Excellent very much needed

Greetings all - my spouse has expressed an interest in CF, but she recently injured her knee and has limited ability to do a lot of exercises that involve bending the legs. I know, I know...that's a lot of exercises.

Any ideas?

Gracias

#2: post on the forum...

oh...and there's a CrossFit Journal on working wounded...

I have been longing for this rest day. Crossfit and Christmas have been a kick-butt combo over the last week.

this is much needed. im so tired from 'barbara' followed by the 5k run today.

definitely needed...

27/m/6'0"/185

as rx'ed

0:00

rock out...

I didn't do Barbara on the prescribed day, so I did it today instead of the run. I think I'm gonna give Fran a try tomorrow . . . I seriously need to work on my pullups.

Nice. Webb, no extra workouts today just 'cuz you need to be a hero. Play some XBox and email your wife ;)

win -

Now would be an ideal time to build upper body strength. Shoulder presses (no leg bending involved there), pullups (with assist, if needed - no kipping yet), pushups (if she can get to the face-down position). Good mornings for the back ... there are possibilities.

Crossfit I love you!
Please come do a cert. in Utah. We have many firefighters here and medical personnel who are crossfitters. Please? Pretty please? I'll be your best friend?

Gnat

Surreal to see Thursday's posted video going on in the background of Rip's shoulder instruction. Surreal, but cool.

#9 crisco: isn't it Rx'ed 24:00? Meaningless I know.

Only 21 more days till I'll be at the basic barbell cert in San Diego! Can't wait.

See Julius. It's not broken. It did take longer to type this though. SO BACK TO THE OLD EASY WAY!

ROBERT S.
TUCSON, AZ.

Thanks for the articles. Rest day might be used to work the muscles above the neck.

take care

A lot of Crossfit Media multi-tasking going on in that video.

#16 Rob

Excuse my butting in but, I think Julius was hinting to stop "yelling" which, as you might know, is indicated by using all caps when sending text on the web. Maybe you are showing your enthusiasm regarding CF?

Question:

I'm curious how the certs work. Are the seminars meant for people to participate in some kick-butt training, or do we get an actual cert to use to train other people? What if I just wanted to join other CrossFitters in a day or two of great workouts?

1LT U.S. Army in Baghdad Iraq.

New Years Resolution: at least 10 Hand stand pushups.
Anybody got any helpful hints, workout drills or pointers?

Nice work Rip happy new year

Greg is looking good in the background with the mixed grip kips//

How soon is too soon to come back to weight trainig after an injury, ie two broken ribs from BJJ? Oppinions would be awesome.

#16

Hahaha. My bad. :)

Picture of Me and Adam Storms who's on vacation from Iraq for a few days. Also a picture of him getting his 1st muscle up! It was a first for me too. The first person I coached through one :)!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisonmagara/

He returned the favor and took me to see Blue Man Group with 2 of his friends. Apparently he warned his friends that I would talk about CrossFit and try to convince them to try it or come to my gym. He also told them I would destroy all of the excuses they threw at me of why they couldn't do it. I Did. I found this out after I talked about CrossFit for and hour straight. :I haha

My favourite line of Steyn's piece was:

"In the teeth of that glum reality, he’s rode a difficult tightrope with some skill."

When you can mix a metaphor like this without batting a feather, perhaps it's time put your pen out to pasture.

For Steyn, Pakistan "defies the neatness of scripted narratives". It seems the situation in that country prompts Musharraf, like Barbarossa's Generals, to shoot "without a script". Kurtz explains a screenplay adopted and acted out in an earlier 20th century British production. In Kurtz's rendering of the British drama, "Muslim society" has one of two leading roles, and in Steyn's Pakistani improv, Pakistan's "population", are always on screen, though are largely silent.

For Steyn, the Pakistani population plays a monolithic part (to the fourth decimal place, such rigorous casting) - it is the indistinguishable rabble, capable only of soldiering or terrorizing. In Kurt's production, "Muslim society" is cast with more depth: soldier, terrorist, envoy.

Kurtz's is a profoundly more optimistic version of this story. Cast as envoy, the Muslim societies of the west communicate to other Muslim societies that it is possible to coexist with, and flourish within, liberal democracies. If it were produced, this relatively low budget film would fill an important gap in the market. If the scripts were good enough, perhaps Gregory Peck or Henry Fonda would come back from the dead for a curtain call, and save American cinema from the likes of Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise.

Raul: As far as I know the Level II cert will be about learning how to coach. I feel confident training after the Level I but I want to go the Level II asap. The Level I cert includes a few workouts but that isn't the point of the weekend. It's just a bonus. Getting to meet a ton of wonderful people including Coach and the CrossFit all stars is another BIG bonus. The 3 certs I've been to have been some of the best weekends of my life. Lots of new information, some training, and great people.

If you want to workout with a group of CrossFitters why don't you find your closest affiliate? I'm not saying you shouldn't go to a cert. You should and everyone should. :)

Dear Mr. Musharraf,

Don’t worry about that Mark Steyn. His 11/11 column is as dead as Benazir Bhutto; his theory is as moribund as Pakistan democracy. You're next, but today you’re still in charge!

Here’s your plan for survival:

Get in front of the riot, and turn it in a national demonstration with you at the head. Announce that you will carry out Bhutto’s goals. Tell the country that Bhutto was indeed shot -- by jihadists. Create militia under the Army. Gather the energy of the rioters into concerted attacks on the jihad Imams and their followers. Rally all Pakistan against the common enemy, the enemies of democracy.

Radical Islam scored victory after victory with no repercussion -- Leon Klinghoffer, sky-jackings, night clubs, embassies, the Marine barracks, the Cole. All this was to push America out of the Middle East so to get Israel. These were capped by the spectacular success on 9/11!

But once again the Sleeping Giant awoke! This President had his pants on. Afghanistan and Iraq were lost in a blink, and American influence swelled in the Middle East.

Now the Tali-Qaeda have scored again – smaller target to be sure, but a huge political coup against democracy and against Pakistan.

Now comes payback, and its in your grasp. Bring in the American, whose mere presence delivers the first blow! Name names of the jihad and take them out. Purge Waziristan. Reduce problem areas to uninhabitable rubble. Become the hero of Pakistan.

This is war, and this is how it is conducted.

Good Morning everyone.
Back from a week long family vacation.
Thanks again to Primal in DC, although I got lost and was unable to make it, and to ALBANY CROSSFIT, for putting together some hair raising WODS this past week!
I heard that DC was great, and ALBANY was sic! I wanted to meet all of you...but all in due time I suppose!

No rest day for this kid! I spent the week up north in Mass, attaching lashing straps to support bars of swings in the park for do ring work, did WOD's on the side walk in the middle of a great snow storm...and now I am back and it is 60 degrees out, and I can't wait to hit it today!

Allison, Spider Chick, Amo Jones, Clovis, and everyone, I will get you next time!

Hope everyones holiday's were safe, happy, healthy and fit!

~J~

~Train Hard and Push Through "IT"!~

Dear America:

Here's your plan for survival:

Stop offering nonsensical, inherently violent nations your advice, support, and especially your money. Let them figure it out.

Maintain a strong national defense, including the ability to un-create any target around the globe. If a nation like, say, Pakistan, attacks you or supplies attackers with aid, un-create their nation. Make it clear to the whole world that this is your policy.

Withdraw from the U.N. Do not let foreign men decide the fates of American soldiers and sailors.

Withdraw every soldier and sailor from every base around the globe. South Korea can defend itself. You are not the world's police, as Bill Clinton tried to make you - he was criticized for this by George Bush, who them made you the world's police.

If you go to war, declare it. Do not spare their cultural sites. Do not spare their women and children. Kill them all, win the war, and leave. This is how war is conducted.

Be very hesitant to go to war, because you will be killing lots of mommies and daddies and little babies, besides "bad guys."

Make sure you're not the bad guy. Follow the standards Geneva convention for all enemies, not because it's a conniving way to ensure fair treatment of our soldiers, but because we are a nation with values that are good and right.
Use the C.I.A. only for intelligence gathering, not screwing around with other nations. You can't handle the blowback.

Stop supporting all other nations financially. It's borrowed money anyway - you're taking out a loan, to pass on to your children, to support nations that do not help our nation in the first place.

That's how to run a nation.

Gah, who woke up Wilson?

I love how we can Greg and Judd's WOD in the background of todays video! HAHA!

Haven't posted since my last birthday, rueful at the injuries and arthritis that have limited my WODs. Had to advance my 71st birthday workout to today, since an imminent knee surgery will keep me idle for the real day. So back to the L-pullups, done every 30 seconds for 20 minutes, total 124. A far cry from old glories, but perhaps on the way back. My New Year's greetings to all of you, especially my inspirations from Greg and Kelly on down. Adam

Welcome back J Rock thought we would have to dail CF search and rescue for you. 21-15-9 rest repeat.

I got this response from a trainer when asked why he does not incorporate O-lifts into his athletes training regimens. Thoughts?

Let me start by backing up a bit and saying that I absolutely love the olympic lifts. My take that they are a poor choice as a training means for non-olympic lifters is in no way meant to be a condemnation of the lifts themselves. If anyone loves the lifts simply for the sake of the lifts, then by all means they should perform them to their heart's content. As you mentioned, though, proper instruction is of paramount importance.

Now, in response to your question:

The first thing ANY trainee must do when implementing a program is state a goal. If you are not training to achieve a goal, then why are you training? I think most people have an abstract goal in mind, but that is not sufficient when it comes to program design. So, my question to you would be, "With what end result in mind do you perform the Olympic lifts?"

As a CrossFitter, I am assuming your goals are improved tolerance to a lactic state, decreased bodyfat, and increased strength endurance. At least, I hope those are your goals, because that is about all CrossFit provides. (This is probably a completely seperate discussion.) So in the context of your training, we now have several specifically defined desired ends. In this regard, the olympic lifts are only one of any number of possible means to achieve those ends. So the exercise selection must then come down to a cost:benefit analysis of the o-lifts versus all other means for achieving the same ends. In my mind, this is an easy answer because the o-lifts represent significantly greater orthopedic risk and overall structural stress than do other means. As I mentioned previously, there is also the technical aspect to consider. Simply put, you are using adaptive energies that could be directed elsewhere simply to master the highly technical nature of the lifts. From a training economy standpoint, this is a poor choice.

As far as my athletes go, the above explanation is the basis for my decision not to use the o-lifts. Only the context is different. I train baseball, football, soccer, track, lacrosse, judo, and mma athletes, among others. As you mentioned, strength (especially as expressed at the far left of the force-time curve via starting strength and acceleration strength), body control, flexibility, etc. are all critical to success for those athletes. The bottom line is that there is absolutely nothing magical about the olympic lifts in terms of training those capacities. The same capacities can be trained via squat and deadlift variations, medicine ball throws, and many different jumping and bounding exercises. In fact, these exercises are not only going to train the same capacities that everyone praises the o-lifts for training, they are going to do so with a much higher dynamic correspondence to sport form. That is, they come much closer to matching the amplitude and direction of movement, the accentuated region of force production, the rate and time of force production, etc.

An example to make it a little more clear: look at a sprinters drive leg. The amplitude of movement at the hip is from full flexion to full extension. In the o-lift, movement is from full flexion to only neutral. Even more critical, the accentuated region of force production during the sprint is the last half of hip extension, when the foot strikes directly below the center of mass and then supplies force into the ground as the leg moves behind the hip. In the o-lifts, most force production happens at the beginning of the movment, when the hip is still in full flexion. Finally, look at the speed of movement of the leg during a sprint, and compare that to the speed of even a very "explosive" power clean. Especially as any significant weight is used during an o-lift, the rate of force production is far below that seen in sprinting.

The bottom line is that unless you are training specifically to become better at the olympic lifts, there are many other means to choose from that are going to train the same capacities, with higher correspondence to sport form, and with much less risk of injury.

Can anyone tell me the difference in doing pullups vs hand stand push ups (in terms of what they work and how hard they work them)? This is other than the obvious your not hanging upside down for the pull ups. E-mail me directly nfdmedic4@gmail.com
Thanks
Joey

#30 Nick T

I slept in, but I'm up now. What can I do for you?

Allie~ cheers! Great to be back!

I think it's clear enough that we have another 2000ish Afghanistan in Northern Pakistan. We have active terror training camps, and relatively unmolested sites for planning and staging terror attacks. Terrorism is not and never has been a stateless or locationless phenomena. It needs safe havens, it needs time, it needs leaders, and it needs money. We are currently allowing all of these things to operate, and we saw in the Bhutto assassination a small, small harbinger of what is possible, and likely already on the planning table.

As few recall, we took over substantially all of Afghanistan--ejecting substantially all Taliban supporters in the process--with a few hundred Americans and a determined Afghani population. There is no reason we could not replicate that model with Musharraf.

I have never understood why--outside of the pragmatic need to avoid a wider rebellion--that we have put pressure on Musharraf to maintain democracy, or step out of martial law. Pakistanis are manifestly not ready for democracy, at least the Waziristani tribes who ignore entirely the laws of the putative government.

The British never ruled them. They developed a modus vivendi that was always tenuous, and always contingent on the pragmatic use of fundamentally parochial conflict to keep the guns pointed in another direction. The implementation of British law was never on the table, and to this moment unthinkable in the current state of affairs.

I just listened to a series of lectures on the Civil War. This was a brutal, horrific war, that coined the term and use of "Total War". Farms were razed, Atlanta was burned, crops and livestock were destroyed, and large sections of the South fell into hunger and even starvation before it was done.

When one considers that this was Americans fighting Americans, it is hard to understand at this distance, but the fact is that Lincoln understood the survival of democracy to depend on the suppression of what he viewed to be an extra-legal rebellion.

MOre later.

chris wood -

A couple of thoughts I'd offer in rebuttal follow. He said (your paraphrase, I assume): Finally, look at the speed of movement of the leg during a sprint, and compare that to the speed of even a very "explosive" power clean. Especially as any significant weight is used during an o-lift, the rate of force production is far below that seen in sprinting.

