and various anarchist groups led the later October revolution); Robespierre was influential but by no means essential - Petion, Marat, Danton and countless others were also involved.

Finally thank you for the latin lesson. While I have no doubt it could be construed as one of your latin thingamybobs, perhaps my suggestion was simply a joke? Wikipedia definition: 'A joke is a short story or series of words spoken or communicated, ideally with the intent of being laughed at or found humorous by the listener or reader'. You are welcome to judge it to have been in poor taste.

Borat

Thoughts on Michael Ledney #67

I had thoughts on three of the many points arising from your post:

1. Can a Libertarian be pro the War;
2. Why does this forum always take the "the overly simplistic notion equating an anti-war position with liberalism"; and
3. Can the China Model of international relations work more generally.

I'm not particularly happy with any of my thoughts, but since I promised a reply, here it is...

1. At first blush you are right that a 'Libertarian' ought to feel uncomfortable with a war/occupation seeking to impose a democratic solution on another country - we value value self-determination and individual liberty, the Iraqis should have a right to it too.

However, I think you need to distinguish between the situation as it is today and what it was pre-invasion. Before the US attacked Iraq, the war was about different things to different people. Jeff Glassman kindly directed us to PL 107-243 with its '23 reasons for the Iraq campaign', and one could probably think up more motivations than are contained in that document. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if each of the figures who had some influence on getting the ball rolling had different prime motivations for wanting Saddam taken care of - Cheney because he was obsessing over a terrorist/WMD link to Iraq, Rumsfeld to test his new military theories, W. because 'he tried to kill my daddy' and because W. wanted to finish the job his daddy wasn't man enough to do, the Neo-Cons and Tony Blair for humanitarian reasons, etc. They each also probably held more than one of the '23 reasons' in varying degrees.

A 'Libertarian' thinking about the war might also have many considerations - leave them to self-determine would be one argument; but pre war it was one of many (and only became the prime stated reason later), so what about the threat of WMDs (at the time practically everyone thought there was some sort of programme), the threat Saddam posed to his neighbours and consequently to the stability of oil supplies, humanitarian reasons, whatever. When reality meets theory things inevitably get messy and cannot be resolved into black and white categories. So, dependiing on how one weighted the different issues it would be quite possible to be a 'Libertarian' and, on balance, pro Iraq war.

In the post-war era, the facts have changed and the thinking needs to change. The US is there, has made a mess of one sort or another, what it has been doing doesn't seem to be working and it needs to change tack. The Administration's public message for the rationale for war may have dropped WMD and made 'democratisation' and humanitarian rescue from Saddam & Sons its key selling points, but those are now post fact justifications. Does a 'Libertarian' support the war now? Perhaps not to force democracy per se on Iraq, but certainly simply walking away would seem morally unsustainable (and is something that not many are seriously proposing). In the current absence of a coherent Administration strategy it is hard to know what one would be supporting or opposing.

It should be added, as Oliver and Jeff Glassman point out, that libertarian conservatives are only one section of what would be regarded as the Right - Dr Glassman gives his definition (and it is a beautiful thing to observe Dr. Glassman and his nuanced definitions) of a 'conservative' in his post and positions it as instinctively pro-war; there are other definitions of conservative - evangelical social conservatives, W. and the Rovians, and others. Since no one has an encompassing definition of the Right, it should be no surprise that the Right could hold diverse views on the war from pro to anti, and same with the Left.

2. As mentioned, the war has not gone exactly to plan; stuff happened.

At the same time, politics moved on. Come the mid-terms, the Democrats, quite frankly, used the war as a weapon to beat W. and by association the Republicans for their own political gain. (Although I can't see why anyone would be in the least bit surprised by this.) Whereas pre-war there had been something of a political consensus pro-war (although Coach would probably say the Dems were always secretly hoping it would go badly), today the Democrats have positioned themselves if not as anti-war, then at least as anti-Republican handling of it.

By their nature, broad brush labels simplify things and labels are what people seem to be most comfortable using to define politics; through their simplistic nature, labels tend to gravitate to the extremes. After the mid-terms the Democrats' labels shifted; by using the war as an issue they got labelled accordingly.

As we see every rest day here, we all easily slip into ranting idiot mode, defending poorly defined positions, labelling every contrary opinion as extreme, taking personal insult at differences of opinion, ad homineming happily etc., while all decrying the practice - same in politics.

