At dinner my mom referred to when Bush was �elected�. We were talking about the reactions my sister and I had. I called my sister that night audibly upset, and she said that a million scenarios flashed through her head of me in some sort of dire trouble, and how she was relieved, in terms of perspective, when she learned that my state of upset was due to that Bush would be our president. And my mom said that that night my sister said to her, �Well, there�s just going to be a war now.� My sister said, �Well, I knew it, the Bushes are warmongers�� And my dad said, �Well�� in a way that said, but it couldn�t be helped.

And I was thinking about it. So many people believe that a war couldn�t be avoided because of 9/11. Like it was a natural consequence, inevitable. You could say that it was, but that would just be cynicism. There are always options.

I tried to picture the options, other than the one we�ve pursued. I put it in terms of a barfight. Some guy punches you, trying to start a fight. What do you do? There�s turning the other cheek. That, I think most agree, is not a practical course of action, particularly in the scope of the many many lives that our first �cheek� was made of. There�s walking away. Makes the instigator look like an ass, deflates him, takes away the very thing he wanted. Makes the victim look a coward, if an intelligent one. What if he won�t let you walk away? What if seeming a coward is too great a price? In this case, jujitsu or aikido would be the best form of defense. It�s not really a fight. You don�t throw any punches. You simply use the instigator�s own energy and momentum to put them in a position where there is no way they can hurt you. You don�t get hit (again), they don�t get hurt, and from there you can deal with it. You have not displayed weakness, nor have you inflated his bloodlust by fighting back. If every punch thrown were countered this way, they would be forced to give up.

Isn�t there some form of tactical military jujitsu? What we�re doing, essentially, is tae kwon do. Blow for blow. It seems like it�s all we know. How could we pin them without having to hit first, honestly and in a straightforward manner? It HAS to be possible. The concept sounds so feasible, and yet I can�t think of a time when we (the United States, or anybody at war for that matter) have attempted to apply it.

Come on, guys, think about it. What would it be? How could we do it? Not can we, but how can we? Because it can, it can, it can be done. Because we�re human. We can figure out how to do anything if we care and are aware. Military jujitsu, just to stop the ones throwing punches.

4:22 p.m. 2003-08-18