Power equals work over time, which equals (mass times distance) over time. On the explosive power clean, much more work is done, over perhaps a little longer time. The result is the recruitment of the fast twitch fibers (can't keep the type numbers straight in my head, sorry) and their development. Further, even on the shorter sprints like the 100m, the runners need to both explode out of the blocks (where more power in the form of drive would matter) and need to accelerate down the track as long as possible. How many times have we seen the early leader out of the blocks passed in the last 25% of the race? These things require power, sustainable power.

As for his statement that, "... the o-lifts represent significantly greater orthopedic risk and overall structural stress than do other means," I submit that poorly-executed training of any sort carries that risk. Properly executed o-lifts do not, else the actual competitors in these events would have ripped themselves asunder at the weights they move. While that might make entertaining TV for some, it certainly shortens the careers of the competitors ;-). While I haven't followed the sport closely, I believe there have been perennial competitors, at massive weights. Quod erat demonstrandum.

#29 Jerid K.

Although I agree with some points you have stated, you live in a happy, gum drop, dream world that should have/could have been 20 some years ago. This is now and this is how we operate. South Korea probably can
(but I doubt it) go at it alone, but will have a difficult time defending itself, but we have a moral obligation to our ally to help kick butt if the North attacks. I wont even go into the diplomatic and economic reasons but as a ground pounder, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
An attacking force cannot be "hesitant". That is how wars are lost. If George Washington was "hesitant" in crossing the Delaware, I'm sure history would be different. Unfortunately, the "bad guys" forcefully hide behind mommies and daddies and babies and collateral damage results. Its a sad thing, but it does happen. Not all the smart bombs in the US arsenal can avoid innocents. Neither can a 5.56 handled by seasoned pro.
We're the bad guy no matter what we do, and the US has had along standing policy enforcing the Geneva conventions, so I dont know where you seem to imply that we do it for fair treatment of our soldiers. Fair? Fair!? Unfortunately for you, Mr. K, I feel you have not spent one minute of your time anywhere overseas and have seen the "fair" treatment of our soldiers by the enemy. We play fair, the enemy are extremists who follow sick twisted versions of sacred text and use it to kill men,women and children. Not just coalition soldiers, but even innocents who want a better future for their family/country.
They have beaten you into submission Mr. K. Thankfully, there are poeple in this nation, like myself, who will continue to take the fight to them.

Go AF.

We talk about Musharaff's hold on power as if it represents a real threat to Islamic fundamentalism rather than a conciliation, ours as well as his, to islamism? Isn't that why we share this schizophrenic view of the man? He represents one main source of our current woes and yet he serves as a rather pathetic shepherd, keeping the wolves away, armageddon at arms length. we've made the same wagers with the likes of saud and the maniacs who continue to settle in the west bank. bhutto herself was no solution to this 'quandary'. maybe her death might pave one but i doubt it. i can't help feeling like we're just slowing the descent, delaying the inevitable, which is fine. we obviously need some more time to figure this mess out.
at some point, musharaff or sharif or whoever it might be will have to purge. he'll have to tell his own men, "you're with us or against us." if bhutto, in her last and latest incarnation, represented anything (other than a corrupt family) it was that fairly admirable, if hollow, statement. all this does feel scripted though. i mean really, steyn, you took a shot at the 'left coast' that you love so much but the opening gambit works about as smoothly as the rest of your metaphors. if anything was "written" (to quote anthony quinns Auda abu Tayi from lawrence of arabia) it was this current fiasco in pakistan.

congrats on the Bear Run C9 but were coming again hard next year. Beat my personal best by a minute though 17:51. It was fun!

congrats on the Bear Run C9 but were coming again hard next year. Beat my personal best by a minute though 17:51. It was fun!

congrats on the Bear Run C9 but were coming again hard next year. Beat my personal best by a minute though 17:51. It was fun!

38M/175

made up the run WOD today, or at least tried to.

1.5 in 11:30. I had to break it down to a fast walk due to another head cold that kicked in last night. figures.

need some rest

Who knows how this recent development in Pakistan will play out? All I know is that I'm sure glad I'm not a staff officer in the J-3 at Centcom right now. I'm sure the OPTs have been going on round the clock since Bhutto got killed. I'm also sure by now that quite a few warning orders have been issued to some select units.

We've got quite a few support types there that have depended on the Pakistani Army for protection. Don't be surprised if our troop level in Pakistan (25,000 at present) swells in the weeks to come. If for nothing else but force protection while the Pakistani Army deals with the rioters. If I were AQ, I'd take the opportunity to strike hard at US targets in Pakistan while they're vulnerable. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so. However, if US troops get hit in Pakistan, wouldn't that open the door for US retaliatory strikes into the Taliban-controlled regions of Pakistan? Talk about scripted!

32/F/5'10"/155#

Got in some deadlift work today.

176x10
198x5
220x5
220x5
220x5
225x5
253x1

#34 Chris Wood
To quote the response, "In the o-lift, movement is from full flexion to only neutral. Even more critical, the accentuated region of force production during the sprint is the last half of hip extension, when the foot strikes directly below the center of mass and then supplies force into the ground as the leg moves behind the hip. In the o-lifts, most force production happens at the beginning of the movment, when the hip is still in full flexion."

This comment alone demonstrates that the writer is completely ignorant of proper technique of the o-lifts. The majority of the explosion happens during the second pull, not the first pull. The second pull includes a full extension vertically of the hips and a shrug. Watch some videos of Pyros Dimas on youtube and tell me that there is not a rapid acceleration of the weight following hip extension.

You have a very interesting conversation going with this guy. Stand your ground. There is no better way to create and maintain pillar strength than to do dynamic and explosive power movements. The o-lifts are the absolute expression of a "violent extension against the ground." One final point is that if this guy trains athletes that are athletic enough to play sports, than why wouldn't they be athletic enough to do the o-lifts w/out injury. Probably because he doesn't know how to teach them.

15/M/212

Hey fellow cross-fitters.

I do very well in almost all areas of CrossFit except pull-ups. The most i can do nonstop is about 3. After about 10 total pull-ups, i can't do anymore.

If anyone out there has any advice or knows of sites that would help it would be GREATLY appreciated.

15/M/212

Hey fellow cross-fitters.

I do very well in almost all areas of CrossFit except pull-ups. The most i can do nonstop is about 3. After about 10 total pull-ups, i can't do anymore.

If anyone out there has any advice or knows of sites that would help it would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!

Barry, #38

Musharraf has been flirting with death. He has been a big help to the WOT, but he has exacted an unacceptable price. That included giving sanctuary to the surrogate, rag tag forces of terrorism. Bhutto's assassination should call his hand, and help us mop up.

What needs to be done is neither a civil action, nor a matter of tit-for-tat retaliation. The Tali-Qaeda need to lose ground for their successes. That might mean more American involvement in their nasty little lives. That should mean less control over their soldier jihadists. And since they value little else, it should mean their lives.

Just as the military seems to go to war ready to fight the last, diplomacy lays down treaties to regulate an obsolete order. In this so-called fourth generation of warfare, the nation states operate behind the curtain. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” Coincidentally it was the Iron Curtain in the last generation, and now it is amorphic, ad hoc groups sharing little but jihad and silent partners. We carry the burden of a failed United Nations, burdened with a feckless, impotent security council and a general assembly of mutated, socialistic, bankrupt states.

We operate with the weak half of a Geneva Convention, where the new enemy is not a participant, denies everything, ignores national boundaries, sponsors and gives aid and comfort to surrogates, has no regular army, no uniforms, no identification, hides among civilians to attack soft targets and civilians, which it tortures and mutilates. The character of the enemy and his weapons is the adapted, cookie-cutter complement of the old weapons perfected, the boundaries of the treaties, and the burdens of civilized behavior. It is perfect darwinism (a popularized misperception not worthy of a capital letter).

The Israel-Palestinian problem is obscured in the media and in diplomacy by the daily little, hideous but indecisive exchanges. Retaliation and aggression are easily muddied. History is marked by its big events, not the little things. At the coarsest resolution, the big events of this fourth generation war on terror have to be 9/11, the fall of Iraq and Afghanistan, and now the assassination of an enemy of jihad and sharia in her ascendancy and that may have mortally wounded democracy in Pakistan. The next event of record will not be a police chase, nor will it be “clear, hold, build” or “defensive and stability operations” (all per the Counterinsurgency Manual). It will be another major coup from one side or another.

We must make the next, historical move. If we do, it will be surgical - decapitation of jihad. If the jihadists do, it will be massive, maybe of Hiroshima proportions. The alternative to decisiveness on our part is Musharraf replaced with a robed jihadist, running another sharia state, randomly exporting nukes by camel or exoatmospheric.

What stands in our way is not so much jihadists, but the terrorized Jerid Ks (comment #29). It's not the antibushniks. Of course, Hillary's experience would help if Musharraf is running around the castle with his pants off. McCain's loose cannon type loyalty would help if wars were won by the numbers of troops deployed and not by meaningful strategy and tactics. Of all the candidates, only a couple of Republicans seem to understand that we're in a serious war, not of our own making, and we are the last bastion before another dark age descends. And neither of those two could win right now if they combined their constituencies and doubled them.

The terrorists have made several mistakes. The assassination of Bhutto could be another one if it engenders a directed, lethal response from Pakistan, or if it jars the U.S. electorate out of its chronic narcolepsy.

thanks again for the pics AllisonNYC,,, I'm wonderin if we need to ordain you as the newest Crossfit evangelist? Maybe at your next Cert. LOL.. have a great and safe New Year.

M/22/6'1"/185

Did the Big Five 55 today.
Bench 185 (or bodyweight)
Goblet Squat 2 pood
Pullups
Box Jump 36"
Deadlift 185 (BW)

It's a count down from 10-1 like LInda.
14:00

Ken C. - you asked about this awhile ago, sorry I didn't get to you, a goblet squat is when you hold a KB in front of your collar bone. http://www.davedraper.com/blog/2006/11/04/what-are-goblet-squats-goblet-squat-instruction/ Here's some instruction on how to do them because I probably wasn't clear enough.

Enjoy the rest day. Time to do Xmas with the extended family.

Allison the pics are very cool and thank you for posting them, but I have a question. Other then the zip up hoody I see in a few shots do you own a shirt with long sleeves? LOL!

Keep the pictures coming.

Jeff,

Agreed. The second half of that thought was that within our own nation, great savagery has been perpetrated in the name of maintaining a stable nation-state built on the principles of democracy.

We own the legacy of the Enlightment. The secular religion that we export is founded on the notion of universal human rights. Yet, what is generally missed by postrationalits critics is that the implementation of the police protections that offer any actual value or meaning to the notion of human rights, is entirely dependent on force, both actual and threatened.

Washington, in his first term, very forcefully put down the Whiskey Rebellion http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/whiskey/

He marched as many troops to put down an insurrection, as were marshalled against the British in the Revolutionary War. His clear intent was to show through word and action that democracy was not optional, nor was violence. In a democracy, you work through the ballot box. Any other approach gets you dead or in jail. This had, at first, to be shown through actual violence. This got the attention of most Americans, and there was to my knowledge no large scale insurrection again until the Civil War, although of course there were many riots about many things, all put down with force.

Lincoln, of course, famously suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, meaning essentially that anyone could be jailed at any time for any reason, without charge or the possibility of petitioning for trial. Much like those in Gitmo.

Yet, in the end, that protection was returned, the rebellion put down, and the world shown that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, could in fact long endure.

If Musharraf fails to put down this insurrection, having elections in January or whenever it was scheduled for, is meaningless. At some point soon, he is going to be forced to start mass arrests, and he is going to have to take from the Waziristanis what they value: their lands, their honor, and their lives.

Where can they go? The Taliban fled to Waziristan. They are not welcome back in Afghanstan. We can see to that. Bringing this area, so reminiscent of the wild west, under control is not negotiable. Sooner or later, they will topple him, if he doesn't attack first.

Democracy itself depends on stability and security. If you cannot depend on the police, then you depend on yourself. If you have to depend on yourself, then you could care less who is theoretically in control. This is why the UN is an entity we can ignore. They are useless without us, and in general parasitic even on our efforts to rectify wrongs, and pacify war-torn areas. Whatever help we need or want, we can negotiate directly with individual nations, like Pakistan.

This of course, too, is why the Waziristanis ignore Musharraf. They like the way they live, just as Southerners liked the plantation lifestyle, and the comforts and wealth it provided. They no doubt figure that if the Americans are coming after them, they may as well make it so that we have no cooperative government, making a tough war much tougher. We must prevent this at all costs.

One of our principle apparent failings in this War on Terror is our lack of human assets that speak relevant languages, and understand cultural norms, which can vary widely, even in small areas.

Let us take this moment to look forward and start looking even at Central Asia, to the other Stan's, and begin thinking 15-20 years down the road to every possible source of outbound terror, and start preparing relationships, people who speak the languages, and building bonds of reciprocity. Remember, those are no longer Soviet "Republics" (funny I was about to use the term without irony), and quite able to move in other directions than those of peace, economic growth, and political liberalization.

In my view, this is just as much an opportunity as a problem. If we were intelligent--and I'm speaking hypothetically here--we would use our information warfare specialists, and money, to help Musharraf win the battle of the press. We need bloggers, radio commentators, websites, television broadcasts, newspaper editorials, the whole ball of wax.

But we likely won't do that, because that isn't what soldiers "do", and the CIA is on a choke collar held in any event by what appear to be East Coast liberals.

People die in wars, though, we need to remember this. Any time you can avoid the need to shoot someone, you have won twice. Logically, then, information warfare is both compassionate and expedient.

We can do so much better.

Did a sweet workout at CF CHAOS today then got to get some love from the Prowler. Made me want to die.
Celebrating NYE in ATL. Probably going to try and drop in at CF ATL or CFNA.

I took a rest day yesterday since I can't run so I plan on rowing 5K at our local rec center today. They have a C2 but last time I used it the display could not be read due to a cracked screen. If it is still broken I will row for time. This is all dependent on the rec center staff letting my wife tape my cast down to the right footrest. ;-)

#49 - phx2083@hotmail.com

Thank you for your response. I agree that his statement suggests a lack of knowledge about the mechanics of the O-lifts, especially w/r/t the second pull.

workout:
3 rounds "barbara-style" each for time, 3min rest b/t:

30 situps
25 parallette pushups
20 KBS 32kg
15 pullups
10 DL 100kg
50 squats

8:41
11:14
12:08

lay around fighting off pukie for an hour afterwords, messed up my pre-shift schedule. good times. about as close as I've come to pukie. happy holidays everyone!

