I wonder how eloquent others may be when they are genuinely writing for the drawer, to a locked diary. Here, we're either on non-personal stuff or making the personal stuff so ambiguous. or so opaque, that it can't get us into trouble. But these are arbitrary additions, adulterations - they interfere with the process - pure writing must be for oneself alone. Unless we are willing to be as naked in real life as we find ourselves in dreams.

You would think that beneath the surface of any poker game there is naked testosterone, the desire to crush the other players, but I don't see it. In fact I see a bunch of guys sitting around enjoying the challenge of the game and each other's company. It is, in a word, civilized.

More so, I suppose, because it's low-stakes. Last night was my best ever, winning 29 bucks. The money is about equal to my worst, and many nights I just about break even. Cheap dates, we are. Of course because we're in the middle of hunting season we consume a lot of venison, not cheap on the market but free, sort of, to the guy who shot it.

Out in the shed where the deer are slaughtered, it's Lord of the Flies Lite, with deer heads, and even the old grizzlies with plenty of points look scared after life on the run. There is an element of civilization here, with the rationale for killing so well-developed and so far from the original rationale: survival of the hunter. We are way past survival. Now it's wildlife management.

Another day among the earthlings.

The cold weather comes in and it's like a sudden brake, passengers get nervous and everything in the car gets thrown around. You have to go around fixing things. Downed leaves, storm windows, different clothes, and rooms that used to be too hot are too cold. For us fixers, none of this is entirely bad. Also I like the snap, the brace, the crispness, and would find it hard to live somewhere where the seasons weren't there to demonstrate the passage of time.

Wait. Is is the passage of time? Or is it the recurrence of the seasons? Maybe it's both a mile marker and a brake. Slow down, we've been here, it's a little different, but a revisit of many times before, not just a mindless drive into the future.

Looking back over the blog, suspended in May 2003. One thing's clear, discussions of politics sure have a half-life. Poetry and pieces about mounds in Cahokia seem to hold up better. Not that it really matters - this is for me, no one else, and in the act of writing, not for posterity. Why put it on the Internet? Because once in a while you find someone you want to explain yourself to, in a way that is candid but still publishable. Because it's published, for god's sake. And to any stranger who reads this dreck: hey. Happy to have you.

Well it's certainly time to get back to this.

The biggest question is how close to the edge this kind of diarist can go - how much of the heart goes out on the internet sleeve. This is the opposite of anonymous - pronominous? - and lordy there must be a limit. But Ill try to scout the edges, and report back.

OK, and a deep breath. This war is over.

The lingering uncertainties need to be rendered more certain. Counting the dead is worthy and important. Watching changes in the strategic landscape is fascinating. But none of it carries an adrenalin rush. Waging war is a drug. Time to go cold turkey.

May your life
light the night sky.

It is so humbling to see these entries completely overtaken by events. As of today, we are looking at two non-resolvers: (1) the weapons of mass destruction may not really be there, at least not in any quantity - it may simply be an active capacity without a stockpile. I still don't believe it. I still believe we'll find the real thing, including scary nuclear stuff. Also I think we're going to find much more compelling links to terrorists. But this will all look so out of date so quickly. (2) Saddam may be alive and uncaught. I did email someone over the past couple of weeks that I had thought he would be Trotsky, assassinated in exile. I can't see him dying of old age. But Stalin and Mao did, and as far as I can remember Idi Amin is alive and well in Saudi Arabia.

There is a type of revenge bombing taking place against the anti-Bush camp, and it is not over yet. The case against Saddam has been overstated. Boom. We did not bring in enough troops to fight this, a nationwide guerrilla war. Boom. We will be stopped in Baghdad, tens of thousands will die in house-to-house fighting. Boom. The Iraqis will never welcome us as liberators. Boom.

And the last one, not yet dropped: You will not find weapons of mass destruction. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I am honored to witness the celebrations in Iraq, and I believe them. I do not completely understand, however, why so many of the celebrants seem to be able, draft-age men. Is this what's left of their Army?

What will be the end of Saddam Hussein? Mussolini was lynched by partisans. Hitler killed himself in his bunker, rather than be taken by Russians. The Japanese went to war crime trials. None of these will sound appealing to Saddam.

A wild guess. He will try to make a deal, and enlist some international support to do so. Say to the Americans, OK, you aggressors, you have taken us, I will capitulate to avoid further bloodshed (including mine), and in the meantime, let’s have a ceasefire and talk about terms. Minimum, I want the exile you offered earlier. And we will say… no thanks, no ceasefire, no nothing, come out with your hands up and we’ll decide. And he’ll say, then watch all the carnage I will cause. And the UN and the Arab world will say… US, if you don’t deal, you’ll be responsible for the carnage.

My short-term predictions like this are always wrong. I hope this one is too.

For good or ill, when we launch a war we are guiding the path of history in a much more deliberate way than when we simply fight back. We are imagining a future and fighting forward, towards that future. We still try to couch the enterprise in defensive terms, since this is the premise of so much international law of armed conflict (the UN Charter) and domestic politics (the Department of Defense - not, as it was for many years, the Department of War). And we have here some good defensive arguments under international law, particularly the one that links this invasion of Iraq back to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, and his breach of the ceasefire terms.