It's lazy, but it's easy for each side to paint the other side as extreme and proceed to try and score cheap debating points. So the Democrats become appeasers who would cut and run and who are anti-democracy in Iraq; the Republicans become hopeless failures at managing the war, war mongers, take your pick. No one hoping to make a forceful point feels a need to aknowledge that there is a spectrum of opinion: of course some Liberals are anti the War, but some are pro it - in the UK Tony Blair, quite Liberal in an American sense, is certainly pro war.

The use of labels or word-bites makes this process of demonising the opponent easy, the labels take on a life of their own and before a few weeks are past, the Democrats, as a result of short-term political calculation, can be labelled anti-war, the Republicans pro-war. The Democrats have long been labelled Liberal, so it's a short step to 'equating an anti-war position with liberalism'. This forum follows the trends.

3. I have a natural affinity with what you call the China model. I think that while it takes time, while there will be ups and downs and disasters and triumphs, if one has the patience it works out most of the time.

In the case of China, before the Nixon/Kissinger initiative the Chinese were regarded as impalcably hostile, incapable of being dealt with in a rational way, run by a psychopath (Mao was fond of saying stuff like a nuclear attack could kill hundreds of millions of Chinese, but given time the population would breed and grow, eventually defeating the enemy.) In the 1960s US considered the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Chinese nuclear installations. These days, while not perfect, relations have come a long way.

My problem with the China model is that I think it works most of the time - but not all the time. While pre-nuclear age this might not have been a problem, if it does go wrong now, then the potential downsides are extreme. With that in mind, if you want to go down the China path you need to be sure you can contain any situation that gets out of hand, and judging when that occurs is probably next to impossible.

Anyway, thanks for making me think,

Borat

Borat, and Michael,

Great posts! I've stewed over much of what you're deliberating for years. I'd come repeatedly to the brink of your conclusions. But then 911.

My Libertarianism has become militant. And here is a wonderfully articulate expression of the thought processes that motivate my militancy in this post 911 era:

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2003/09/three-conjectures-pew-poll-finds-40-of.html

I'd love to hear your and Michael's take on this.

Thanks for the kind words Mr. Borat, Mr. Wu, Mr. Matt, and Mr. Oliver. I’m not sure what a nomination for post of the day gets me, but if it’s my choice I’d like to sub ME snatch for tomorrow’s Linda (I do the WODs on a 7 day delay).

At the risk of rendering those kind words obsolete I’d like to add some background, solicit balance, and address the minimal response I’ve generated.

Quick background…I despise ideological inconsistency. Back up even further; I despise laziness, and see ideological inconsistency as a form of intellectual laziness, the tendency to obey rather than question. “Leader A said so, he’s pretty smart, I agree” instead of “I really feel strongly about this, how does it apply to that?” A simple example is Liberal opposition to the death penalty coupled with support for abortion rights. By inserting the notion of innocent life one can almost make a relevant case for the consistency of the opposite position (Evangelical support for capital punishment/opposition to abortion rights), but if we’re all guilty of original sin at conception the idea of innocent life is without merit.

By now you can imagine how much fun I am on vacation …

My original post (#67) briefly outlined arguments against the Iraq war/Middle East democratization project from the perspective of a traditional Conservative, myself. One can certainly derive similar examples of inconsistency by examining “Liberal” opposition to this project through the lens of traditional Liberal dogma. While it would be disingenuous of me to do so (argue a case that I did not believe in), I would like to hear said argument from a war/ME democratization supporter who considers him/herself a Liberal. I would pre-empt any appeal to morality (i.e. this war is immoral therefore wrong) by noting that the concept of morality belongs to neither the right or the left, regardless of how much either side would have us believe otherwise.

As stated in #67 I tend to steer clear of the rest day discussion, primarily due to time constraints but I must confess that I find them exceedingly boring. To me the exciting part of dialog comes from learning something new, but I never saw any indication that anyone left feeling any different than when they came. There was no enlightenment, just fixed positions stated over and over. No listening, just people waiting to talk. Most importantly the simplification into opposition=Left, support=Right seemed simply absurd to me so I posited my hypothesis in the hopes that one (any) of the “Conservative” war supporters would provide a logical explanation of the conservative rationale for this project. A rationale that I am genuinely interested in, this is not a test.

