Free Republic

The Author Who Got A Big Boost From bin Laden Historian 'Glad' of Mention As Sales of Book Skyrocket By David Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 21, 2006; Page C01 Twenty-four hours after Osama bin Laden told the world that the American people should read the work of a little-known Washington historian, William Blum was still adjusting. Blum, who at 72 is accustomed to laboring in relative left-wing obscurity, checked his emotions and pronounced himself shocked and, well, pleased. "This is almost as good as being an Oprah book," he said yesterday between telephone calls from the world...

Lawfare Blog: Following an American special forces raid on the compound of Islamic State operative Abu Sayyaf, U.S. interrogators, who are part of the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, have flown to Iraq in order to question Umm Sayyaf, the wife of Abu Sayyaf, who was taken during the operation. Umm Sayyaf was allegedly involved in the workings of the Islamic State and could possibly have played a role in “the enslavement of women in Iraq and Syria.” U.S. interrogators plan to talk to Umm Sayyaf about U.S. hostages held by the militant group. However, according to the Washington Post,...

The White House description of the fall of Ramadi to ISIS forces we have supposedly been busy degrading and destroying as a “setback” is like the British calling Dunkirk in World War II a strategic withdrawal. Ramadi is a defeat, the result of the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by President Obama against the advice of military minds who know better about these things than the former community organizer from Illinois. It is a defeat for President Obama’s foreign policy, a rebuke of his fundamental transformation of America’s role in the world from a leader who shaped events...

Full title: Judicial Watch: Defense, State Department Documents Reveal Obama Administration Knew that al Qaeda Terrorists Had Planned Benghazi Attack 10 Days in Advance Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by...

In 2011 Barack Obama led from behind a NATO coalition bent on removing Moammar Gaddafi from power in Libya. The removal and death of Gaddafi was, Obama put it, a warning to "iron fisted" rulers everywhere. Syria, Iran and North Korea excepted, of course. Over at Foreign Policy this was hailed as a huge success. "Leading from behind" is an important element of this doctrine. It is no insult to lead but let others feel they too are architects of a plan, to lead without making others feel you are bullying, to lead but do so in a way in...

Folks. We have received a very disturbing report from the outlet Bradley County News, based out of Tennessee. I think the people there need our help. They need us to listen, be aware, keep our eyes open, and not be so overly concerned with offending someone, that we take action to stop this. Please read every single word of this report. From Bradley County News, with respect: US and TN Terrorist Camps have launched Jihad, prepare for future attacks 02/20/2015 0936 am They are in your neighborhood. They walk the streets with you. They shop, dine and eat with you....

A lawyer who came to prominence for his full-throated defense of a subsequently convicted terrorist was quietly promoted to the No. 3 slot at the Department of Justice last month, a post that puts him in charge of the administration’s policy regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees. The move has raised red flags on Capitol Hill and elsewhere among national security stalwarts who argue that the promotion could imperil the country’s longstanding war on terrorism.

Full title: Judicial Watch: Defense, State Department Documents Reveal Obama Administration Knew that al Qaeda Terrorists Had Planned Benghazi Attack 10 Days in Advance Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from theDepartment of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the...

Full title..."Not how they roll: Pentagon asks media to scrap old footage of ISIS columns" ISIS may be on the move, but not the way you see on television, claims the Pentagon. Footage of the menacing, black-clad terrorist army rolling across the desert in long convoys predates U.S.-led air strikes that have forced the jihadists to travel more discreetly, say senior State Department and Pentagon officials. They have asked television networks to stop using stock footage that makes the terror army seem more mobile - and more formidable - than they say it actually is. “One Toyota speeding down the...

The Republicans are once again investigating how al Qaeda won a major victory by destroying the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and killing American Ambassador Chris Stevens. Hopefully, this time they will abandon conspiracy theories and consider the possibility that American stupidity allowed the massacre to occur.

I ran across this heavily edited article at USA Today written by Susan Page.  In it, she reports a new book coming out by a man she describes as having a "33-year career with the CIA."  This man is Michael Morell who praises Barack Obama as "extremely thorough" but claims that Governor Palin had "no understanding of national security issues" back when he claims to have met her in 2008. Everything from the headline to the image Susan Page uses indicates who the USA Today writer was interested in spotlighting.  (Yep, Governor Palin remains the left’s ultimate bogeyman).  Furthermore, when one digs a tad...

