Free Republic

Even before the suicide bombings outside the Kabul airport on Thursday evening, the US media was acting with rare unanimity. For the first time in memory, US media organs across the ideological and political spectrum have been united in the view that US President Joe Biden fomented a strategic disaster for the US and its allies with his incompetent leadership of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some compare it to the 1961 Bay of Pigs; others to Saigon in 1975; others to the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. Whatever the analogy, the bottom line is the same: Biden's surrender...

‘It came from a pair of religious children acting in the name of Islam’Saudi police have arrested and charged twin brothers with killing their mother over an apparent Islamic State recruitment dispute. Khaled and Saleh al-Oraini, 20, allegedly stabbed their 67-year-old mother Haila, an older brother and their 73-year-old father on June 22. The mother died of her wounds as the men attempted to flee for Yemen. Saudi interior ministry spokesman General Mansour al-Turki gave Reuters scant details of the arrest. “The only [established] thing is that they follow Takfiri ideology,” Mr. Turki said Tuesday. “The case is still under...

Don't forget the Khartoum Conference in '67 where Arabs declared "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."Nothing has changed. Saudi Arabia gave birth to its baby The Saudi Plan just before the invasion of Iraq in the expectation that it would come of age in the Roadmap. Thomas Friedman was the midwife. The Roadmap, making reference to the baby, was announced just days after the invasion. I forcefully recommended that Israel Reject the Roadmap and later traced the genesis of the Roadmap in Perfecting the Unifying Theory to the Saudis. To my mind there was...

The high-resolution QuickBird satellite images of the tsunami impact on Sri Lanka are just a few of the images on the Digital Globe web site that made me stop and say "Wow!" For example, check out the images on the links below:

This is from an email I rec'd from an Ex-aramcon. It purports to be two emails exchanged between ARAMCO manageers. I am going to talk tough, so here is my opinion...... There are contract "hired guns" available. Ex-SAS, US Special Forces and ex-CIA operatives have set up private security firms. We should consider hiring these chaps. We want a team who can take action within minutes and take out permanently any unauthorized armed intrusion. The exodus of ex-pats has begun. Many of those leaving are close to retirement or have young families. So we lose our experience and our most...

<p>Just a few months ago, resolution of Iraq's gigantic debt seemed pretty much insurmountable. But with almost no media fanfare, special Presidential debt envoy James A. Baker III has been making notable progress.</p> <p>In December, the former Secretary of State visited Iraq's main European creditors and Japan, winning promises for major debt reduction. Now it's the Arab world's turn to make its contribution to a stable, free Iraq. Early this week Mr. Baker won general debt forgiveness promises from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, and yesterday he reportedly got the same from the biggest Arab creditor, Saudi Arabia. While no numbers were disclosed, the size of the haircut is expected to be large.</p>

Saudi cleric says peace not possible with Israel   By Inal Ersan DUBAI, April 19 (Reuters) - A top Saudi Arabian Muslim cleric prayed to God on Friday to "terminate" the Jews and urged Arabs and Muslims to abandon efforts to make peace with Israel. "We must say farewell to peace initiatives with these people (Jews)," Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Sudais told worshippers at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, in a sermon, carried live by several Arabic television and radio networks. He prayed to God to "terminate" the Jews, whom he described as "the scum of humanity... the rats of the world... prophet killers... pigs...

March 16 — Vice President Dick Cheney, in Saudi Arabia on perhaps the most diplomatically significant and challenging visit of his 11-nation Mideast tour, encountered new rebuffs Saturday from Saudi leaders — who have reservations about U.S. plans to move militarily against Iraq — even as he conveyed growing American interest in a Saudi-sponsored Middle East peace initiative. AT KING ABDUL Aziz International Airport, Cheney was met by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. The two stood at attention as a Saudi band that included bagpipes played the national anthems of both countries. Cheney then had an audience with King Fahd...