Mr. Cooper, you state in #95 that “historically, the "George Washingtons", as Coach has put it, have been exterminated… It takes a tough SOB to persist in that sort of environment, and as far as I can tell, they are doing it.” Frankly, if that’s all you took from my piece I can only assume that your reading was as cursory as your response. Please don’t take this personally, you and I have at least one mutual acquaintance and I look forward to sweating with you in the near future, hopefully as host, but one simply has to page through the rest day comments to see that you are one of the more active and articulate antagonists of the so-called “Leftists” in their opposition to the war. Don’t get me wrong, I can come up with a long list of complaints about the left, but I would hope that your right to accuse, coupled with your obvious intellect would be accompanied by the responsibility to defend your war support in conservative terms.

Short of that I’ll take your bait and posit that perhaps al-Sadr is one of these George Washingtons you reference. As you know his father was killed by Saddam, he’s certainly no friend of the Sunni terrorists of Al-Queda and Ba’ath, the ones who are primarily killing out boys. He doesn’t think like us or want the same things we do, but he thinks like Iraqis, many Iraqis at least. Suffice it to say that his stock is worth a lot more than ours on the Iraqi exchange, and he has thirty odd seats in the freely elected parliament. Is there a Conservative argument against the free market of Iraq producing a George Washington in the person of al-Sadr?

Mr. Glassman, in response to my question about the Arab capability for self determination you state in #107, “Not yet. They live in abysmal ignorance, in the dark ages with cell phones, females denied education, males robotized by madrassas. They’re no more capable of self-rule than a clutch of Harvard professors.” I applaud your forthrightness. Civil society tends to stomp out, or at least relegate to the isolated frontiers of discourse, such a strongly worded and repugnant strain of xenophobia. Strangely enough I think we’d get along swimmingly if we ever met, I tend to speak in a similarly unfiltered fashion that many of my peer find most distasteful.

But I digress, with a bit of editorial license your premise could be applied to black folk here in the US, “They live in abysmal ignorance, in the dark ages with pagers and gold chains, denied a decent education, robotized by hip-hop culture…” If poor, ignorant Joe Iraqi is worth $1T, how much do we owe the descendents of slaves right here at home? Moreover, how much is this experiment in global affirmative action going to cost us? Finally, since you’re so fond of hurling venom at the so-called “Left”, please defend this policy in traditional Conservative terms.

Mr. Matt, in #130 you come very close to the argument I would make if forced to defend this exercise from a Conservative viewpoint. Buried somewhere in the traditional definition of Conservatism is the concept that peace can best be achieved through might, i.e. if you’re bad enough you don’t have to take any crap. Unfortunately, the misapplication of this ideal by a band of incompetents has brought no peace and has shattered our illusion of strength.

That said, if Iraq was indeed a threat to you and I then I would have supported neutralizing said threat. In fact, that’s exactly what was being done prior to the invasion. Recall that after a game of diplomatic chicken that started under Clinton, Saddam let the UN weapons inspectors back in and gave them (here’s where someone will disagree, please provide a credible reference) effectively unhindered access. Regardless of what anyone thought he had, the threat was neutralized, with zero lives lost and our credibility intact. I believe this interpretation concurs with your statement that “such proof was necessitated *BY* '243 (sec 3b).” Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Mr. Oliver, you allude to Mr. Bush’s adherence to the religious (i.e. social) wing of the Conservative movement. I could argue that the concept of social conservatism as an oxymoron since individual liberty trumps all. But that’s for another rest day. Respectfully, my point is not what Mr. Bush believes and why, but what you believe and why. Personally I’m a very religious person, a Capitalist. I believe in the sanctity of the marketplace to solve all that is rotten. When there’s a market for freedom and liberty in Iraq (and the greater ME) there will be freedom and liberty there. All the tanks and all the dead American boys are doing nothing but delaying that day. The greatest enemy of the closed mind is the open market. If we really wanted to topple the mullah’s in Iran we’d make nice and start selling them our hideous things. Not only would we open up a lucrative market for American companies (like mine, shameless plug), but we’d open up a market for ideas, and I have all the faith in the world in the American idea. I think the Iranians would like it a lot, who knows, we might even learn something too.