A US air strike in Yemen has killed the senior Al-Qaeda official who appeared in a video claiming the deadly January attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, who was killed in the April strike along with his eldest son and other fighters in the port city of Mukalla, also appeared in Al-Qaeda videos claiming the holding and death of US hostage Luke Somers, SITE Intelligence Group said. The announcement of his death came in a video posted on Thursday on Twitter by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - which Washington considers the international terror network's deadliest...

Interior Minister Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia and his son, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, have many enemies. For decades, the powerful and unaccountable elder Prince Nayef has “overseen” the Saudi police force; Nayef once boasted that his law enforcement agency solves 100 percent of the kingdom’s annual crimes. Al-Qaeda was quick to take credit for the suicide bombing (according to SITE). After all, it was a major public relations coup. For starters, the royals had been tricked — promised surrender and instead given a Trojan horse. Saudi’s princes pride themselves on having impenetrable personal security systems. Instead,...

...Any serious evaluation of the war on terror must gauge the balance of power between the U.S. and its enemies, not the level of American popularity with the Arab public. It is a fatal miscalculation to treat the war as a zero-sum game, with every mistake by the Bush administration somehow translating into a victory for Osama bin Laden. In order to win the war, America need not be popular. In fact, it can afford to be hated. What it cannot tolerate is a global balance of power that favors al Qaeda, kindred groups, and rogue regimes that might be...

Betrayal: Another Obama amnesty program is well underway — at Guantanamo, where three dangerous al-Qaida operatives have quietly been OK´d for release in three months. And now a close aide to the 9/11 mastermind is also on tap for release. After already freeing an al-Qaida bomb maker last month — over the objections of U.S. intelligence, which warned, "He would be capable of re-engaging as an explosives expert or trainer" — the parole board that Obama set up to clear out Gitmo is now poised to rubber-stamp for release a close associate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Gitmo´s so-called Periodic Review

Italian police raided several locations today throughout the country, arresting eighteen people in an effort to shut down a “very well-structured” al-Qaeda finance and operations network. The ring had targeted the Vatican in 2010 and again just recently, and had also worked to raise money through human-trafficking operations. Even with that, though, the ring predates the post-Qaddafi surge in refugees, and was comprised mainly of Pakistanis, not North Africans.Two of the men arrested had worked at one time as bodyguards for Osama bin Laden: NBC News has video of the raids:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Mario Carta said counterterrorism...

Every American should join President Obama in his expression of condolences to the families of two hostages killed in January during a counterterrorism operation in Pakistan. Our prayers properly go to the loved ones of American doctor Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni LoPorto. But no one should sign on to the painful exercise of hand-wringing self-flagellation that the President felt compelled to attach in his Thursday morning revelation of the details. For about sixty seconds, his remarks looked like a rare example of an occasion free of political agendas. Even as he mused about the families’ pain “as...

Adam Gadahn, the Al-Qaeda spokesman believed killed in a US operation, was a teenage rock music fan who grew up on a Californian goat farm before he was drawn into radical Islam. The White House announced Thursday that US intelligence thinks Gadahn died in January in a "counterterrorism operation" in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. The 36-year-old was apparently not deliberately targeted in the raid, but he has long been one of the most wanted jihadist figures on the US hit list, with a $1 million bounty on his head. As an English speaker and senior Al-Qaeda propagandist, he was one...

Heartbreaking news, and a demonstration of the limit of remote-control warfare. The US drone program in Pakistan inadvertently killed two Western hostages being held by al-Qaeda, including an American whose family had repeatedly appealed for his release based on his age and health: A U.S. drone strike in January targeting a suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan inadvertently killed an American and Italian being held hostage by the group, senior Obama administration officials said.The killing of American development expert Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto is the first known instance in which the U.S. has accidentally...

Dr. Warren Weinstein, an American aid worker held hostage by al Qaeda, was accidentally killed in a U.S. counter-terrorism operation, as was an Italian hostage, Giovanni Lo Porto, and another American who was an al Qaeda leader, the White House announced on Thursday. Officials also announced that a separate operation killed Adam Gadahn, another American who became a prominent al Qaeda member. The White House said it was unaware the four were present at the sites. President Obama was set to make a statement after 10 a.m. ET. "The operation targeted an al-Qa'ida-associated compound, where we had no reason to...