Unqualified Offerings

As part of his continuing bitchfight with Juan Cole, Michael Young of Reason writes
In the end, Hitchens has usually been on the right side of the debate on Iraq because when he writes about it he thinks of Iraqis, not the Bush administration.
Hm. Iraqis, the Bush Administration . . . Is there anyone whose welfare [...]

WASHINGTON – Negotiations to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons remain in limbo, but the North Koreans are giving hints they might be ready to end another lingering problem with the United States by returning the captured spy ship USS Pueblo.
And Christopher Hitchens cries, “Eleven!”
Pueblo story via OTB, where the comments thread provides our first Warblog [...]

The following summarizes some stuff I’ve been mulling over and, in some cases, ties off loose comment threads.
* Often in debates about the wisdom, prudence and legitimacy of the then-forthcoming US war in Iraq, neolibertarians declared that “even minarchists agree that national security is a legitimate function of the state.” My response was always, [...]

Clark Stooksbury is another libertarian into “blamegaming the President” Responding to the apologist line about federalism, he writes
Are Hewitt and Ruddy so deluded that the believe that the president and his advisors carefully read through the Constitution and the opinions of Learned Hand before deciding if they have the power to act? Bush had no [...]

Superb Jesse Walker column about Katrina, the social order and cooperation. The beginning plays one of those familiar tricks:
People couldn’t help contrasting the catastrophes. During the first disaster, New Yorkers remained calm, cooperative, and nonviolent; the crime rate plunged, and the city was overwhelmed with spontaneous acts of mutual aid. In the second emergency, the [...]