In closing I’ll refer back to Mr. Glassman’s paraphrasing of Bill O’Reilly in #139, “Do you want the United States to succeed in Iraq?” I respond with a resounding NO. I want the Iraqis to succeed in Iraq. I want them to choose a vision of nationhood that befits their ancient and proud culture, and I say this in the full knowledge that Iraqi freedom may look very different than American freedom, but it’s their market, their choice. I have faith in people.

Does that mean I hate America? Does that mean I don’t support the troops? You tell me, and if you claim to be a Conservative please back it up with Conservative principals. I think we’re on the wrong side of history here, and I’ve told you why. I love our constitution and don’t find it necessary to destroy it in order to save it.

Borat, I concur with Coach, great stuff. That's exactly the type of deep, spirited, non-judgemental exchange I was soliciting and I'm sure it's what this forum was designed for.

Frankly I'm disappointed that I didn't read it prior to posting my follow-up and would like to take this opportunity to retract my reference to the rest day discussions are "exceedingly boring." I've obviously been guilty of the same intellectual laziness that I just railed against.

Unfortunately I won't be able to address it tonight, #148 was written on a long delayed flight from the west coast and rapidly edited here at home prior to posting. It's now after 04:00 here Eastern time and I've just pored my second glass of perseverence per Barry Cooper in #138. Though I go with Maker's Mark, as a fellow Kentuckian I'm sure he'll understand.

I'll put some thought into #146 as well as the Belmont Club Blog and try to put something together tomorrow after dear sweet Linda. I know already that I did a pretty poor job outlining the China model.

Cheers gentlemen.

Michael Ledney,

I had similar reactions to you when I first started following the rest day comments, but what I realised is that what one gets out of them depends on oneself.

I hadn't really sat down and tried to think through and articulate an argument properly for some time; my writing skills were rusty; I had views on a lot of things, but I realised that they were sometimes contradictory and without shape. That's just me - you may have a different perspective.

Now, Coach does have his favourite topics which do tend to recur, but they have the advantage of being important and of calling forth strong reactions. Also, some posts are boring or whatnot, but I have found that even some of the weaker posts can lead to new avenues for thought.

Once I started thinking about the topics and the posts on them, I realized that to really get the most out of the discussion I had to write my thoughts down if I could and expose them to the cold hard steel of public scrutiny and criticism - this did not come naturally, but to improve one's writing one has to write! And, if sometimes a post just sort of evaporates as the discussion passes it by, that's life.

Your original post also led to some insight - up to then I had basically been shooting on sight (as I suspect is the case with most posts here); when I had to sit down, read carefully, draft a response, re-draft it, hone it and so on, I realised that while I was comfortable blazing away, putting a more measured response together was very much harder for me - another weakness to be addressed, another lesson learned.

At the moment I have time to engege here - this will not last, so I am making the best I can of it while I can.

Borat

PS good follow up post.

GROUP HUG!!!!

At the risk of flogging a dead thread, let me answer some comments addressed to my posts.

Borat ##145-146

My thesis is that a dialog can’t be rational if the words keep moving around. Saying my definitions are nuanced is technically OK. Nuance means to make necessary distinctions. But nuanced has lately become a pejorative, a synonym for weasel wording, or a Clintonism like “did not have sex”, or “the meaning of is”. I like the Wikipedia notion of sucking the meaning out of words to keep an interpretation intact. In what sense did you mean nuanced?

Indeed, “grassroots” is too new for Webster’s Second. Webster’s Third says in relevant part,

>>The very foundation or source : the fundamental part: basis [the grass roots of political organization]

I find the fundamental part of the problem in the Middle East to be fundamentalism, and in particular that of the jihadist variety. It is imposed from the top down, not created from the bottom up. It is not the consensus of a displaced populace. It’s not the culmination of a demand for 40 virgins. And its imposition is neither quick nor easy. It takes a lifetime of madrassa training. Hardly spontaneous, that.

You say, “Our disagreement on definitions changes no facts”. With that I agree, but that is not the question. We’re trying to sort the facts to characterize them correctly, are we not?

Sorry about the Latin lesson. The intent was give an instruction on logic and argument. You should be able to pick up the essence easily by Googling for “fallacious arguments -reductio”.

I liked your phrase, “Sunni side”. Insert puns here.

My take on libertarians is that they will certainly fight to defend the country, but that their idea of a threat is enemy boots on the ground in certain of the 48 contiguous states.

