ACLU:

A surprisingly large amount of cool information comes from my school's ACLU listserv. Apparently a large number of people have just been arrested at the corner of Chicago and Michigan. Dan Lichtenstein-Boris would like law students or lawyers to call him at 773-834-6923. These appear to be anti-war demonstrators.

Crooked Heart:

Without warning us, Amy Lamboley has started a blog.

Great Minds:

Somebody actually came to this blog for "destroying oil wells war crime". What's even better, we're the top hit for that search.

War Crimes:

Here's some more confirmation on war crimes from Slate. Here's my previous post.

And we're off:

Here's Bush's announcement. Up until now I've avoided blogging any coherent thoughts on the war, largely because I don't have them. I still don't have them, but I thought I'd post them here anyway.

Three years ago I would have against this war. It's corny to say that 9/11 changed everything. I've written before about the annoying tendency people to have to claim that their pet policy is particularly relevant to the terrorist attacks. Still, I think that this question-- what to do about the middle east-- is uniquely relevant to the terrorist attacks. In particular, there's a line Tom Friedman wrote that convinced me: "If we have learned anything from September 11, it is that if you don't visit a bad neighborhood, it will visit you."

The middle east is a bad neighborhood. Now, I think Bush's war is messed up. I think Blair's war has the potential to make the world a better place. It's too early for me to tell yet which war we're fighting, and it's not my decision to make. I'm probably going to criticize plenty of Bush actions, especially the Kurd sellout if he can ever get the Turks to buy. Still, I'm in favor of this war in principle. I think it's okay for the most powerful government in the world to attempt to liberate people oppressed by dictators. I don't think this requires proof of some direct threat from Iraq. I think it's the general threat, that an ignored middle east will eventually become impossible to ignore, that justifies doing something, though I admit that my confidence is low that Bush will wage this war as it should be waged.

Maybe those aren't very Libertarian answers. Maybe I'm not always a Libertarian.

A new voice:

An interesting new blog.