Caught-up on 150 burpees today. 22:59 as rx'ed.

Oh dear- Thursday I attempted Barbara. I did the 150 burpees the day before and had some serious DOMS. I got through two rounds and was doing horrible. Made all crazy substituions for two more rounds and stopped worrying about the time which was not even comparative to my prior Barbara. The DOMS were still very good yesterday and my pecs are still sore today. I took yesterday off and will make up the CFT today. A lot of late nights/early mornings may be making recovery a little difficult.

Read through the CFT posts from the other day and holy cow! There were a lot of very awesome scores! Ladies- wow! Impressive!!

Competing between me and me only (hee hee) I tend to think I am a little better at the met-con wod's than the max reps but love them all nonetheless. Sooo- off to the CFT to do whatever I can pull off.

Erin

Do we need to control Waziristan, which I do not think anybody has ever accomplished, or just make sure that the Taliban and Al Qaeda don't use it as a sanctuary? I suspect the second. What does that entail? It does not seem that Musharraf has the capacity to take control over the area, regardless of his intentions. This leaves the U.S. What can we do? We could kill the terrorists pretty quickly, if we could find them. That is a huge if, and one that depends on our intelligence capacity. Our special operations capacity is world class, but it is dependent upon a second rate intelligence apparatus that limits the function of those spec ops. Thus Zawahiri and Bin Laden remain at large.

A large scale invasion of Waziristan could very well push Pakistan as a whole over the edge into chaos, and the country is close already. Furthermore, such an invasion would not be guaranteed to get Bin Laden and Zawahiri, who could slip out fairly easily. Even if we found and destroyed AQ central, the terrorist networks which they have set up in dozens of countries have made national borders mean much less, and traditional notions of hierarchy and authority in their organizations less relevant. In other words, their deaths would not be the death of Al Qaeda.

Many of the most important areas for the international security of the 21st century will be in the poorly governed and non-governed areas that function as sanctuaries for international crime (weapons trafficking both large and small, drugs, humans, etc.) and international terrorism. Think of the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, Somalia, Waziristan, the TriBorder Region in South America centering around Ciudad Del Este, the parts of Colombia controlled by the FARC, etc. As Barry mentioned, our capacity in these areas is currently weak due to our lack of the most basic requirements, people there representing our interests with the basic cultural and linguistic skills who can build intelligence networks to penetrate these networked international organizations and render them inoperable.

The maps that we use to look at the world, with their clear national boundaries, and the sovereignty they imply, can deceive us at times. We can look at the greater Middle East, and say, oh we've got Country X on our side, but Country Y is the enemy, and if we invade them or support a coup then they will be our friend too, and the entire area will be under our control. This state-focused approach ignores the fact that having a centralized government on our side in no way insures the loyalty of the entire population, especially of the areas where state capacity is weakest. The UK, for example, has a huge internal terrorism problem that threatens the security of the U.S., even though their central government is of course on our side. We need to start thinking about how to best fight enemies that are composed international networks, of course in addition to our traditional national enemies(Syria, Iran, North Korea.) My hypothesis is that the answer lies at least partially in improved human intelligence capacity, and not necessarily through the CIA.

37/F/5'3"/123

Didn't feel like running yesterday's 5K so I did a workout I saw in a video ... no name to it. I scaled it some.

15-12-9-6-3 reps for time
Deadlift, 111#
HSPU, assisted
Jumping 12" above max reach
8.07

Pukie watched the first two rounds, but thank God he passed me by!!

Then I practiced some hang squat cleans, 3x5.

Saturday AM Class @ Brand X

Tabata

Hang Power Snatch
KettleBell Swings
Pull Ups
Hang Power Clean

Each exercise performed for 8 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. No extra rest when switching exercises.

Counting each rep so you have a cumulative total at the end.

Using 35# bar and 25# kettlebell. Total was 224 - sure of that. Not sure of the break down in the different exercises

I think my exercise totals were 45/105/35/39
Hang Power Snatch 45
KettleBell Swings 105
Pull Ups 35
Hang Power Clean 39

PLEASE read comment #51!

Dereck O i found by doing GI Jane my number of pull ups went up from 12 to 18 ..

Give it a go..

Derek O -
As Coach always says (and I'm paraphrasing here) "step one in improving your performance in a given area is that you have to give a s**t. Step two, if you want to get better at (you fill in the blank), do more (fill in the blank)."

So, if you want to do more pullups, then practice every day and keep working on them. Pretty soon you'll be cranking them out. There's no silver bullet that will make you good a pullups overnight. Good luck!

Skipped yesterday's 5k due to a snowstorm and I didn't want to row. Did the following 30 minute kettlebell workout with Catherine Imes instead:

10 minute double 12k long cycle clean and jerk
10 minute single 12k snatch (5 minutes per hand)
10 minute double 12k jerks

No breaks except to put one bell down for jerks and to pick up the second bell for jerks. 70 LCCJ (7rpm), 170 reps for snatches (17rpm) and 70 jerks (7rpm) for jerks. LCCJ and snatches not bad, but between shoulder fatigue, aching feet and whining thumbs jerks were a testiment to suffering.

Dereck O: The best way to get better at pull-ups is to do more pull-ups. Lots and lots of them. Invest in a pull-up bar for your house and do them all the time. It worked for me. I didn't have one pull-up when I started Crossfit. I started doing negatives and then once I got one I bought a bar and started doing one everytime I walked by it. Then I started doing 2 then 3 and now I can do 18 kipping! Just make sure you get a sturdy one because mine came down on my head 3 times and it hurt.

Just stick with it and you'll have lots before you know it. Good luck.

Dereck O: The best way to get better at pull-ups is to do more pull-ups. Lots and lots of them. Invest in a pull-up bar for your house and do them all the time. It worked for me. I didn't have one pull-up when I started Crossfit. I started doing negatives and then once I got one I bought a bar and started doing one everytime I walked by it. Then I started doing 2 then 3 and now I can do 18 kipping! Just make sure you get a sturdy one because mine came down on my head 3 times and it hurt.

Just stick with it and you'll have lots before you know it. Good luck.

Caught up with 5K...25:43 PR on TM.

I have now decreased my TM 5K by ~5:00 in the last year doing CF with not a single added run of over 800M. As Coach has said: "Train your weakness."

FWIW, I STILL hate running...

#34 Chris Wood:

Let me share with you one of my favorite Coach quotes:

"It is amazing the number of things we have not need for or interest in of which we know nothing".

The idea that the power in a clean is generated mostly from the the bottom of the movement leads me to believe that the gentleman in question simply has no understanding of the OLY lifts and is hiding his lack of knowledge with a bunch of impressive-sounding (and incorrect) jargon.

The idea that "The same capacities can be trained via squat and deadlift variations, medicine ball throws, and many different jumping and bounding exercises [as the OLY lifts] is misguided. It is the sudden reversal of the action of the hips at the moment of getting under a full squat clean or full squat snatch that is where the incredible expression of power happens. No you cannot get the same powerful full-body explosion using a med ball.

You can certainly try to reason with this fellow if you wish, but I am guessing they have a lot of formal (incorrect) training to which they are attached, based on the hard-to-comprehend jargon used in his reply to you.

I would be interested to hear what he thinks of kipping pull-ups.

29/f/110

class at crossfit seattle this morning

team workout:

3 people per team, one person at each station you rotate when everyone has completed all reps at their station

5 rounds for time of:

30 db thrusters (15#)
10 push-ups
20 hanging leg raises

20:10

post: tried out a buddy lee jump rope! holy smokes, gotta get me one of those!

i'm sore.

bingo, congrats on the 5k PR! that's a lot of time to shave off in the past year, especially considering you didn't do any additonal running, great work!

Good old day off and I'm moving boxes in my crawl space under the house and hurt my lower back. What a pain in the @SS. Hope I am feeling better by Monday. A group and myself are headed to our first official CrossFit workout. However we have been training for about 2 months on our own. Enjoy the day of rest.

Trail run for 55 min with a light pack. I seem to be running a day behind. BW:170 Y/A:59

Normally, I make it a rule to avoid the ridiculous political commentary on this site, and just stick to the excellent training info - but this one hits too close to home.

From Jeff Glassman:
"Now comes payback, and its in your grasp. Bring in the American, whose mere presence delivers the first blow! Name names of the jihad and take them out. Purge Waziristan. Reduce problem areas to uninhabitable rubble. Become the hero of Pakistan."

I speak as a Pakistani, and as a member of family who knew the Bhutto's personally, and had extensive dealins with them, as well as with the late Zia ul Haq and his son (in the 80's), in addition to 2 other interim prime ministers (including the widely respected Miraj Khalid).

YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE ABOUT PAKISTAN, OR WHAT ITS PEOPLE WANT. If you think - even for a second - that Pakistani's would agree to what you're advocating, then you're insane. There is far too much uninformed delusional thinking, masquerading as expert opinion, in the American media when it comes to Muslim societies (or Pakistan).

The single biggest reason why the Army has been unable to "purge Waziristan" (your words) is because THEY DON'T WANT TO. These are OUR OWN PEOPLE. There have been numerous instances of Rangers throwing their weapons down, and refusing to fight (they are then taken prisoner, looked after, and repatriated to their families en masse).

The main Army Corps has been confined to barracks (which is why they are just using the Rangers in Waziristan), BECAUSE MUSHARAF HAS BEEN TERRIFIED THAT THEY WOULD REFUSE EN MASSE TO ATTACK THEIR OWN PEOPLE.

The concept of mass-terrorism is deeply abhorrent to Islam, and to the vast majority of Pakistani public opinion. There is no sympathy for that. But, what you fail to grasp is that the overwhelming majority of Pakistan does not endorse this "War on Terrorism" (which to our eyes is simply a "War on Islam").

What Musharaf may say when he is in Washington is one thing. Do you know what he says, in Urdu, TO HIS OWN PEOPLE (even on TV addresses)? That the only reason we are assisting the Americans is because we had no other practical choice. And that is the only basis on which anybody in Pakistan has been willing to go along with this madness. This is the only way he has been able to cling onto power within the Army (I'm not talking about the Army's hold on power, which will only be relinquished when they decide to do so, and not before).

Bhutto's assasination (by whom, it has yet to be determined. The majority opinion within Pakistan still points to Musharaf - time will tell) is a tragedy FOR PAKISTANI'S. Even to those of us who knew how corrupt and self-serving she and her family were. Its more a symbol of what we are going through.

The last thing we need are the ravings of American neo-cons, looking to exploit yet another tragedy in order to create more mayhem, and continue your dream of "perpetual war" which you have unleashed upon the world.

From Jerid K:
"If you go to war, declare it. Do not spare their cultural sites. Do not spare their women and children. Kill them all, win the war, and leave. This is how war is conducted."

Which is EXACTLY why Pakistan has nuclear weapons, why Iran wants them, and why any self-respecting state in the region would want them. Not to attack you. To deter mad Americans and their blood-lust for slaughtering yet more Muslims, and laying waste to more countries.

Listening to you lot, it makes one think. This is what it must have been like to be a Jew, in Europe, in the 1930's, listening to the right-wing fascist propaganda of the day.

Oh My Gosh. I FINALLY made up the Burpee WOD:
Chest to the ground but no way I was jumping 8 inches off the ground.

150 Burpees:

13:10

BLEH.

Thanks for the pull-up advice! Much appreciated! I actually hope they are included in tomorrow's WOD

3-2-1 go!

44/M/6'/185
ALSO DID DEAD LIFT PRACTICE TODAY. THIS IS A WORK SPOT FOR ME SO...
10-135
5-185
3-205
3-225
1-235
1-245
1-255
1-260 THIS IS A PR!
10-185
20-135

I WANT 300! AND I'M GOING TO GET IT.

RURAL/METRO FIRE DEPT.
TUCSON, AZ.

After a few days off, Monika and I did my own version of the Horrible Hundreds (my hotel room workout)...

100 pushups, lunges, situps, squats...timed.

New PR of 10:25
Monika's first time - 13:38

CFT
DL 210
SP 80
BS 170
= 460

Ok, not great, not horrible. Just right on the line. The SP is interesting b/c I can get multiples of the 75 but when I got for one of the 80, it is a struggle. Could be a form issue.

Worked a little with Split jerks after b/c I love to. Then did 35# KBS, reps 25-25-25.

Erin

#48 Laura

great DL work! Wow those numbers!!

Sarena,

Thanks - I'm just trying to keep up with the chick-monster-fitters I see posting here every day. That last CFT day I saw these amazing female DL scores:

cleverhandz: 250
OPT Mommy: 259
Kelly Moore: 280
JENNY O.: 301
...and didn't Spiderchick get 260?

Now THOSE are numbers! I've been struggling with my deadlift (of course, I would like ALL my lifts to be better!) for a while now, and have plateaued at about 242 pounds, after having made fairly steady progress up until then. Every once and a while I can get 253, but it's been hit or miss. I tried for even one pound more today, and failed. I think a lot of it is mental, but seeing the work of the other females on CrossFit, I know I just need to keep trying and one day I will get over that block :)

been sick and moving the last two days and still not finished. will make up the 5k sometime.

ericbrandom

thanks for the info on the goblet squat. will definitely have to try that 55. looks like a great time you turned in.

I swapped yesterday's workout and today's rest day. Instead of the 5k run I did the CFWU 3x5 reps and rowed 2500m. Time was 10:50.

Day 4 of 30

cfwu x3 -squats

Rowed 5k 24:54.

Very slow but unable to secure my right leg due to it being in a cast. It has been a while since I rowed 5K. I hope I can knock off a few minutes when I get the cast off. It was funny because I tried to secure my right foot using athletic tape. Needless to say it did not work. I had it secured but I did not have the much needed flexibility at the ankle. Plus I could not reach far forward enough for the handle. I can only imagine what the other people working out around me were thinking.

Derek O.