I take issue with the phrase pro-war as an antonym for anti-war. The anti-war movement encompasses passivism -- opposed to any war. It views disarming as an affirmative war preventative. Nothing is worth fighting for. The antonym would be bellicose: arm then go pick a fight. That is lunacy at the other end of the spectrum.

Conservatives have shown themselves willing to arm to prevent war. They use their accumulated might reluctantly, but will do so long before a Libertarian would be aroused. It conserves the tradition that created the country.

Today we have a rather strong anti-war movement, married to the Bush whackers who cannot answer O’Reilly’s question, “Do you want the US to win the War?” These are today’s liberals and the base of the Democrat Party. They exist to no measurable extent in the Republican party.

There is a subtle question for each person to answer: How much are you willing to take before you’ll fight? It took 30 years of escalating attacks for us to launch the War on Terror. The last straw just happened to be on Bush’43’s watch. The capacity for insults is infinite for the anti-war activists; it is robust for libertarians; and it is calculated for conservatives. For the Bush-whackers, it is situational, and anti-patriotic.

If you don’t agree, I’m open to counter examples. Here’s one: Joe Lieberman. He is a liberal, but I think he is strongly motivated to defend Israel. Regardless of the apparent bias, he has the wisdom to see that the terrorist movement is aimed at Israel in the short term.

Murtha is an enigma. He is probably not anti-war, which makes him a Bush whacker or just addled. His cut and run policy has a strong but far from unanimous following among Democrats, including especially Pelosi.

Democrats and liberals have earned the anti-war label, don’t you think?

I’ll concede the point that the War on Terror has not gone well, and that Bush’43 is to blame. The War is likely to be lost. Beyond that superficial point, we’d surely disagree.

The War is going badly domestically, in part because of American’s instant gratification, fast food mentality. In part, it is because of a Bush-whacking mainstream media that has had surprising success in Vietnamizing the War on Terror.

It is going badly for Bush’s failure to defend at home, and a failure to prosecute in the Middle East. For these failings he has lost substantial support everywhere, and it is snowballing.

Bush needs to breakdown all the sanctuaries (borders, clerics, mosques, foreign press), identify the enemies, and take them out. He needs a big, bold, well publicized, successful, new phase. Support will follow.

Michael Ledney ##148-149

You say a resounding NO to wanting the US to win in Iraq, and substitute that you want the Iraqi’s to succeed. Now that is nuanced, in keeping with the worst sense. It is Clintonesque. Do you actually believe what you have written?

The Bush policy is for the duly elected Iraqi government to survive. You say you don’t want that to happen. Your wish would be satisfied if Saddam, or Saddam-lite, in power. As long as it’s Iraqi, but your NO answer rules out a popular democracy. You thus argue for self-determination, even if undemocratic. You would not object to any kind of despotic, belligerent government as long as you can call it Iraqi. If that new Iraqi government builds modern weapons and smokes Israel, that’s OK with you as long as it is run by Iraqis!

You admire ancient traditions. Is that Hittite, Assyrian, or Babylonian? Good ol’ Roman, maybe? Saladin traditions? How about that Ottoman Empire! Anything but Western civilization, I suppose.

This little critique is an application of a conservative principle, per your request: namely, taking your weasel words at face value. Here are some more conservative principles.

I might buy your argument that social conservative is an oxymoron. The core of conservatism is individualism, not religiosity. For example, consider the Contract with America, an unprecedented and brilliant off-year Republican platform. As I recall, it did not call for prayer in schools, fetus rights, or Judaeo-Christian warnings at the court house.

Jeffersonian liberalism represented individual liberty. Modern liberalism is first and foremost, big federal government, individual conformity to the will of government. Liberalism is populism, taking the form anti-corporation and income redistribution, making it distinctly anti-Capitalism.

Bush would interpose democracy to defeat Islamoterrism, which you oppose. Instead you believe your Libertarian economic principles would be a defense against foreign despotism. You seem to think capitalism begets civilization, and that Capitalism is a natural and stable state. My conservative view is that where government provides an adequate infrastructure, liberty begets capitalism. That capitalism maximizes individual wealth and well-being. What must be conserved is that liberty. It must be defended against liberals and international despotism, before either gets out of hand.

