Sunday, 23 January 2005

Drug war redux

Bill Quick has a good post on the drug war and its costs. My earlier thoughts are here. Hat tip to a reader.

New blog on the block

Opinio Juris is a new blog that covers international law. I'll be watching with interest; especially Julian Ku. Hopefully they will address the procedure for handling treaties, which doesn't seem to get a lot of coverage elsewhere.

Among my questions:

  • How are treaties enforced?
  • Do they get reviewed by courts? If so, which courts?
  • Can courts overturn them if they conflict with the constitution?
  • Do treaties require enabling legislation to have force of law in the U.S.?
Hopefully these items will be addressed some time. A very good read so far.

Why having the right enemies matters

President Bush manages to enrage most of his critics in this country and he has a similar knack with terrorists abroad. Zarqawi has been suckered into declaring war on democracy, which is how most people envision freedom (þ: Instapundit). This puts him where we want him for the long haul.

Similarly, President Bush placed us where we want to be over the long haul as well. He has even managed to bring over some past skeptics:

The fight against terrorists must still remain the overriding focus of American national security efforts, because the price of failing to stop future terrorist attacks is unacceptably high. But the war on terrorism was never a sufficient paradigm for American foreign policy. It was too narrow, too limited and less than ideal for mustering the support of others around the world. Conservatives and realists in America and nervous Europeans will recoil at Bush’s new boldness. But the pragmatic virtue of basing American foreign policy on the timeless principles of the Declaration of Independence is that they do reflect universal aspirations. Such a policy may attract wider support abroad than the war on terrorism has and a more durable support at home for an internationalist foreign policy. That is the higher realism that Bush now proclaims.
(þ: Powerline)

P.S. The Steelers are driving me nuts.