Free Republic

Military: Two U.S. congressmen take the lead in proclaiming the obvious — that those who attack this country should be punished and not those who risk their lives to defend it. The Navy SEALs are a special breed of patriot and warrior. This highly trained and select group — the best of the best — is a daily participant in the long twilight struggle against the enemies of freedom that President Kennedy warned us about. Kennedy formally created the SEAL (sea, air, land) outfit as an elite force capable of combat operations in any environment. It was a team of...

The Washington Post is pretty sure that Obama’s advisers are congealing around abandoning Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court. Apparently President Obama has yet to make a decision. If he goes back to the military commissions for KSM and the other 9/11 conspirators — military charges against them were dropped in late January — Obama won’t just be abandoning the civilian courts. He’ll be abandoning a winnable political battle on a matter of principle. ... The pattern couldn’t be clearer. Every time Obama compromises on a matter of national-security and civil-liberties principle, his GOP opponents raise the pressure to get...

Joe Lieberman is once again endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama – this time on a critical national security issue. Lieberman and McCain have introduced a bill that would deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and block them from the U.S. civil court system. The bill could interfere with the Obama administration’s efforts to cut a deal with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to develop a comprehensive system to deal with detainees—an effort that would include some role for federal courts. Graham, a military lawyer and currently serves a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves, has been negotiating with White...

34 out of the top 50, largest law firms in the US did work on behalf of terrorists captured in the War on Terror or worked with them, according to the Department of Justice itself. In a stunning statistic that was revealed on the Reality Check segment of the O'Reilly Factor, the Department of Justice sent via e-mail a response to a Factor inquiry about why Attorney General Eric Holder has a suspiciously high number of terrorist defenders on his staff. By the latest count, the obnoxious number was at an already alarming 14 lawyers at Eric Holder's Department of...

President Obama signed the renewal of the Patriot Act in the quiet of a slow-news Saturday–the Act was set to expire Sunday, February 28–as reported by The Hill. Photo Credit: AP Photo The reauthorization did NOT include any reforms to the current Patriot Act–an odd display of agreement and submission to Bush-era policy–even though the Democrats had the numbers to reform the Act. The continuance of the current Patriot Act signals that Democrats are fearful of further controversary in light of American’s distrust and poor approval ratings of the Democrat-controlled Congress. From the Hill: The House approved the bill 315-97...

Senate Democrats are pushing for a short-term extension of key provisions in the Patriot Act as part of a package of must-pass measures. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning to ask for unanimous consent to pass an extension for a host of measures set to expire February 28, according to Senate sources. The request could be made as early as Tuesday night. The large package of bills includes a year-long extension of three provisions of the anti-terrorism law known a the Patriot Act, as well as extensions for expiring tax provisions, including unemployment insurance, COBRA, flood insurance, the...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed Monday he is working with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to break the logjam on closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bringing the prisoners to trial. The South Carolina senator said that in a series of meetings and phone calls over the last “several weeks,” he has pressed to establish a new national security court that would keep most Guantanamo detainees out of the federal courthouse. He expressed confidence that he could strike a deal to extend some measure of habeas corpus rights to prisoners detained on terrorism charges and...

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden on today belittled Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's commitment to fighting terrorism as either "misinformed or he is misinforming" and said the Iraq war wasn't worth it because of "the horrible price" paid. The former vice president fired back gently at his successor, saying, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised by my friend Joe Biden." Cheney also said that he disagreed with decisions by Bush officials to place shoe bomber Richard Reid on trial in civilian court and to release terrorism suspects from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The...

The Obama administration has been stronger than the Bush administration in fighting terrorism, Vice President Biden said Sunday, suggesting former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of President Obama's chief critics, is either "misinformed or misinforming."

Here is video of Missouri GOP Sen. Kit Bond talking to Greta Van Susteren, where he said the Obama Administration is "going back to a pre-9/11 mentality": "But what my real beef is with the administration that seems to be going back to a pre-9/11 mentality, where they treat terrorists as ordinary criminals. That was deadly in the past, and I'm afraid it will be again." Bond has been very critical of the way the Obama Administration has handled the "Underwear Bomber," in reading him his "Miranda Rights" instead of getting all the information possible out of him about other...