Jeff Glassman,

My usage of nuanced is in the traditional, non-Clinton sense: of all the posters here I find that you are perhaps the most particular about definitions, and sometimes it takes me a while to realise that I am banging on about something and you are talking about something subtly different - for example your definition of the Media Left Complex (or a similar phrase) a while back was not actually very obvious, I thought, (it was quite particular in fact) but maybe that's just me!

I agree that the problem is about fundamentalism of the jihadist kind; I agree that it has been spread from the top down (over more than 30 years, perhaps 70 - 80? Al Wahhab died in 1792, the Salafis have been around since the mid 19th century, the Al Sauds took the Muslim holy cities in 1924 ans started propagating Salafi/Wahhabism, Al Banna was killed in '49, Sayyid Qutb executed in '66; Iran went its own way 27 years ago, but they are hardly alone here); but I think the top is rather broad these days, it's message has been sown on very fertile ground and at least 2 generations have now been through the Madrassa training or similar - basically the whole of Saudi Arabia has been through it. 5% of British Muslims were prepared to say that they thought the London suicide bombings were a good thing - take account of the fact that some would approve but not feel they could reveal their feelings and others would be sympathetic, but not perhaps think the bombings were 'good' and you have quite a large group in the UK who are radicalised or close to it. I would bet that the percentage in Iraq, Syria, Saudi, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. would be larger, I think it is a pervasive problem.

I spent some time in Northwest Pakistan and the fringes of Afghanistan in 1999, and certainly fundamentalist islam and anti-Americanism were widespread then, not just among some top imans. I can't imagine it is better today.

If you choose to take out the madrassa/mosque/iman network in an overt and rapid manner I think you will have a general war against Muslims in short order. Now, that doesn't mean one doesn't do it, but I would say you had better be sure that the US has the resources to do the job properly, is prepared to inflict massive damage and loss of life and potentially take damage, and is prepared to disrupt the world's economy for a while and to face widespread opprobium, probably from everyone.

Lastly, you make the point that: 'where government provides an adequate infrastructure, liberty begets capitalism'; I would say that capitalism begets liberty. We will have to remain apart on that.

Borat

Mr Glassman, somehow you've managed to winnow out the true meaning of the carefully constructed maze of weasle word I built to befuttle you and only you. Drat. However, I thank you for the translation, and with your permission I'll save it in case I'm ever tempted by the nuance monkey again.

Two minor corrections though:

- My NO to your O'Reilly does not rule out popular democracy in Iraq, as long as it's concieved and implemented by Iraqis for Iraqis.

- Your supposition that I don't include Western Civilization in my pool of admired ancient traditions is incorrect. I'm really glad to live in a representative republic, I think it works quite well for us.

We actually agree on most everything else though I think your note, "Modern liberalism is first and foremost, big federal government, individual conformity to the will of government" supports my original hypothesis that this war/democratisation project is, at heart, a Liberal undertaking. But I really don't have the energy to keep typing/thinking.

Mr. Borat, I'm spent after working out, could I follow up per the China model via private message. I think Mr. Glassman is onto something per the flogging of this thread.

Borat, #153

You wrote,

>> If you choose to take out the madrassa/mosque/iman network in an overt and rapid manner I think you will have a general war against Muslims in short order.

I wouldn’t do that. I note that the imams are at no risk, and are in no way suicidal. I would decapitate the radical sects, a few at a time. And then their replacements if they don’t disband their militias. And repeat. It might take a few iterations for them to get the message.

You disagree with my theory that liberty begets capitalism. Here’s a start on my reasoning. Capitalism needs
• The personal right to own property.
• A stable currency.
• The right to interest on money.
• Market driven interest rates.
• The right to acquire wealth.
• A banking and credit system.
• A right to transport goods.
• A right to private communications.
• A legal system, including contracts, intellectual property
• The right to negotiate for labor, to hire and fire.

These are liberties in the American system.

Ledney, #154

Bush’43 is a big government guy, but I don’t think that was either his motivation or effect in trying to establish a democratic government in Iraq. I take him at his word that he believes that a democracy would split apart the terror bloc in the Middle East. I think he is correct. And I think in hindsight, his choice of Iraq was perfect. It was his execution that was imperfect.

The Bush doctrine may prove naive about the capability of all people for democratic self-rule. Our own system proves frightfully difficult to sustain. In that, Bush demonstrates liberal naiveté. He is also too trusting as in his relationship with Putin and Mexico’s Fox. He might be conservative naive in his compunction against confronting the jihadist imams.