But whatever the justifications, this American invasion seems contrary to a long-taught position that democracies are slow to war and then only wage them in self-defense. I wonder if it was ever true in America. We have always pushed our defensive perimeter way, way forward. The reason we have so many soldiers buried overseas is that that is where they fought. America in the 19th century saw war on its soil with Britain, with Mexico (sort of), and a great civil war. In the 20th, just Pearl Harbor, and not many think of that as homeland. And here in the 21st: 9/11.

I believe this American President, right or wrong, sees this historical sweep. He may be deluded to think he can guide history to make the world a safer place for America. But I have no doubt this is what he is trying to do.

Does he also see it in terms of empire? We beat Germany and Japan, occupied them, installed democracies, and keep troops there to this day. There are US military bases in Afghanistan. You better believe, even after the re-democratization of Iraq, there will be US bases there.

On the other hand – and here is where it gets really interesting – we are probably going to see our troops pulled out of Germany soon. We will probably withdraw them from Saudi Arabia because with Iraq pacified they will no longer be needed. I wonder if we will stay in Turkey.

It is an empire. But the Romans were in and out with their garrisons, they played the local politics, it was not the same from place to place, things changed. Same with us.

But who are our Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, and Huns, and when do they sack us?

I am probably the last to figure out that the lack of UN support for this war is a curse and a blessing. It’s bad, of course, for all the obvious international-comity reasons, and probably a bad precedent for the future. But how about for the conduct of the war? When it looked like we were just rolling over the Iraqis, Saudi Arabia called for a “breather” to work the diplomatic front. And Bush Senior halted our first advance on Baghdad because he knew we’d lose support of our allies. If we were in this with the UN they would be calling for a cease-fire at the first heavy resistance, the first bad case of civilian casualties, each time it looked like the war was not going to be bloodless and short.

I am sorry to conclude that if we are to fight a war that does not stop short of the objectives of regime change and disarmament, it has to be waged by a determined American commander in chief. We could never have obtained UN support for such a war.

There is an echo here of the American requirement of unconditional surrender to end WWII. It has been criticized, particularly with Japan. It took nuclear bombs to effect it - and even then, we let them keep the Emperor. Chilling.

One thing nags at me in the start of this war. Are we the aliens, landing in some massive spaceship, and coming out to announce:

"Resistance is futile, earthlings. Surrender. We will then give you freedom."

When I see that movie, the good guys form small bands of resistance and eventually kill the aliens after finding an Achilles' heel.

I know this whole demand-for-surrender thing is at least partially humane. A lot fewer people will die if they just give up. But something in me admires resistance, particularly resistance by some young, not-well-educated, faithful guy who believes he is fighting for his country.

Because of my desire to ramp up other areas of my life I had suspended effort on Strays. But tonight, evidently, we will hear we are going to war, and I have to put something down. I want some sense of how good my read was at the time, not in retrospect.

It seems to me there are two general themes of objection.

One is timing. Don't do this yet. Mass troops on the border, beef up the inspector corps, keep him in a box, and use this as a way to disarm. And so avoid a war.

I am drawn to this, but I think I understand the other side. This process would go on indefinitely, and political support (what's left of it) would only erode. Eventually the troops would be brought home, and we could never muster the international (especially Arab) support, or the domestic will, to go back. Once the troops are gone, whether or not he builds a bomb in the meantime, he will build one again.

The other theme is no-war. We just don't have the right to launch a "pre-emptive" war, even if Saddam is cheating on WMD. We have to wait for a much more overt threat - perhaps direct evidence that he has armed the terrorists.

The conventional answer to this one, of course, is that with this position we could wind up with a nuclear explosion on US soil, and begin from there.

And there are so many other ideas swirling around. On the left, blood for oil. US neo-imperialism. Bush is a religious zealot. On the right - or at least at the White House - a desperate mission to avoid another 9/11. Saddam will develop nuclear weapons once he is left to do so, and he sure looks healthy enough to be around for another 15 years. A mission to democratize the Arab world, as a way to address radical Islamism. And the way to a democratic and peaceful Palestine is through Baghdad.

The biggest swirl is that this is a gamble. The White House believes – Cheney comes right out and says it – that we will prove there were hidden WMD, possibly at the cost of American lives. The Iraqis will welcome us as liberators. Many fewer Iraqi lives will be lost with this war than with continuing containment of Saddam. The resulting federation of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds will be in an Iraqi democracy. What happens if all of this, or any of it, turns out untrue?

Where I come down is this.

1. As to timing, how can one possibly fine-tune the timing if the stakes are a nuclear explosion here, at home. If we could have waited another year, so what. As to no-war, same thing: the stakes are too high.

2. Bush isn’t his father’s son when it comes to mobilizing world opinion. Here I am not impressed. But he appears to be his mother’s son when it comes to believing in right and wrong and knowing the difference. Here, I am impressed, even a little envious. I fear I would be susceptible to a Clintonian on-the-one-hand-on-the-other non-decision.

3. As to the gamble, I can only look to what is superior knowledge, based on good intelligence. Bush and Cheney and Powell would not gamble if they thought the odds were too long. OK: It is a punt to say, well, if they turn out to be right, I’m for them. But my lack of their knowledge makes that position not ridiculous. My position as a citizen does depend, however, on my perception of their judgment.

4. I resist the notion that patriotism compels one judgment or another. On this one, patriots can go either way.

This is not a referendum on Bush. It is a question of whether to go to war now. I think, sooner or later, no matter how well the diplomacy and politics were handled, we would have this decision before us. The troops are there. We go.