I'll add to AllisonNYC excellent advice ... my first solution was her advice.. Do more pullups. I am a firefighter so at work, before one meal I knocked out a bunch.... it varied.. it stareted with a few and could progress to various sets and styles.

if addition though... partner assisted past failure, pull-downs on a machine and other exercises will add strength. If your are lagging in an event, it might just take a little more time to improve.

Remember.. " little things add up over time..."

Derek O.

If I read your first post correctly are your saying that you are 15 years old and weigh 210lbs? How tall are you compared to your weight? How long have you been doing CF? Depending on your body composition pulling up 210lbs is a lot of weight.

Like my signature states, I'm 39, 5'7" and weigh 175. To give you an idea I just had a caliper test at work and I have 15.6% body fat. Depending on a bunch of things like rest and the prior WOD I can do between 12-15 strait quality pull ups. I COULD DO MORE IF I COULD ONLY FIGURE OUT HOW TO FREAKING KIP! I have always been strong with pull ups but I could definitely tell a difference over the last few months when I lost about 10 pounds of fat and gained the 5 pounds of muscle I have since starting CF this past August.

DeadLift
20X 135lbs
10X 225
8X 320
3X 365
3X 365
3X 365
3X 365
5X 320
5x 320
10X 270
10X 135

300 Push-ups

#51 Derek O,
Alison and Robin are right on the money in my opinion as well. I was a gymnast growing up and they simply throw hundreds of pull ups at you in order to get better at them. My question to you is, where do you feel the fatigue on your pull ups? Is it in your lats, bi/tri area of the arms, or grip strength. Have you tried switching your grip, or do you feel like the technique is lacking?

If there is another dark age threatening on the horizon, would it not be better to expand the "we" that stands in its way, rather than going it alone?

What would victory look like for the terrorists? How could they possibly achieve it? If what they want is a dark age, it seems to me the only ways they can possibly hope to do this are to 1) incite the major nations of the world into war with one another, or, 2) force those nations, and in particular, the U.S. to cannibalize themselves financially and politically in their efforts to fight this war on terror. To really harm the U.S., terrorists need to affect some serious changes in America's governing institutions and political culture.

This makes me think of the debates that occurred in the republican city-states of the Italian renaissance, and in Britain and then America in the 17th and 18th centuries, with regard to the benefits and dangers of a standing army for domestic political culture and the integrity of constitutional arrangements. It also makes me think of the notion that the U.S. is a nation governed by laws, not men. It seems unlikely in the extreme that terrorists can inflict a military defeat on the U.S.. It is far more likely that the amorphous and endless war on terror will (and frankly already has) encourage the militarization of the legislative and judicial branches of government. Obviously, this would destroy the institutions that have made the U.S. a free republic. As Mr. Cooper mentioned earlier in the day, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus in an emergency (an emergency the likes of which the United States has not seen since). What liberties would Americans' not sacrifice when a terrorist event more appalling than the Twin Tower strikes occurs again on American home soil? When two happen in a month or a week? This is the real danger, that America will become something other than a republic. These calamities are what it should prepare for, it may be that they cannot be avoided.

Like Mr. Cooper said, the U.S. should reach out to possible new allies in the Stans, and it should also form meaningful alliances with those nations that used to so easily call themselves its friends. Europe has at least as much to lose as the U.S. It may be that this is a war that should be fought through forward-thinking, long-term cooperation, and, when (regrettably) needed, massive, overwhelming retaliation.

But the U.S. shouldn't go this alone. I don't think it is possible in this context to seek a "historical move" along the lines of the repulsion of the Armada. At this juncture in history and in this sort of conflict, it seems the U.S. and its allies need to figure out how to achieve something like the Vienna Congress of 1815, despite the fact that they may never be able to have their Waterloo.

#34 and #73- I agree. Sounds like he simply lacks knowledge/experience. I mean, 50,000 Crossfit fans can't be wrong.

Derek: Are you kipping or jumping or deadhang or what? Also, I agree with everyone, and will add that I worked on a gravitron machine for a while. That was helpful and kept me from kicking people in the face who would hold my feet. Goodluck!

Get it Chuck!

Chris Wood,

Sorry I'm late to the party, but it sounds like your trainer doesn't even understand what CrossFit is. The statement of "As a CrossFitter, I am assuming your goals are improved tolerance to a lactic state, decreased bodyfat, and increased strength endurance. At least, I hope those are your goals, because that is about all CrossFit provides." makes it sound like he thinks CrossFit is nothing more than a cardio/HIIT workout. He definitely doesn't understand the power development or the optional black boxing or ME heavy lifting abilities that CF trains while still maintaining the 10 areas of fitness that are to be gone after.

Oh well, to those that do not want to understand, they will not see.

-Trip

chb #90

Were you serious when you wrote,

>> What would victory look like for the terrorists? How could they possibly achieve it? If what they want is a dark age, it seems to me the only ways they can possibly hope to do this are to 1) incite the major nations of the world into war with one another, or, 2) force those nations, and in particular, the U.S. to cannibalize themselves financially and politically in their efforts to fight this war on terror. To really harm the U.S., terrorists need to affect some serious changes in America's governing institutions and political culture.

Or were your remarks just a fantastic segue into your historical musings?

Radical Islam is a cultural cancer. What does victory look like for cancer? The necessary perspective is not historical, but clinical.

Victory for the terrorists is a boundless sphere of control in the guise of Islam. Before 9/11, it had the immediate objective of obliterating Israel and the US was in the way, physically and as a Western culture counter influence. So the intermediate goals were to get the US to retreat -- as we had in Saudi Arabia, as we had in Lebanon, as we had in Iran -- or to resist minimally -- as we did after Pan Am 103, and after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. 9/11 was one more incident along that path.

But we did resist. 9/11 was the last straw. It resulted in the loss of Iraq, dicing the Islamic terrorist states into three pieces. It included victories in the West with Lebanon especially, but including Libya, and in the East with the loss of Afghanistan and major gains in Pakistan. The sphere of enemy influence had been reduced to three states, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, isolated with no common border.

Now terrorists are competing amongst themselves to regain power in Iraq as the surviving anti-democratic force once the US pulls out. Similarly, they hope to regain Afghanistan. Once Musharraf is out of the way, they can realistically hope to gain power in Pakistan.

A race is underway to see who among the competing terrorist forces will get nukes first. Will North Korea be able to make more than a subcritical device? Will Iran gets its uranium enrichment back on schedule, by its own devices or with Putin's help? Or will the terrorists in the East take over in Pakistan? Whichever the method, these people will gain Middle East influence and power, and exact some city sized revenge in Israel.

Looking back to 17th Century or to 1815 is fun, but an unilluminating, intellectual exercise. Look forward to, say, 2015. Israel, where central intelligence works FOR the government, is not going to let this scenario play out. The results will not be pretty, and may not be as surgical as we might like.

American interests are to squelch this scenario, and we are well along the way. It is within our grasp. But our grasp at times exceeds our will, our reach exceeds our vision. Of course one's reach always exceeds one's hindsight.

In response to russ green #63, we have no need to control Waziristan. What we need out of Waziristan, off the planet and on the way to Allah, are the leaders of terrorism. If the Waziristanis put up too much resistance, whole villages would be acceptable collateral damage. If you like historical perspectives, compare pacifying Waziristan with our costly plan to invade Japan, diverted into an acceptable alternative.

Most of the crop of Presidential hopefuls lack the will and vision to resist. For them, a borderless, fortress America will do for both a domestic and foreign policy. To them, terrorism is the Borg. Where is Jean Luc when you need him?

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . .

[It should be well understood] that the powers proposed to be surrendered [by the Third Congress] to the Executive were those which the Constitution has most jealously appropriated to the Legislature. . . .

The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war . . . the power of raising armies . . . the power of creating offices. . . .

A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.

The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.

The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them, is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.

The separation of the power of creating offices from that of filling them, is an essential guard against the temptation to create offices for the sake of gratifying favourites or multiplying dependents.

-James Madison

Just thought it interesting how Ron Paul is still preaching this centuries later.

Jeff Glassman: Good post, not that you needed my opinion on the matter. However I do have several points to make.

1. How is it in our national interest to physically stand between Israeli's and the threat from other middle eastern countries?

It seems clear to me that the majority of middle eastern threat to our nation stems from our support of Israel, despite lack of Israeli interest in a peaceful compromise. It does appear that Israel is spitting in America's face by accepting U.S. financial (1.3 trillion and counting) and military support and not returning the favor with more America friendly policies. Sounds to me like we are stuck in a bad investment.

2. The race for nuclear armament has already been won, by Israel. Everyone else is trying to catch up. It's not a matter of who might use a nuclear weapon on America or her allies, but more of a matter that NO middle eastern country, to include Israel, is allowed a nuclear arsenal. That of course is being enforced only if said country is Muslim. I liken Israel's possesion of a nuclear weapon to a police department owning a nuke to take care of gangs. Fortunately most of ours use pistols, MACE, and tazers.

3. The Israeli intelligence world might work for It's government, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work against ours. Mossad and Israeli military intelligence have been discovered in massive numbers within our government. This is not good. Having anyone know what cards are in your possesion puts you in a rather precarious position when it comes to bargaining. This also spits the face of American the American tax payer and American soldiers.

4. It must be understood that America and Israeli futures are not intertwined, as we are both soveriegn nations with our own goals and separate purposes. I do believe Israel can and should exist in the middle east peaceably, but not at the neverending expense of the United States or the West in general.

With all the global policing of the West it should suprise people that we do not do more to force Israel to swallow some pride and make some changes to help calm the middle east. Instead they continue to push foward for future that accomodates them, and them alone.

5. The "war on terror" is going to be won not by armies from the West, but by the people people who are paying the price for extremists. America should show the people of the middle east what they are losing by supporting a no compromise extremist. MONEY! The middle east has huge potential for commercial value to the West, and yet we have isolated them by declaring war and interfering with thier policy. It's quite simple, avoid commerce with nations who harbor anti west extremists. This idea was put forth by the founding fathers a few years ago, and it still applies today be friendly, but avoid foreign entanglements.

I can guarantee you that when Arabs associate a loss in quality of life to extremist views, they will move quickly to eliminate extremists. Our involvement and subsequent war with the middle east has brought to them the view that we are responsible for thier failures and poor quality of life. Which may in fact be true.

6. America cannot manage the entire middle east. We have already experienced significant blowback in the form of WTC attacks and airline hijackings. If anything we should end our involvement at this party so as too minimize further blowback. It is a shame to see the Arab countries fall apart so violently, but not nearly as shameful as seeing my own country eat itself alive trying to save them.

Ok, Jeff, so obviously we're both on the same page of wanting to find and kill the terrorists. But how do you plan to invade or bomb Waziristan into submission without turning the entirety of Pakistan into chaos?

Furthermore, assuming that the chaos won't occur, how will such a large scale military act accomplish its objective? If we give Waziristan an ultimatum, who do we give it to? There is no central authority in charge. And if we give an ultimatum, then we are broadcasting our moves and telling AQ central to leave and find sanctuary in another poorly governed and nongoverned area, which they will not find too hard to do given that the world is full of them. They will be gone even before we punish the Waziristanis for not handing them in. They will have lost a sanctuary and its accompanying training camps, surely a temporary setback, but they can regroup quickly from that. Not to mention that their cells in many other countries will be unaffected.

You say we have confined the enemy's influence to Iran, Syria, and and Saudi Arabia. I say that the enemy does not need friendly states to survive and prosper, though they are certainly beneficial. For money, they can finance themselves through the donations of supporters or through international illicit trade in drugs, guns, or electronics, and they don't need a whole lot of money anyways. 9/11 cost about $500,000. For land, terrorists can set up sells nearly anywhere. For weapons, they can use our own nuclear plants, industrial plants, and transportation systems against us. They don't need a state's access to WMD's, as 9/11 also demonstrates. Terrorist cells can operate against a state's will nearly anywhere. They are still in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, London, Virginia, Argentina, and many other places. We have not limited them to Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Having the states on our side is a start, but only a start. We need to be able to penetrate the terrorist organizations, find out exactly where they are, where they get their money from, what they plan to do, and start to disable the network through regular and repeated killings of high value targets, who will be ideological leaders, people with rare technical skills, the people who handle the money, etc.

Imran Rafique #77

How is it you can speak for all Pakistanis? The disagreement between Pakistanis is rather obvious, unless you dispute the biggest stories about what is going on there. I don’t speak Urdu, but from what you have written I suspect its logic content is not complete.

I didn’t speak Japanese, German, Italian, Russian, Korean, or Vietnamese, either.

You have no idea who killed Bhutto!? The news stories are that she was killed by the man photographed in dark glasses, who then committed suicide, taken out 20 odd people, presumably Pakistanis. Does Musharraf employ suicide killers?

We are informed that al Qaeda and Taliban are hiding out in Waziristan, protected by tribal leaders. Those are “your people”? Or are the stories just wrong? Do you speak Wazirwola, too? Is it untrue that about 200 high ranking Maliks were assassinate by the Taliban? Your people seem to be fighting amongst themselves.

So you say Musharraf is confining his Army to its barracks because he feels they won’t carry out his orders. How do you know what motivates Musharraf? Is your family friends of his family, too? Is it false that the Pakistan government waged war against militants in South Waziristan a few years back?

You say “the concept of mass-terrorism is deeply abhorrent to Islam and to the vast majority of Pakistani public opinion.” (I assume by mass-terrorism you mean just terrorism.) That is good news. It validates George Bush’s optimistic faith that all people want peace, freedom, and democracy. If it is true, then it shouldn’t be too hard to muster Pakistanis to fight against terrorism, should it?

What do you mean by the vast majority? How many of the 165 million Pakistanis would then be left to sympathize with terrorism in the name of Islam? 20%; 35 million? Even if your data showed 99% found Islamic terrorism abhorrent, that would mean over a million and half Pakistanis are sympathetic to al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc., etc. That is a huge number.

The problem is that terrorism is not abhorrent to all Islam. It is the weapon of choice by the jihadists, at least on being informed in English instead of Urdu -- and interpreting your writings. It is a cancer spread throughout the Middle East. You think the War on Terror is a War on Islam because you deny the existence of Islamic terrorism.

You say,

>> The last thing we need are the ravings of American neo-cons, looking to exploit yet another tragedy in order to create more mayhem, and continue your dream of "perpetual war" which you have unleashed upon the world.

