Last Friday marked the 10 year anniversary of the U.S. attack and subsequent nation building in Afghanistan. Most Americans, myself included, felt the attack on the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a perfectly legitimate response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I doubt that most Americans would have supported a nation building mission creep [...]

The 2012 G.O.P. candidates each gave speeches at CPAC following the debates. Below are the speeches from Gary Johnson and Ron Paul. The first video is Johnson’s presentation before perhaps the largest audience he has had in awhile. Johnson spends a good part of his presentation introducing himself before giving an overview of his proposals. [...]

As reported in Politico: “I can’t think of too many tribal countries with which we’ve been involved — Afghanistan is another one — where it’s easy to extricate yourself once you get involved,” Huntsman told reporters here after finishing a cruise with Republicans on northern New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. “So it might sound like it’s [...]

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary “Veto” Johnson made a recent appearance on Hannity last week (see video below). I have to say I was pleasantly surprised both with how Sean Hannity conducted the interview and how Gov. Johnson responded. I haven’t really watched Hannity since before the “& Colmes” was dropped a few years ago; [...]

The “limited kinetic action” (don’t call it military force or war!) in Libya has reached the 60 day mark; the statutory time limit a president can use military force without congressional approval according to the War Powers Act of 1973. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot about the goings on in Libya in [...]

This is part of The Liberty Papers’ continued Point/Counterpoint feature. Specifically, this Counterpoint is the response to Jeff Molby’s post yesterday suggesting moral equivalency between Arabs cheering in the streets after 9/11 and Americans cheering Sunday night at the killing of Osama bin Laden. ———————————————— A lot of what Jeff said yesterday made sense. We [...]

The following is a continuation of The Liberty Papers’ “Point/Counterpoint” series. In this feature, two contributors (or, as in this case, a contributor and a guest) of semi-like mind debate a specific point of view. Today’s Point is provided by regular reader and commenter Jeff Molby, who wrote in response to a friend and offered [...]

You know, as much as I disagree most of the time with Dennis Kucinich on so many issues, I respect him because he is principled and consistent regardless of who happens to be occupying the White House. That’s a hell of a lot more than what I can say about Joe Biden. So where are [...]

Besides the fact that the current regime in Libya is not a threat to U.S. national security, the role of the U.S. military ought not be engaged in strictly humanitarian missions, will likely lead to future humanitarian interventions, and can in no way be argued that such actions in Libya are somehow part of a [...]

I wrote this originally on April 20, 2009 about Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Now with Obama’s undeclared war in Libya beginning, I feel this is timely so I’m reposting it. In the American Conservative, Antiwar.com editor Justin Raitmando (whom I often disagree with) has a piece detailing some more leftist hypocrisy concerning [...]

The ATF has been arming the drug cartels in Mexico? What could possibly go wrong? CBS News reports: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly let gun runners walk off with weapons – thousands of them – to see if they’d end up in the hands of the cartels. The Justice Department and [...]

Sounds good to me

Will Wilkinson writing for The Economist: To get at the value of WikiLeaks, I think it’s important to distinguish between the government—the temporary, elected authors of national policy—and the state—the permanent bureaucratic and military apparatus superficially but not fully controlled by the reigning government. The careerists scattered about the world in America’s intelligence agencies, military, [...]

Here’s the outrage of the day, coming straight out of the UK: The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer. The proposal by Her [...]

When I first heard Pat Buchanan talking about Palestine and Israel as a politically naive teenager, I thought he was a conservative who broke from the path because he thought the Palestinians had been mistreated. Things are obviously a lot more complicated than that. Given Pat Buchanan’s proclamation that America is “a country built by [...]

The following is a post I started a little over 2 years ago explaining my 180 concerning the war in Iraq. This is easily the most difficult post I’ve ever written because of the life and death nature of the subject matter and admitting being on the wrong side of this issue for so long. [...]

This doesn’t sound good: Chavez said the authorities have determined that 25.8 percent of shares in Globovision belong to one of the owners of the Banco Federal, which the government took over last month citing financial problems and irregularities. … With that minority ownership stake, the government will have a right to name a board [...]

David Cameron today apologized for the  British Armies conduct on Bloody Sunday. Great… now do something of substance. Either treat the north as a real part of the rest of the damn country, or get the hell out. The UK is firmly wedded to a lot of government involvement in industry, in finance, in development… [...]

In one of the early Republican debates in the 2008 election cycle, Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani sparred over the September 11th attacks and the role that U.S. foreign policy choices may have played in inciting the attacks: On Iraq, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the Libertarian candidate for president in 1988, stood alone in [...]

A new study suggests that simply due to the results of blood pressure, obesity, blood glucose levels and smoking, American life expectancy is artificially low by 4.9 and 4.1 years for men and women, respectively (h/t Reason): A new study led by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in collaboration with researchers [...]