Free Republic

By “implodes,” he means a situation where Assad loses control of his WMD and we need to go in and grab them before some fanatic native outfit grabs them first. Which is funny because, right offhand, I can’t think of anything that’s more likely to increase the risk of that happening than bombing the hell out of Syrian military units who are in charge of those weapons. I think we’re about done here, guys.

ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report: Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA. The forces will deploy beginning with a small group and grow over the next month to 100. They will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries. The president made this announcement in a letter...

Two days ago President Obama authorized the deployment to Uganda of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. forces to help regional forces “remove from the battlefield” – meaning capture or kill – Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony and senior leaders of the LRA. The forces will ultimately go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries. The president made this announcement in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Friday afternoon, saying that “deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and...

President Obama has deployed combat troops to central Africa to aid in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army. In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Obama says 12 troops with "appropriate combat equipment" were deployed on October 12 and approximately 100 in total will be deployed including a second combat team and headquarters, communications and logistics personnel. The forces will provide information and advise and assist "select partner nation forces," Obama explains. The troops will not fight except in self-defense. The full letter is after the jump.

Armed western men have been filmed on the ground with rebels in central Libya in the first apparent confirmation that Nato has sent military advisers to train anti-government forces. A group of six westerners were clearly visible, according to a report by al-Jazeera from Dafniya, described as the westernmost point of the rebel lines west of the town of Misrata. Five of them were armed and wearing informal sand-coloured clothes, peaked caps, and cotton Arab scarves. The sixth, apparently most senior of the group, was carrying no visible weapon and wore a pink, short-sleeve shirt. He may be an intelligence...

The House on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to prohibit ground troops from being sent to Libya and only narrowly defeated a measure to force President Barack Obama to lay out plans to end the Afghanistan war, in moves that show the limits of congressional support for military involvement in overseas conflicts. The U.S. military's actions on three fronts—Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq—are wearing on the public, polls show, and lawmakers are leery of additional open-ended military commitments amid a severe budget crunch. The killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last month is also adding to the reassessment of...

NATO commander Adm. James Stavridis says it is too early to be talking about an exit strategy from Libya. He said a ground force may be needed if rebels drive Muammar GaddafiMuammar Gaddafi out. "When you look at the history of NATO, having gone through this, as many on this committee have, with Bosnia and Kosovo, it's quite clear that the possibility of [the need for] a stabilization regime exists," he said. "And so, I have not heard any discussion about it yet, but I think that history is in everybody's mind as we look at the events in Libya,"...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- U.S. and Iranian envoys exchanged direct talks Saturday on efforts to end Iraq's violence and bolster its government, opening limited but potentially significant contacts that could ease their nearly 28-year diplomatic freeze. The discussions were confined to one session during a conference on Iraq stability, but they appeared to offer room for further interaction between the two nations _ which find themselves increasingly drawn toward common issues in Iraq as the nation's most influential allies. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he exchanged views with Iranian delegates "directly and in the presence of others" at...

TIZIMIZI, Mali, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Mayor Amadou Harouna Maiga was surprised, to say the least, when a group of U.S. soldiers turned up one day and offered to help build a school in his African village. But six months later, he is confident the Americans mean business and keen to explore what more they can do to help. "We have no shortage of problems -- health problems, water problems, agricultural problems," said Maiga as a four-man U.S. team returned this weekend to his village of mud-brick houses by the Niger River to deliver blackboards, slates, pencils, sharpeners and exercise...

Are there any freepers up to the challenge of getting 543,895 flyers distributed over the next 70 days? That's only about 8000 per day. We can take pledges right here on this thread. How many flyers do you pledge to pass out over the next 70 days? Can We Count You In? - This might make the difference in several states as well as the overall popular total. Download and Distribute - it's that easy. You can either print them on your own or take them elsewhere to be copied or printed. If you aren't able to do this -...

What does it feel like to travel with a spirited body of America's finest fighting men? To come under fire? To cope with the battlefield stresses of sleep-deprivation, and a steady diet of field rations for weeks on end? Karl Zinsmeister, editor of The American Enterprise and a frontline reporter "embedded" with the 82nd Airborne during Operation Iraqi Freedom, gives a riveting, day-by-day account as units of the 82nd depart Kuwait and convoy to Iraq's Tallil Air Base en route to night-and-day battles within the major city of Samawah. Boots on the Ground quickly becomes an action-filled microcosm of the...