Is this something else you read in Urdu? You claim to speak for all Pakistani -- fine. Now learn something about America. Neo-cons? Really! If the Pakistanis are so unified, why are the young men rioting in the streets? Is that the mayhem you’re talking about? You have Muslims killing Muslims in the largest numbers that they can muster. It is the perpetual war, the perpetual struggle of jihad. It has been unleashed by ordinary despots in the name of Islam. It subjugated Afghanistan. It wants Iraq. And just watch – it is coming out of Waziristan and heading to Islamabad. It is Islamic jihad vs. the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Terrorism is abhorrent to Muslims, you say. So just what have Muslims done or said to eradicate terrorism except to be victims of it while denying it exists?

You quote from Jerid K, who said

"If you go to war, declare it. Do not spare their cultural sites. Do not spare their women and children. Kill them all, win the war, and leave. This is how war is conducted."

This is not Urdu. It is ranting from the far left, whether anti-war, anti-US or just Bush hatred. What Jerid K does is create a straw man for war, insanely exaggerated to the limit. Under his model, free states have two choices – surrender or pursue insane, wanton killing and destruction. But with that definition, a defense against war is simple.

And you honor this trash with another rant:

>>Which is EXACTLY why Pakistan has nuclear weapons, why Iran wants them, and why any self-respecting state in the region would want them. Not to attack you. To deter mad Americans and their blood-lust for slaughtering yet more Muslims, and laying waste to more countries.

Pakistan got nuclear weapons to threaten India. Iran wants them to unleash a real holocaust on Israel. They want these weapons to wage EXACTLY the kind of war Jirad K says is best.

Blood-lust? Americans slaughtering Muslims? Of course, we’re not supposed to shoot terrorists because they are Muslims, right? Laying waste to countries? Which ones? How do you say loony in Urdu?

Did you learn all your English from slogans on demonstrators signs? From chants in your madrassa? Your writings show the impoverishment of Pakistan is not exclusively economic. Urdu apparently is not a key to any kind of reality.

Ok, I'll bite.

1. I did not claim to speak for "all Pakistanis". I spoke "as a Pakistani", and only mentioned my family's background (which I guess means nothing, as anybody can claim anything online) to demonstrate that I am not some clueless bloke from a random street corner in Pakistan (of which, we have many).

You can ridicule the claim that I "speak for all" as much as you like. Fact is, I didn't say it, so that joke is on you.

2. Who killed Bhutto? Yes - it is a matter for a lot of debate, and is nowhere near as clearcut as you seem to suggest. There is an overwhelming feeling within Pakistan that Musharaf was in some way behind it. Hence many of the post-killing protests took an explicitly anti-Musharaf tone.

Again, you can sit in California and THINK you know whats going on in Pakistan, but I beg to differ.

3. "My people"? Yes, they are all "my people". Urban Pakistan, rural Pakistan, the tribal areas. Everyone. Whichever side of the Taliban question they fall on, they are still "our people". And contrary to what you might think, even those in Pakistan who oppose the Taliban viewpoint (which would include the MAJORITY of those inclined to vote for the religious parties, again, contrary to Western "educated opinion") do not, I repeat, DO NOT want to see bloodshed inflicted upon them, to appease foreigners.

For example, a large part of the recent upheavel against Musharaf, inspired by the Supreme Court and vociforously backed by nearly the entire legal profession (hardly a pro-Taleban bastion), has been partly inspired by uniform disgust at the manner in which Musharaf has tried to victimise those from the tribal areas who oppose his policies (disappearances, torture, etc).

4. Musharaf afraid to use the main army corps to carry out America's proxy war? Fact is, this is the case, and is widely known in Pakistan. The Rangers are under-equiped, and under-trained in comparison to the main Army corps, and yet THEY are the units deployed.

And my sources are way, way, way more informed on these matters than anything you could possibly have access to (partly why I started my previous post explaining some of those connections).

5. What do the "vast majority" in Pakistan think? I'll tell you what, I don't have a Gallup poll in my pocket to prove or disprove anything, but I'd back my judgement on Pakistani's any day, over someone who would barely know where to locate Pakistan on a map.

I wouldn't for a minute claim that we are a uniform society. But, the assumption that I made in my previous post - that the majority of Pakistani's treat the "war on terror" as a naked "war on Islam" - that I firmly believe to be true. I would say 90%, others might say 85%, others might say 75%. However, no-one who has spent 5 seconds in Pakistan, AMONGST PAKISTANI'S, would argue that it is not the majority opinion, by a huge margin.

You could hold a ballot tommorrow in California, asking if the sky is blue, and you still wouldn't get 100% agreeing. So quibbling about numbers is misleading, and disingenious.

6. "Terrorism is abhorrent to Muslims". Yes, it is. Are al-Qaeda terrorists? Yes they are. The thing you fail to comprehend is that terrorism is terrorism, whether it is al-Qaeda suicide bombs, or American B-52s, or American tanks firing depleted uranium rounds on villages, or American soldiers using civilians for random target practice at checkpoints when they feel like it. And terrorists are terrorists, whether they are bearded Saudis hiding in a cave, or Texan oilmen ordering the worlds biggest military force to crush entire countries, based on lies and deception.

Who started it first? Matter of opinion (million plus killed in Iraq, due to sanctions, before 9/11). Fact is, I don't care anymore. I wish we could just teleport the lot of you - al-Qaeda, foaming-at-the-mouth neo-cons, and the American war machine - and send you to a remote planet, in a galaxy far, far away. Let you slaughter each other to your hearts content.

And leave the rest of the world at peace!

7. Ah forget it. 6 is enough.

I'll let all the childish jibes about Urdu pass. Suffice it to say, without better sources for your "expertise" than right-wing Washington thinktanks, the National Review, and the American mass media - you and those of your ilk will continue to be horrendously ignorant about Islam, Muslims, and WHY they do what they do.

And no (to respond to other childish jibes from you), I did not learn my English in "my madrassa" (not that theres anything wrong with 99.99% of madrassas out there). For what its worth, I learned English in a convent in Ireland, and then improved it in a boarding school (Clongowes) run by Jesuits (damned fine people). Don't let that stop you painting me as your favourite bogeyman however (you know, those bearded devils you seem to dream about).

As Salaamu Alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, Imran. There are some who want to kill the Taliban and Al Qaeda who actually speak their languages and understand Islam. Not enough perhaps, but you cannot blame our desire to destroy such a large threat to our security, not to mention Pakistan's security, on our ignorance of local cultures and languages. Reading the Quran in Arabic and understanding the other side's perspective and historical narrative does not mean with necessity that one must agree with it.

Why exactly, don't you and all the other Pakistanis want to see the Taliban destroyed? Do you see it as a legitimate force, politically or militarily? Can Pakistan function effectively as a sovereign country as long as the central government is too weak to control areas within its borders that operate autonomously? Do you want your country to harbor such terrorists? Is it possible to get rid of the AQ and Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan except through the use of force? If not, is the forceful elimination of the sanctuary possible without at least partial Western involvement?

Do you really think we have a war on Islam as a whole? Really? Where is the invasion of Mecca? Where is President Bush condemning Islam as a religion? Would anyone start a war on Islam by invading Afghanistan? The fact that millions perceive a War on Islam, does not mean that there truly is one. It does mean perhaps that the Bush Administration has not effectively explained its strategy and sold it to the Muslim world.

Imran,

We waged a long vicious war on our people. We called it the Civil War. It was heartbreaking and horrific, and it was not waged to save the slaves from their condition, but to protect the Union. Lincoln felt that it was a test to determine if a democratic nation could in fact survive large-scale insurrection.

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

I explicitly invoked that comparison because it is apt. Pakistan will never be a modern state--certainly not a democracy--as long as there are significant parts of the population who simply openly ignore the laws and dictates of the central government.

From my vantage point, I see a nuclear armed nation that is on the verge of large scale civil disorder, possibly civil war, and large segments of whose population appear to agree with the Iranians (and Noam Chomsky) that we are the Great Satan. Is it really so inconceivable to you that we are justifiably concerned about this situation?

From my vantage point, it appears that most ordinary Muslims get much of their information about the world from the Ulema, who interpret many conflicts in religious terms. I see that class failing entirely to condemn terrorism as a tactic in the same manner Christians did following the Oklahoma City bombings, and following murders (of doctors) at abortion clinics.

In fact, jihad quite often does seem to be invoked simultaneously as an act of overt violence, and a religiously sanctified act.

From my perspective, we have a large class of people--the Ulema--who have failed entirely to give us strong reason to trust most Muslims, in that they are not articulating ideas that work to bring about peace.

We have been attacked many times, and surely you can understand there is no need for a global power to sit by idly and wait for more attacks without doing anything, simply because someone could--inadvertently, or more likely intentionally--misconstrue our motives.

We went into Iraq because Hussein was in open violation of treaties he signed, and was thumbing his nose at the international order that supporters of the UN so proudly claim they defend. He had the will and capacity to develop nuclear weapons, and he had the will and capacity to use them. If we had not dealt with him when we did, he would be an item of daily news as well, along with Iran. We would be wringing our hands, and wondering when a large explosion was going to change the world forever.

Justin seems to think there is something Israel can do--other than cease to exist--that would mollify the Muslim street that is reignited in "righteous" fury nearly daily by their imams and mullahs. There isn't. The demanded "right of return" is a suicide pact, and everyone on both sides knows it. Only postrationalist Westerners fail to grasp this obvious point.

The bottom line on this issue, for me, is simple: how could the ordinary Pakistani possibly benefit from a generalized civil war which resulted in the installation of a Taliban-like government?

Look at Iran. Is that what you want? Economic stagnation, secret police, cultural repression, and the rejection of all the advances of the Western Enlightenment? Rejection of the ideal of justice applied without regard to race or religion? The sacrality of the rights of life, liberty, and the ownership of personal property?

Musharraf is clearly under attack. If he engineered this murder, then shame on him. But if he did, it would seem to me his intent was to create political cover to do what he knows needs to be done, ultimately so that Pakistan can survive as a quasi-secular state, and can continue to make progress in fostering the possibilities of actual felicity and growing happiness for its citizens.

We ourselves went through this growing pain. We were tough enough to survive it, and that is the reason we are speaking English right now. Pakistan needs to do the same.

One other thing: I have no sense that we are at war with Muslims as a whole. Clearly, we could win that war, but not at a moral cost that as a rational, freedom and peace loving society we could stomach. This is why we are different than all other nations in history that have possessed our amount of power.

If you were to put Romans in charge of our government, how do you think they would have dealt with the War on Terror? One thing I will guarantee, it would be over by now, and it wouldn't have been pretty.

Our handicap--which really isn't a handicap if one takes a more enlightened view--is our humanity. We bend over backwards to avoid civilian casualties, and we really do try to fight clean wars against enemies--for example in Iraq--who routinely use tactics that would get our soldiers sent to jail for life. We want to win with as little violence as possible, but we need to win.

And what is winning? Who are we fighting? These are valid questions.

In my view, we are fighting two enemies. We are fighting actual combatants who are working to kill Americans or their fellow Muslims who they consider corrupt, and hence not Muslim. This is the open part of the war, but the less important part of the war. This is essentially a holding action, in my view.

The far more important war is against an ideology. This ideology is in my understanding not wholly incongruent with, but really a perversion of the teachings of Islam. Islam was in fact intended to foster justice on the Earth. It was intended to foster mercy and peace.

And it did, for many years. The Muslim Empire--the result of explicitly military conquests on par with that of the Romans and many Empires before and since--did in fact result in a widespread culture which for perhaps 700 years was the most civilized, the most benign, and the most Enlightened in the Western World. People look at the conquests, but forget how corrupt everyone was back then. Islam was in many many cases an improvement, even on Christianity, which many will remember was very definitely an instrument of worldly power, wielded by the Popes.

Yet what seems to have happened in the last 30-40 years has been the spread of what is best termed resentment. It is an ignoble sentiment, that looks to the West and see only the failure of Islam, and seeks to rectify that by attacking our culture. There will never be a global Islamic Caliphate, but we can be made to hurt, and to suffer.

The weak always envy the strong, when they cannot emulate them. And our strength is not just military and economic, but moral. Where many nations with our power would have used it in conquest, we have not done so.

We are not stealing the oil of Iraq. In fact, our conquest of Iraq has cost, and continues to cost, far, far, far more than can ever be recouped. We are investing in the people and nation of Iraq, not just because we fear that a terrorist group will gain control, but because it is the right thing to do. We are consistently pragmatic, but we are also truly, genuinely, idealistic. Bush, I'm quite certain, genuinely wants the people of Iraq to be able to develop for themselves a nation of which they can be proud, which is wealthy, peaceful, and strong.

This is a historical anomaly. This is clear with even a casual reading of history. Why is Pakistan at war with India? Why is there a Pakistan period? Why is there a Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan, as few recall)? Why did--what, millions?--so many people die when the nation was partioned? Because the British were not Americans. That's why.

We are at war with resentment and self pity--expressed in Islamic terms--and those who propagate those ideas, rather than rational ideas of economic development, alleviation of suffering, and the cultivation of liberty and genuine justice.

I have read extensively in Sufism, and see no intrinsic incompatibility become possible iterations of Islam--of which that one is the most attractive and intellectually interesting to me--and some form of modernity.

What we want is for Muslims to want for themselves those things for which all humans yearn, most of all peace under law, prosperity and the possibility of peaceful change. The Taliban were not peaceful, and their law was the law of the jungle.

Most Arabs live in desperate poverty, and no Al Quedist is ever going to change that. On the contrary, they are at this very moment doing all they can to disrupt all possible material converts of their putative coreligionists in Iraq and other places.

That's enough for now. I'll check back tomorrow some time.

Correction:

all they can to disrupt all possible material COMFORTS of their putative coreligionists in Iraq and other places.

They are, of course, also disrupting the convert process too, which is good for us.

"If you go to war, declare it. Do not spare their cultural sites. Do not spare their women and children. Kill them all, win the war, and leave. This is how war is conducted."