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- It is the oddest of unintended airport stopovers -- a short stay at Guantanamo Bay. Helicopter flights for the ship I was trying to reach off the coast of Haiti had been canceled. So I slept in an Air Force tent at Camp Freedom, an arrow's shot from where 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed is imprisoned -- his stay now extended longer than the Obama administration would wish. "Guantanamo" has become a synonym for "prison." Actually, it is a 45-square-mile U.S. Navy base, complete with a McDonald's and a Subway. The Guantanamo Bay Children and Youth...

Here is video of Vice-President Joe Biden telling Larry King that "the idea of there being a massive attack on the United States like 9-11 is unlikely in my view." King had asked Biden about reports that intelligence officials believe the U.S. will face another terrorist attack for certain in the next few months. Biden said Al-Qaeda has turned its attention to smaller-scale attacks, and it is very possible we will see such attempts in the months ahead. (VIDEO)

Vice President Joe Biden said it is unlikely the United States will see another terrorist attack of the proportions of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, but that the nation could still be the target of more "small bore" attacks. "The idea of there being a massive attack in the United States like 9/11 is unlikely, in my view," Biden said Wednesday night on CNN's "Larry King Live." "But if you see what's happening, particularly with al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula, they have decided to move in the direction of much more small bore but devastatingly frightening attacks." The...

Obama's top counterterrorism aide John Brennan has come out and claimed that Americans who criticize Obama's anti-terror policies serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Writing an opinion piece in USA Today that can only be described as being all at once hyper-defensive, angry and whining, John Brennan clearly wanted to pen a defiant defense of Obama's thus-far inadequate, anti-terror policies. However, what emerged instead was an almost paranoid harangue which not only stretched the bounds of reason, but, more importantly, also called his fellow Americans, essentially, abettors of al-Qaeda's goals of killing Americans and destroying the US homeland. This is the...

http://thehill.com/images/stories/whitepapers/pdf/jobs%20bill%20draft.pdf Page 125 of 362 in the PDF. Quote: (a) USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHOR19 IZATION ACT OF 2005.—Section 102(b)(1) of the USA20 PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 200521 (Public Law 109–177; 50 U.S.C. 1805 note, 50 U.S.C.22 1861 note, and 50 U.S.C. 1862 note) is amended by strik23 ing ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31,24 2010’’.25 ( 2010-02-09 18:30:55

Liberal host Ed Schultz tried to paint the entire Republican argument as “political posturing” and challenged Rivkin, saying he was pitting his credibility against the word of Brennan. But Rivkin remained adamant that officials would not have simply assumed Miranda rights were being given automatically. Rivkin also pointed out that there should be less blame cast by both sides and more attention to the underlying failures in common sense procedure. “We’re talking about somebody who is interrogated for 50 minutes, that interrogation was interrupted and he is Mirandized. I don’t know of any serious interrogator who does not believe that...

This past week gave us an interesting insight in how the Obama Administration is politicizing terror; ironically, something they accused the Bush Administration of regularly during the campaign. This week, the intelligence services told the White House and Congress that Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttallab is now speaking to interrogators...a full 5 weeks after his initial arrest. The information was given to Congress in closed door meetings. However, the White House, primarily their political and communication wings (led by Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod), immediately went on the attack in public forums, exclaiming how well their strategy worked in obtaining...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Sunday that lawmakers and others are using national security to score political points and defended the handling of the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner. Deputy national security adviser John Brennan complained that politicians, many of them Republicans, were unfairly criticizing the administration for partisan purposes and second-guessing the case with a ``500-mile screwdriver'' that reaches from Washington to the scene of the abortive attack in Detroit. Brennan said he had personally briefed top Republican lawmakers on Christmas night about the arrest of accused bomber Umar...

In a brief op-ed in USA Today, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan charges that critics who question the Obama administration's decision to grant Miranda rights to accused Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are "serv[ing] the goals of al Qaeda." "Too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points," Brennan writes. "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."