This is not Urdu. It is ranting from the far left, whether anti-war, anti-US or just Bush hatred. What Jerid K does is create a straw man for war, insanely exaggerated to the limit. Under his model, free states have two choices – surrender or pursue insane, wanton killing and destruction. But with that definition, a defense against war is simple.

Well if you take a quick glance back at the last 3 wars won by America, the Civil War, WWI, and WWII, i think that his definition of a proper war is quite accurate. The "neo-con" definition has failed miserably in Korea, in Vietnam, in Iraq TWICE! Of course these long drawn out wars of occupation are making some serious dough for the propagators. Youtube.com search "the military industrial complex" or google search "war is a racket" both written by some fairly decorated Generals, Army General/President Eisenhower and Marine Corpse Major General Smedley Butler.

Jarid K's statement does not make him a leftist. I like the attempt to smear the statement based off of a hypothetical political idealogy though, original.

Justin,

That summation represents, possibly, a useful prescription for a declared war between sovereign nation states, conducted by conventional militaries.

However, to take the example of Iraq, we HAVE killed many women and children. Not intentionally, but as the necessary result of both the fog of war, and an enemy who located military assets in such a way that civilian casualties were inevitable in the necessary destruction of those military assets. This was and is a common tactic for Islamic terrorists.

Why would this be? Because they are fighting a war--in some respects more intelligently than we are--against our motivation. They want screaming women holding the bodies of dead children played on the nightly news around the world, and the US or Israel roundly condemned by everyone for committing "atrocities" that the Islamists themselves commit regularly, and with much greater and very intentional viciousness.

What you term the "neocon" definition of war is farcical. Read some Neocons. Know any? Thought not. They are far ahead of you on this one, and believe me excessive squeamishness is not one of their hallmarks.

However, scorched earth policies, which may have worked in the Civil War, are not necessariliy useful--and likely generally counterproductive--in a war on ideas, which this is.

Ultimately, our goal is to help Muslim nations--Arab, Indo-Iranian/Aryan, Causasian, Turkic, Pacific Islander (not sure on my ethnography, but that is what I assume the Filipinos, Indonesians, and Malays are)--reconcile their religio-political nativism with the Enlightenment. We want to foster economic growth, which over time will lead to the alleviation of lifetime after lifetime of backbreaking work, and frequent hunger. We want to help people who have lived under despots of various sorts for millenia to learn to guide themselves along paths of their own choosing, free of violence, and free of coercion.

To be sure, in this process we want to interdict and prevent attacks on our own soil and our own lifestyle--crass as it may seem to some. But there is no reason that our fundamental idealism and our generally expressed pragnatism cannot be wed in an effort to foster the growth of human happiness around the world.

For this reason, violence--as always--needs to be kept to a minimum. Quite often, great violence, limited in time and successful in its aim, is actually the least costly in lives and property. In this case, though, we need to understand the fundamentally ideological nature of our enemy, and understand the reactive nature of this system. If we kill 10 of our enemies and create 20, then our policy is ineffective.

Sometimes we need to do more than we are doing, sometimes less. Wisdom is what dictates the difference, and there is no one answer that can stand in the place of discrete commanders on the ground who are able to think systemically, based on local realities.

Kurtz's book reviews are very, very good. I've spent a pretty fair amount of time in that area within the past two years and I would say he's dead-on.

Imran - Russ and Barry ask cogent questions - labelling Jeff Glassman is just what you condemn him for doing. You paint Americans and US policies with the same broad brush that you accuse Americans of using with respect to Islam and Pakistanis (there's no apostrophe in the plural - your Jesuit teachers would be bent about that, you know. ;-)

You are correct to say that Musharraff won't send in the regular Army except in overwhelming numbers, but you're views about why are pure speculation. Maybe it's because they don't want to kill their "own people" in part, but there are many, many who believe it's because the Regular Pak Army gets its ass kicked every time it fights the Waziris, Taliban, AQ forces. Moreover, your point about "their own people" makes no sense when you consider the actions in S. Waziristan against the Chechens, Arabs, and other foreign nationals who have been holed up in compounds and then blasted their way out. You might have been closer to the mark to say they're ill-trained and ill-equipped. Neither matters for US purposes, however.

Barry's right - why shouldn't the US be extraordinarily concerned given that all we did in Afghanistan was push AQ/Taliban strongholds, training grounds, and personnel, 15 miles further east, and now we wait idly by on a border that neither country recognizes (neither ever signed the treaty establishing the Durrand line) because of our concern about what critics think we shouldn't do for the security of our own people. I have said here and elsewhere that the next attack against the US would originate out of that area - and then we found out about the plot to blow up how many planes en route to the US?

That area has to be "pacified", to use a quaint term, for MY security and MY family's. I view it that directly and seriously (maybe because I've seen it up close). If Pakistan's government or citizens won't take on that responsibility, nor will the UN, why shouldn't America?

"Helen" as rx'd.

Time 10:04 (PR, last time 11:59!)

- OlliS

“Survival of the Fittest”, as everyone seems to know, means Darwinism. Right?

Wrong. Charles Darwin said nothing so foolish. This slogan was the handiwork of a British social philosopher who tried to weave a social theory based on his confused reading of Darwin's Natural Selection model.

This is a simple demonstration of error in common knowledge. It is common error. Imran Rafique pretends to know what is common knowledge in Pakistan because he is Pakistani and he speaks Urdu. He seems to speak English pretty well, but that has given him neither an ability to write about nor even to appreciate America and her principles. One might as well have a conversation with one of the thousands of Pakistani cab drivers in New York City. Like Basil Fawlty said, “quicker to train a monkey”.

Imran Rafique #77, like several other radicals who post here, and you can throw in Galloway recently analyzed here, believes American policy is the work of neo-cons, based (we must presume) on the pool of common knowledge. When someone makes such a remark he has proved nothing except that the speaker is feckless and factless, and most likely just anti-Semitic.

First, neo-cons are merely Johnny Come Latelies to the modern, American conservative movement. Conservatism has its roots more in the writings and politics of Barry Goldwater circa the late '50s than it does in Irving Kristol's writings, dating mostly from the '80s. The movement is a grass-roots response to the burgeoning left movement, especially the intellectual infection of Marxism and the political epidemic of Communism. Post war Conservatism influenced Neo-Conservatism, not the reverse. Conservatism caused a lot of conversions among leftists, but they should not be confused as the source. Conservatism arose in search of a leader, and a search that is evident again today with Reagan as the model.

Some of the neo-con tenets invented by Kristol draw from conservatism, but some he rejects. Rejected is limited central government. Rejected is the constitutional principle of freedom of religion guaranteed by a secular government, which Neo-Cons and Christian Conservatives alike would replace with codified morality. As to support of Israel, the United States has been a champion of Israel since before its founding. It is not a product of any neo-con influence.

Neo-cons are commonly identified as “disproportionally Jewish”, in itself a naked, racist observation. Check it out with Google. Disproportionally is used as a pejorative. It means over-abundance. It's something we must do something about. It has been applied to just about every profession or intellectual endeavor. We're lucky to have such watch dogs who can spot every Jew hiding in every corner to prove their points. Or Sunni. Or Buddhist. Or Muslim. Or atheist.

If a person can be assigned a group identity, we know immediately what he is and what he stands for. That is the source of common knowledge, and of racism. It is the core of Marxism and Nazism -- and of Affirmative Action and the Democratic Party. It is why Clarence Thomas got the off-the-plantation, runaway treatment.

Some of the spotters have reckoned the number of Jews among the Neo-Cons to be about 50%. That indeed is not in the same proportion as Jews among all Americans. Why is that significant? Since we know what the Jews are, we know that Neo-Cons cannot be trusted, and that they exert an unhealthy influence. All this is naked (unsupported) racism.

Just as “disproportionally” is a code word, so is neo-con. It is wrong as a label for American conservatism, and it is wrong as a label for any American policy. It is right for anyone who proclaims himself be one, but it is wrong used for its sinister value.

The Neo-Cons are neither the Administration nor the Congress. Those institutions, not Neo-Cons, are the source of American policy and its execution. It is factually so. Our policy is written, and it is available for criticism.

Any argument reinforced with the gratuitous Neo-Con semi-label, semi-accusation should be rejected out of hand. It may be ignorance but it smacks of racism. It is not proper, civilized discourse.

Barry,

Your reasoned discourse, as always, is helpful and valued. If I were to co-author comments such as yours, I could contribute little to the historical knowledge. Regardless, here are some thoughts and suggestions.

Recently Justin A Joiner #105 took Jerid K's straw man war model, which was more insanity than strategy, to be a definition. Then he implied that what the US did in the Civil War, WW I and WWII fit that definition. That is historical nonsense. Nothing of the sort happened in any of those wars.

When in the next post (#106) you wrote, “That summation represents, possibly, a useful prescription for a declare war between sovereign nation states, conducted by conventional militaries”, were you giving some acceptance to Joiner's defense of Jerid K's straw man war model? If so, I think we should accurately parse Jerid K's suggestion:

>> If you go to war, declare it. Do not spare their cultural sites. Do not spare their women and children. Kill them all, win the war, and leave. This is how war is conducted.

No war was ever won by setting about to destroy cultural sites or to kill non-combatants. Hitler came within an eyelash of prevailing, and he might have done so if he hadn't wasted his resources on the insane destruction of everything non-Aryan. He might have repelled the Normandy invasion. He might have bought enough time and saved enough resources to complete the first atomic bomb.

Enemies are eradicated, or surrender. They quit when their losses become intolerable, and those losses are not measured in the things they don't care about or are willing to sacrifice. What aggressor has ever valued his cultural sites so highly? Or his women and children?

In this Fourth Generation War, Iran used small children to clear mine fields. In Islam, women are property. Islamic states subjugate their women to the point of honor killings. Saddam gassed them all. Iraqis raided their own cultural sites as soon as the guards were gone. The Taliban blew up the giant Bamiyan Buddahs just for fun. These enemies of civilization have no respect for even their own cultural sites, women, or children. We would run out of appetite for such wanton tactics long before they could produce any victory.

Jerid K's implied model for the aggressor is nowhere recognizable in history. His model is not how war is conducted.

Jerid K is against all war. That is why he proposes that the only kind of war is to fritter resources on a scorched earth, scorched humanity strategy.

Those doomed to repeat history are not just the ones who ignore it, but include those who presume that the facts here match the facts there. Personally, I get more out of the process of discriminating, deciding what distinguishes one story from another. In that way, we can actually learn something from history.

Was there ever anything done in the Civil War fitting Jerid K's model? In the Civil War, Sherman undertook a militarily unimportant, mostly vindictive, scorched earth march from Atlanta through the Carolinas to the sea. Did he not, though, spare some civic buildings, churches, and dwellings? Did he kill women and children? He cut a swath 40 miles wide. It had no decisive value, and it likely was no part of a national strategy to win.

My recollection of the history of WWI was that it was a stalemate in the trenches all the way. Was there more?

In WWII we leveled a three mile radius in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. About a quarter million people lost their lives within a year.

The alternative was an invasion against about 4 million trained regulars and lightly armed civilians, ready to the man, woman, and child to die. We had faced a similar will in Okinawa, where nine Japanese soldiers and a similar number of civilians died for every soldier captured, all at a cost of one American killed for every five Japanese soldiers killed. The invasion of Japan was likely to cost 4 million Japanese and close to a million Americans. The scorching of a wide area in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki was, for both sides, surgical.

Or, as Jerid K would prefer, we could have just let them live to rebuild and fight another day.

Instead, today Japan is a cultural model and a stabilizing, international asset.

In the last 24 hours the media has been showing photographs of the Bhutto assassin with his gun pointing toward the back of her head, and next her head scarf being blown forward.

Why did the assassin then blow himself up? A rational reason was to obliterate his connection to the terrorists. This had the two-pronged effect of killing the popular, anti-jihad Bhuto, and denying Musharraf the defense of exposing the real killers. It was an anti-democracy coup, crippling both of the leading parties.

Why did the government spokesmen announce Bhutto was killed by a concussion from ducking into her car? Musharraf had a non-aggression pact with the terrorists, so his staff probably thought it was helping everyone create a denial of any assassination.

Jeff,

Understood. In all honesty, depending on my mood, some posts, with some tones, I kind of tune out. That one I tuned out, but I think several worthwhile points can be made.

First off, there often does seem to be a certain spasmodic quality in the relationship of the Left to violence (it's not entirely clear where Jerid stands, but I am going to make some assumptions, and generalize). On the one hand, they are against all overt use of American power to further American--presumably on their account American Corporate--interests. Implicit in this of course is that our economic well-being and our overall well-being can be separated, which is a very tenuous proposition, and in most specifics plainly wrong.

Be that as it may, on the other hand they exhibit in their public discourse a profound fondness for the most violent rhetoric, and flamboyant demonizations of their fellow Americans. We see convicted, literal, terrorists given lecture opportunities at well known universities, and all that is necessary to justify the most inflammatory, anti-American vituperations is an appeal to the "needs" of the marginal, exploited "subalterns" (this is--or was--a preferred term for those not as successful as the successful).

It cannot be stated, therefore, that they are opposed to violence, per se, but opposed to violence of a certain sort, which is not formatted properly according to their idiosyncratic intellectual syntax. It was wrong for America to invade Iraq--because Iraq was a sovereign nation--but it would be perfectly acceptable, in my understanding, to invade Sudan to rescue the Sudanese. In the case of Iraq, malice is presumed since Iraq has oil, and all bad things except the ability to run Volvo convertibles come from oil. In the case of Sudan, no American corporation can even conceivably be seen to benefit, with the consequence that that is a sanctified cause.

Given this basic passive-aggressive dynamic, they have great--almost insuperable--difficulty in accepting the need for violence in less than the most pressing emergencies. World War 2 could have been vastly less bloody and traumatic than it was, but the exaggerated need to avoid violence at any cost led to much greater violence.

In a similar vein, in my view, the CIA was far too risk averse to establish the sorts of human assets that would have been of use in the lead-up to the GWOT, with the apparent result that when information was urgently needed, they resorted to the most extreme means to get "information" at any cost, which apparently included torture.

This is the value of what might be termed the "continuum heuristic". When I apparently agreed with Jerid, what I was referring to was the utility of accepting as a worst case scenario a scorched earth policy. In the case of the Civil War, Sherman's March to the Sea may or may not have been efficacious militarily, but his intent, in my understanding, was to show that nothing was beyond the pale in the North's efforts to win the war. It was intended, in my understanding, essentially as a psychological operation whose effect did in fact create a desire to end the war on the part of the South. It was not the only operation, of course, and Grant's successes mattered a great deal too, but I think there is at times intrinsic value to showing what one is capable of.

This situation may have been rectified, but as one example, I have often heard you complain--justifiably--about our apparent decision to in effect give militants safe staging areas in mosques. This reluctance showed--possibly--that certain lines we would not cross, and that therefore the possible downside of terrorist activity was made less unpleasant.

If you can place the most awful scenarios on the table as options, then less extreme options become more thinkable. It was Alexander Hamilton's proposal, in my recollection, that the President be elected for life--which was rejected roundly--that created the atmosphere in which an election for 4 years, with considerable power, was conceivable.

As I've said, I think the solution that uses the least total violence that accomplished the goal, is best. However, removing options from the table prematurely--prior to full and dispassionate consideration--reduces available options, and therefore behavioral flexibility.

As one example, I have never understood why assassination would be taken off the table. In many cases, if you take the right person out at the right time, you avoid a situation in which something much larger is created, in which many more people are killed, much greater physical destruction is caused, and overall much greater suffering engendered. How is that moral?

How is it moral to refuse to work to counterbalance the daily doses of anti-semitic, anti-American propaganda being dosed out throughout the Muslim world, by introducing counter-narratives of our own, which need be nothing but factually accurate?

These sorts of muted violence are made difficult to discuss rationally by the seeming Leftist demand that either we are at peace or we are at war, and that since we cannot declare war ourselves, we must perforce be compelled to war on our enemies terms, as happened in World War 2, and as they seemingly want us to be forced into with respect to Iran, possibly Pakistan if it falls to terrorists, and presumably Iraq if they can get us to quit,and Al Queda is able to regroup and recruit high level support in the tribal communities.

With respect to Israel, it seems to me that the demand that Israel cease to exist is fundamentally a species of terrorism that demands--based on no larger pretext than that it is what is desired by a vocal segment of a population--that it get what it wants because it wants it.

Israel was created legally, by the only international body anybody even pretends has any significance--the UN--and the immediate efforts to destroy it were clearly illegal. That Israel, in order to repel continuing efforts to end her existence, chose to keep some real estate of nations which declared and lost wars with her, is clearly objectionable only to those who want her destroyed. Any protest to the contrary can in my view only be based in disingenuousness, or ignorance.

In preventing rational responses to violence, Leftists force us into positions where either our enemies get what they want, as happened in Vietnam, or we have to overreact, as has happened in the GWOT. This whole situation could, in my view, have been effectively prevented by preventing the fall of the Shah. Our failure in that regard created the openly terrorist state of Iran, and emboldened would-be Wahhabist proselytizers to accurately portray us as a decadent paper tiger--at least militarily--which was a view only reinforced by our pathetic reaction to their declaration of war on us--which we failed to answer--and following direct attacks on American citizens.

1. Barry Cooper: "Pakistan will never be a modern state--certainly not a democracy--as long as there are significant parts of the population who simply openly ignore the laws and dictates of the central government."

"From my vantage point, I see a nuclear armed nation that is on the verge of large scale civil disorder, possibly civil war, and large segments of whose population appear to agree with the Iranians (and Noam Chomsky) that we are the Great Satan. Is it really so inconceivable to you that we are justifiably concerned about this situation?"

Pakistan exists. It is a real state (and whats a "modern" state?). It fought 3 wars against the 2nd largest country in the world. Its still here.

It was born in a bloodbath. At its birth, it had nothing. No industry, no government machinery (the first 2 years of the Pakistan government was lived in tents, outside Karachi).

It was surrounded by, in order, Iran, Afghanistan, the (later to be ex-) Soviet Union, China and India. In terms of political instability, you could not pick a worse spot on the planet to drop a new country in, even if you tried. Compounded by 50 years of corruption, and a ruling elite dominated by feudal landowners (of whom the Bhutto's are a prime example) - and you have a difficult hill to climb.

Yet its still here. And will be there tommorrow - sensationalist reporting notwithstanding.

What Pakistan needs is freedom to work out its own path to the future. Essentially, freedom from you, and your war. The only person in Pakistan who wants to continue this war is Musharaf, who uses it as a basis on which to cling to power. Everyone else, INCLUDING BHUTTO, wanted it over. Benazir herself has repeatedly said (and her husband is still saying) that they would want a peaceful settlement to the current strife in our northern areas.

No one wants a "military solution" to "purge" part of OUR COUNTRY, of OUR PEOPLE. I repeat, no-one. That is the point at which I jumped into this "conversation" - to counteract some of the wild neo-con "yeehaw, lets wipe out them Paki tribals now". So wild is that fantasy that those of you espousing it even fool yourself into thinking THAT YOU WOULD BE DOING US A FAVOUR.

Spare us your favours.

2. "From my vantage point, it appears that most ordinary Muslims get much of their information about the world from the Ulema, who interpret many conflicts in religious terms."

As opposed to what? Most ordinary Americans getting their information from Fox News, and still under the delusion that Iraq was about to attack the US, and had a hand in 9/11?

I'll tell you what. Go to almost any street cafe, in any Arab (or Pakistani) city. You will find political discourse of a surprisingly advanced nature, with a wide disparity of opinions, views and theories.

3. "We have been attacked many times, and surely you can understand there is no need for a global power to sit by idly and wait for more attacks without doing anything,"

"One other thing: I have no sense that we are at war with Muslims as a whole."

(advance warning: this is not an apology for terrorism, on any side)

This is the crux of the dishonesty. You want to imagine a scenario where you are the aggrieved party, and are now the avenging angels.

American involvement in, and active subjugation of, the Muslim world is DECADES old. Whether through support of its proxy, Israel, or through more direct means.

I'm going to cut through all the self-serving lies and bull about Saddam's intentions about this, and that. Only in America do people still cling onto such lies with the fervour of a drowning man hanging onto a lifejacket. I'm going to make it simple.

Post WW2, America identified oil, and control over it, as the number 1 long-term strategic imperative. Where is most of it? Middle East. So, you have long term, non-ideological reason for control of the Middle East. In this sense, the US simply took over from Britain.

Allied to this, you have the growth of a whole Islamophobic industry, which resuccitates much of the anti-Islam garbage from the Crusades onwards. From the crude to the ridiculous. Even to the extent of fraudulent scholars (of which every Washington thinktank these days seems to have a couple) who lift 2 lines here, 2 lines there from Koranic verses, completely out of context, and generate meanings from their literal translations which are 180 degrees removed from what the verse as a whole is saying.

A rationally defined, rationally thought out imperialist agenda, with an ideologically crazed Islamophobic movement in the vanguard. The perfect combination.

America was taken by surprise by the Saudi King Faisal, and his ability to break the American strangehold on Arab oil production. They built up Iran as a bulwark. When the Shah was toppled, then America built up Saddam and Iraq, to take the Iranians down. Cue a devastating war which took over a million lives. Now Saddam is too big. So he is encouraged to move into Kuwait (the infamous green light given to him by the then US amabasador), and then is taken down in turn. Cue another devasting war. Then a decade of sanctions, which slaughter another million.

Then, America announces that a now disarmed, and severly weakened (through sanctions) Iraq is now an "immiment threat", and it is smashed to pieces. Who is next? Iran? The Saudi's (if the next King has independent thoughts, like Faisal had?). The Pakistani's (if only they didn't have those pesky nukes, we would have them in heartbeat, eh?).

You mentioned Noam Chomsky. In hindisght, I could have saved myself a lot of typing, and just said "refer to Chomsky".

4. "Ultimately, our goal is to help Muslim nations--Arab, Indo-Iranian/Aryan, Causasian, Turkic, Pacific Islander .... reconcile their religio-political nativism with the Enlightenment."

Spare me all the self-serving crap about you doing this for our benefit. What? You decide that your system is the best, and are therefore going to forcibly convert the rest of us to YOUR way of life? Through supporting dictators, sanctions, threats of invasion, actual invasions and then brutal occupations? No matter how many millions you kill - its in our best interests in the end? How come we are so stupid that we can't see that?

You do know what that is - an imperial power run amok, lead by a group of ideological nuts - forcibly converting others "by the sword" to their own way of life.

5. You ask is Iran what I want. You know what. Its not YOUR place to ask. Its OUR decision. Based on OUR cultural, religious and political imperatives. Leave us the hell alone. Stop bombing, invading, sanctioning, etc. Stop supporting brutal dictators or repressive regimes. We'll sort it out amongst ourselves, and get back to you in a few decades (which would still be a faster timescale than you in the West managed).

Oil? Don't worry. We'll still sell it to you.

6. "That area has to be "pacified", to use a quaint term, for MY security and MY family's"

Really? They aren't attacking your family. They aren't attacking your country. In case you are unfamiliar with geography, YOUR troops are in THEIR country.

Jeff Glassman:

1. "Imran Rafique pretends to know what is common knowledge in Pakistan because he is Pakistani and he speaks Urdu"

God, you are so blinded by your ignorance, you can't see basic logic. Let me make this simple for you. You know nothing about me. Assuming I'm not a liar (which there is no way to really prove on an online forum), then the credentials I put forward in my first post should immediately tell you that I might have a little better grasp of the situation in Pakistan than you.

Doesn't mean that you should automatically accept what I said. But to completely dismiss it out of hand, as I'm obviously "pretending to know" is just, well, ...

I am in awe of your logical reasoning. Especially how you deduce that I stated my knowledge of Urdu was the reason why I think you are flat out wrong - shame I never said that (just one reference to how Musharaf's message to his own people in Urdu directly contradict his messages to the US in English)

Because what I'm telling you directly contradicts your deeply held prejudices, you just want to dismiss it, and me as some brown barely-literate monkey. To whit:

"He seems to speak English pretty well", and
"One might as well have a conversation with one of the thousands of Pakistani cab drivers in New York City. Like Basil Fawlty said, 'quicker to train a monkey'."

Applause.

2. "Why did the assassin then blow himself up? A rational reason was to obliterate his connection to the terrorists. This had the two-pronged effect of killing the popular, anti-jihad Bhuto, and denying Musharraf the defense of exposing the real killers."

As I've said before, Bhutto was NOT going to "take on" the Taleban, or the tribals in Waziristan. She was going to negotiate an end to the madness. And yes, I know - you're going to say I'm pretending to know this. In which case, so must her husband, Asif Zardari, when he has said the same thing (in English, you would be relieved to know) post-assasination. Unless, maybe, he's pretending too.

In the aftermath of her death, the government has tried to point the finger at a specific Taleban leader. He has denied it. Most believe him. They were ready to negotiate with her (after all, she was the Prime Minister who CREATED the Taleban in the first place!).

Asif Zardari, Bhutto's husband, has publically cast great doubts on the governments claim that the Taleban are responsible. More than once. Again, in English.

As I've said before, nearly all of the post-assasination anger has been directed against Musharaf.

Yet, despite all this, you're foaming at the mouth, ready to pump bombs and bullets into people who WE PAKISTANI'S OURSELVES aren't sure are responsible. Go pick your fights with people YOU have a clue about, in YOUR backyard. Keep your nose out of ours.

3. "When someone makes such a remark he has proved nothing except that the speaker is feckless and factless, and most likely just anti-Semitic."

Yup. Here it comes. The infamous, inevitable "you, you, you don't agree with America's right to wage war on whoever it chooses. You must be anti-Semitic ....". Yeah, right. Whatever. Obviously, you deduced that from my previous posts. Just as you deduced all those other things I never said.

With critical faculties like that, no wonder you think you're Yoda. You must end up surrounded by sychophants who just agree with everything you say.

Because anyone else who says anything contrary are automatically "illogical", incapable of "reasoned discourse", and obviously "anti-Semitic" (I'll leave out the "well trained monkey" analogies you made above - that may be just specially reserved for me).

In summary:
I didn't stick my nose into this private "you back up my Islamophobia, and I'll back up yours" discussion forum you have unfortunately entwined in the midst of this excellent training resource you have helped create (kudos for that, btw), with any illusions as to changing minds.

When radicals are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause, its very very hard to reason with them. Especially when their delusions have progressed to the extent that they think nothing of calling for death and destruction to be rained down on people left, right and centre.

Basic humanity demands that you pause for serious reflection before screaming for the death of OTHER HUMAN BEINGS whom you don't know, based on events that you DON'T UNDERSTAND, and in countries and societies YOU HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT. That was my sole reason for sticking my nose in here.

When you cross that boundary (as you and so many on this thread have), you are on the path of ideologically-driven madness. Ready to kill, kill and kill again. Even when you don't know why, you start inventing reasons. And when you don't know who is left to kill, you start inventing enemies.

And the whole time, you scratch your heads wondering why the rest of the world doesn't see things the way you do. Why they don't understand why you are driven to do this. And why, oh why, can't they just accept that you are the good guys, and are really doing this for everyone's benefit (even the lands and people you shatter).

Welcome to madness. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (oh look, the trained monkey is spouting French now ....).

The end. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Imran,

Let me make it simple. If Pakistan can't handle the task of enforcing its laws in all parts of the nation, then it is not a modern nation state. It is a proto-nation state, which as I alluded to I well understand to have been created by British machinations, which would not have been performed by Americans.

Nor is it a democracy, since the people cannot choose laws which are enforced throughout the whole of the nation.

Since you have nuclear weapons, a ten year old child could do the math and add lack of central control, to widespread support of Islamic terrorism and generate a sum which gives cause for fear.

You know what? I don't worry that India has nukes. I don't worry that China, Britain, France, or Israel have nukes. You know why? I have a high level of confidence that they will not be used offensively against my nation.

I have no such confidence with respect to Iran, had no such confidence with respect to Iraq, and would have no such confidence with respect to a Pakistan ruled by rabid racists who believe that Jews are the descendants of pigs and monkeys (as you know, that claim is made in the Koran), and that Israel, rather than being the sole democracy in the Middle East, and at least 10 times as productive in every measurable sense, is somehow the enemy.

Admit you want Israel destroyed. If you don't believe that, then tell me what you do want for Israel. Are you going to disingenuously claim that you believe the Palestinians are willing to foresake their now-many decades old promise to destroy Israel and run the Jews into the sea?

Then show me where we benefit financially from our arrangements in the Middle East. If regional hegemony was the goal, why wouldn't we just invade and occupy Saudi Arabia and surrounding Gulf States?

You imply we took care of Hussein in the first Gulf War. What are you smoking? Bush stopped at the line, and started 12 years of Hussein consistently breaking the treaties he signed, for which he was roundly condemned by virtually the entire global community.

I will note as well that you do not appear to be living in one of the mud huts which characterize most of your nation. What are you doing to develop your nation? Do you live there?

American pockets are deep, and we can do a lot of good that will not get done any other way.

My honest opinion is that not only is Bin Laden and his cadre in Pakistan, but that everyone from the top down knows where they are. We have every reason to believe that given time their group will begin again to plan attacks of the sort that affected us so seriously.

If you don't want your problem to be our problem, then Pakistan needs to take care of it. They have been promising to do so now for years. It isn't getting done. Either the will or the capacity is not there, and there will come a time--certainly following an large attack we can trace there and possibly sooner--where we are going to have to change what we are doing. Militarily, I can't say with certainty what our options are, but I can say that it is heighth of foolishness to continue doing things which aren't working in the hope of miraculously generating a new outcome.

My idealistic streak dictates that we work to generate, overall, an outcome which aims at benefits for everyone. My pragmatic streak dictates that what matters to me, is what matters to me, just as what matters to you, is what matters to you.

We need not get involved. We need not be there. But someone needs to deal with a region in the world where terrorists are openly tolerated, where attacks are planned, and let's be honest, where the destabilization of Pakistan's central government through violence is quite obviously on the table, and being pursued actively.

Imran Rafique #113 among others:

1) Where do you Crossfit? I have searched the comments on WOD days and must confess that I failed to find you as named.

2) You have graciously shared with us your education. Of what country are you a citizen? Where do you primarily reside?

3) I think the definition of a modern state, or at least ONE definition of a modern state, could be one in which there is generally conceded the notion that all local governments and peoples are ultimately subjugated to a central government of some sort, one that proclaims some set of common law/economic policy/foreign policy for the nation as a whole. A "modern state" would therefore be one that other sovereign states could depend to speak for ALL of its citizens at any one time. Substitute "Sudan", "Kenya", or several other sub-Saharan "nations", or indeed substitute "Columbia" or even "Mexico" and the questions may be the same. One can reasonably pose the question based on the reasonable position that a "state" that is little but a geographic encircling of neighboring clans/tribes/groups is not a "modern state".

I'm trying hard here to be open to your experience and claimed local knowledge, open to learning from you. With the above definition or guideline for a "modern state" could you perhaps indulge me and re-address Barry's admittedly provocative claim that 1) Pakistan is not presently a "modern state" and 2) this makes Pakistan a risk to regional and international security?

You know, I looked at this situation for a moment in my mind, and would like to make the simple comment that Imran is a half step away from overt support of Islamic terrorism.

Many of the leftist apologists for such terrorism--you know, the "one man's freedom fighter" folks--like to claim in effect that these attacks are the reaction to Western Imperialism, and that they originate with the "workers", with the proletarian drones who are poor only because the West is rich, and angry only because they have been denied opportunities.

Yet a casual search of the types of people who are arrested for actual or planned attacks, shows clearly that they are educated. They are engineers, doctors, and other professionals. They are college graduates, and in my mind functionally indistinguishable from the Sybionese Liberation Army, and Baader-Meinhof Gang from 30 years ago. They say the same things--the West is to blame, tribalism is more honest, blah, blah, blah. When they gain power, as in Iran, they implement totalitarian states that are functionally indistinguishable from Communist "Republics". They read Sartre and Rousseau. One suspects a secret fondness for Sade.

Above all, they use terms and methods that are antithetical to the religious tradition within which they claim to have envisioned a better tomorrow, a more just tomorrow.

Imran cannot state he dislikes the Iranian model. I infer--and obviously he can easily correct me on this point--that he has a secret fondness for their radical chic. I infer he likes how Hugo Chavez is putting it to the Western oil companies (and impoverishing his nation by making foreign investment close to zero).

Pondering this just a tad more, in my OCD sort of way, it occurs to me to ask: in what respects has the Iranian Revolution helped the average Iranian? Is he more free? Is he wealthier? Does he (certainly not she) have more opportunities, economic and other?

In what respect has the "Chavez Revolution" helped the ordinary Venezuelan? It was "cool" there for a while, when there was still actually wealth to seize, but now that the money is gone, the expertise is gone, and the tenant farmers have been given land they are incompetent to farm to the same level as the professionals--with the inevitable result of poverty equal to or worse than what they had--what is the benefit? Are they more free? Can they do more than they could do before? What value, ultimately, other than non-conformity with Western capitalism--which is a value only to Leftists who don't have to live in the nations who fall prey to their ideas--does this system bring?

What good has Osama Bin Laden done any Muslim? Arguably, he engendered a Western invasion of Afghanistan, enabled Bush to justify an invasion of Iraq, and is even now working to justify a stronger Western presence in Pakistan, and/or much more repressive measures by Musharraf? Where is the value? What has he done to take any of the Muslims who are regularly hungry, unable to read the Koran even in Arabic, and beholden to what amounts to a system of feudal vassalage to a state or Sheikh?

These ideas of the value of revolution can only be uttered by Westernized intellectuals. They can only be uttered by people not forced to endure the conditions which they want to keep others in. Imran can only say "my people", and ignore the peril his people are in, from a safe vantage point, which essentially takes umbrage at the West from a position of vanity. Which assumes that the problems can and are being solved without American help, but which risks no violence or loss in the event of failure.

bingo: "Where do you Crossfit? I have searched the comments on WOD days and must confess that I failed to find you as named."
"Of what country are you a citizen? Where do you primarily reside?"

Why do you need to know where I workout, or where I live? Something you want to say or do in person?

Anyway, other members of the gym where I do workout would recognise my name, and may feel like telling you. Thats up to them. I post my comments under MY name. I didn't realise that I needed to share my address, citizenship, bank account details and starsign with you as well - my mistake.

bingo: "You have graciously shared with us your education."

Only in so far as Jeff Glassman was mockingly referring to me learning English in "my madrassa". Simply responded back. I decided not to respond back to the "trained monkey" stuff.

The only time I DID say anything about myself without being prompted was in the opening paragraph to my opening post - simply as a quick means of identifying myself, and trying to convey why my points may have relevence (due to my family's contacts). Yes, it is wasn't the most modest introduction (to put it midly), but I just wanted to cut to the chase. Anything else I've said about myself after that has simply been in response to others.

bingo:"I'm trying hard here to be open to your experience and claimed local knowledge"

Whatever. I said what I wanted to say, and what needed to be said. Its not somehow top-secret. Even if you listen to interviews Bhutto has given in the recent past, and what Asif Zardari has said post-assisination, it will back what I'm saying about the perceived need to negotiate rather than kill, and the doubts as to whether the Taleban are responsible for her killing.

Unless you're going to cast doubts on Zardari's "local knowledge" and "experience".

Barry Cooper: "You know, I looked at this situation for a moment in my mind, and would like to make the simple comment that Imran is a half step away from overt support of Islamic terrorism."

You know, you can take that filthy lie and shove it. Along with Glassmans "anti-Semite" slander. Unless you can show me where I have supported terrorism, in any form, from anyone, in my posts. And the same thing goes for the imagined "anti-Semite" bull. Show me where I have slandered Jews or Judaism. And no, not supporting Israel does NOT automatically make one an anti-Semite.

Barry Cooper: "Imran cannot state he dislikes the Iranian model. I infer--and obviously he can easily correct me on this point--that he has a secret fondness for their radical chic."

You cannot state what I like and dislike, when I haven't told you, nor given you any clues as to what my position would be. "Infer"? Is that a code word for "make up stuff he didn't say, and respond to that?". Seems to be a lot of that floating around here.

I unsuccessfully tried to convey in the ending to my previous post, that I am done with this thread. I'll repeat it, just to make sure you get the message.

In summary:
I didn't stick my nose into this private "you back up my Islamophobia, and I'll back up yours" discussion forum you have unfortunately entwined in the midst of this excellent training resource you have helped create (kudos for that, btw), with any illusions as to changing minds.

When radicals are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause, its very very hard to reason with them. Especially when their delusions have progressed to the extent that they think nothing of calling for death and destruction to be rained down on people left, right and centre.

Basic humanity demands that you pause for serious reflection before screaming for the death of OTHER HUMAN BEINGS whom you don't know, based on events that you DON'T UNDERSTAND, and in countries and societies YOU HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT. That was my sole reason for sticking my nose in here.

When you cross that boundary (as you and so many on this thread have), you are on the path of ideologically-driven madness. Ready to kill, kill and kill again. Even when you don't know why, you start inventing reasons. And when you don't know who is left to kill, you start inventing enemies.

And the whole time, you scratch your heads wondering why the rest of the world doesn't see things the way you do. Why they don't understand why you are driven to do this. And why, oh why, can't they just accept that you are the good guys, and are really doing this for everyone's benefit (even the lands and people you shatter).

The End.

Imran #119

I ask about your Crossfitting because, frankly, on this CROSSFIT comments section I am interested in the thoughts, knowledge, and opinions of Crossfitters. As such, my personal choice is not to pursue dialogue with non-Crossfitters HERE. I recently asked another poster on one of the rare days on which I post on Rest Day the same question. He responded quite cordially that he posted on his affiliate's site, and graciously offered to confirm that off-line. I am prone to believe a Crossfitter in this line of questioning and took him at his word. (My identity is no secret and is easily discovered by clicking on my name, or viewing the interview Tony B. filmed). And so, now explained, I ask: where do you Crossfit?

I ask of your citizenship and place of residence so that I may put your thoughts in perspective, err I make an assumption that may prove inaccurate and render any downstream thoughts incoherent. And so, now explained, I ask: what is your citizenship and where do you reside?

I offered a working definition of a "modern state" so that we might, perhaps, engage in a civil discussion and discourse. Indeed, my post was quite civil, polite, and respectful; I was careful to use the language of diplomacy. I did not address either Barry's or your thoughts on solutions; I only sought some insight from your POV. Your response was directed elsewhere, for nowhere in my post did I posit anything that would generate your answer.

Present #119 as it applies to me is unfortunate and disappointing, for it leaves me no better informed about an issue that was important enough to prompt me to post. Sadly, this is why I spend so little time here on Rest Day...

Imran,

Let me put it like this. I conduct this discussion sincerely. I am working to solve real problems, at least in the sense of increasing the amount of available perceptions with respect to the problems.

You do nothing to further this process by telling me Pakistan's problems are not my problem because you say so. I have articulated why I believe they are my problem, and you have offered no coherent reason for me to believe otherwise. Do you think talking, in effect, in all caps--using strong, angry language--is going to make an iota of difference in this? I'm not a child, and yelling demeans you, and means nothing to me, other than that your capacity to respond coherently has been taxed beyond its limit.

You do nothing to further this process by ignoring my open invitation to agree that in fact Iran's system of government is openly tyrannical, considerably worse than that of the Shah, and economically inept to the point that people who could and should be fed are going hungry. Rather, you again betray either ignorance or disingenuousness.

I asked you if you thought Israel should continue to exist. You ducked this question.

I'm not stupid, timid, or averse to confrontation. Your tactics may work in some places, with some people, but don't bring them here.

I'd just like for once someone to answer my points as sincerely as I try to answer theirs. I'm beginning to get a complex. I'm also noticing a trend where I ask some questions and get invective for a response - if any at all. Which returns me to Bingo's point. I've noticed that, generally, the loudest complaints about rest day discussions come from the least recognizable names from other normal workout days. It's an open forum, but like Darrell said, I'd rather not waste my time with trolls who simply come here to tweak the locals. I come here to post/discuss events with people who have a common reference point (hard work of CF) and a desire to swap thoughts and learn. Instead it's the same refrain.

Imran, I spent almost 2 years in the tribal areas - you said nothing about MY opinions or claims. You selectively "quoted" me (while simultaneously complaining about American intellectuals selectively quoting the Koran - I thought that was precious, by the way). And not once did you ever address anything anyone sincerely asked - other than to rage about American imperialism and arrogance ad nauseum. Brother, just answer a question or two. It's simple. That's how discourse works. If you're fired up over Jeff G's remarks, you could have addressed it briefly (or ignored) or addressed his underlying point about the use of "terms" - like "NeoCon" - but you did none of the above. Ditto for Barry. Me you mostly ignored.

My question remains - why shouldn't I be concerned given events in the tribal areas, with which I am familiar, and which Kurtz discusses in his review of the Waziristan PA's book. You keep boldly asserting that what goes on in Waziristan is none of my business - except that it is. When I was in Afghanistan, that's where all the rockets kept coming from. Sorry - it most definitely was my problem. Kind of like the VC using the Ho Chi Minh trail & Loas and Cambodia as staging bases for attacks and people saying the US should mind its own business and stay out of Laos/Cambodia.

I would dearly have liked to ignore Pakistan and Waziristan, but the rockets kept coming from that side of the border. Regularly. One might even say "often", depending upon how frequently you think one should have to endure incoming 107mm and 122mm rockets. And the same applies to terrorists who seem to keep coming out of the Pak tribal areas with that same kind of frequency.

And just so we can put a point on it - my daughter was in a plane on her way to visit when the whole lockdown of US airports happened because of the 10 Aug 2006 plane hijacking plan from the dudes who (almost) all had ties to - say it with me, I know you can - Pakistan. So, I would say that my point remains. (You can Google the 2006 Transatlantic Aircraft Plot - it's the one that limited liquids for everyone and Rashid Rauf was alleged to be the operational mastermind - a Pakistani.)

Now, if you want to challenge my logic, then please explain why I shouldn't be concerned about that area. Or challenge my facts - which would be foolish because all of what I have said is accurate. So, one or the other - but please don't bother to rail and run away (as above) and then name-call as you flee. Show me logically where I have erred. Seriously.