Free Republic

>Hill as LBJ on "Assassination Day 1963" fun n' games, USG assistant as "Jackie Kennedy" in trademarkdouble-breasted, strawberry pink and navy trim collared Chanel wool suit with match pillbox hat circa 1991, worn in Dallas, Tx that bloody, fateful day.Taken whilst (Hill) US Ambassador to Iraq, during a masquerade party of some sort for US officials. This is the same man as a State Department officials who went along with the ridiculous SIX PARTY TALKS agreements with North Korea which amounted to nothing, reprehensively gave the enemy aid, allowed them to cheat, and build up their arsenal even more. Under...

This week an Iranian Lawmaker released details from a letter President Barrack Obama wrote to the country’s supreme leader warning against closing the Strait of Hormuz and calling for direct talks with the Islamic Republic’s tyrant. Oil According to Iranian Lawmaker Ali Motahari the letter, sent through private channels, threatened the republic if they attempted to cut off oil from the Persian Gulf, days before rejecting the Keystone pipeline from Canada. The Iranians are seeing the President asking for direct talks as a sign of weakness from the man responsible for the West’s economic troubles. Iran has made it clear;...

People should stop calling the site of the September 11 attacks "Ground Zero," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Tuesday, urging Americans to move past a term long linked with the World Trade Center's twin towers destruction. "We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as ground zero. Never. But the time has come to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum," Bloomberg said in a speech on the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. Ground Zero originated as a term to describe...

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain held secret talks with Hitler's henchmen to work out ways of making the Nazis look more sympathetic to ordinary Britons, classified documents released last week reveal. The cloak-and-dagger meetings in London came shortly after Chamberlain signed his disastrous appeasement deal with Hitler in Munich in September 1938, declaring 'peace for our time' on his return to Britain. The meetings were held without the knowledge of the Cabinet and Foreign Office. Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax only learned of them later because of an MI5 mole in the German embassy. Two newly-declassified documents show Chamberlain was ready...

"We, the Senate Majority Leader, The President, and myself, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of the debt ceiling and possible default is of the first importance for both houses of Congress, the President, and for our country. "We regard the Bill passed by the House and the companion Bill in the Senate and the President's promise to sign the reconciled bill as symbolic of the desire of both Parties never to put politics above country again. "We are resolved that the method of consultation...

Well, now that Obama has made his major Mid East Speech, it is obvious that Obama learned a major lesson from Sarah Palin: You can do anything to the Jews except say the words “Blood Libel.” We know this is true because poor foolish Sarah Palin used those words in a speech back in January 2011 and was savaged by liberal newspapers, liberal talking heads, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, and other leftist pundits for a combination of Anti-Semitism ala Insensitivity with a dollop of Stupidity on top. See this Internet Article if your memory needs a jog: The Democrats'...

With the situation in North Korea having gotten pretty dicey in recent months, Gov. Bill Richardson – a favorite of the North Korean government – may be heading back there next week. That’s according to the Washington Post: “Adm. Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, is off this week to South Korea to tell officials that the United States is standing with them. And there’s talk that outgoing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson may be off to North Korea next week for a private chat with top officials at the invitation of key people in the nuclear crowd...

Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday the South and the United States were pushing the peninsula to "the brink of war" with their plan to conduct large-scale military drills, days after the rival Koreas exchanged artillery fire. "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again war exercises targeted against the (North)," the North's official KCNA news agency

Shortly after his inauguration in January 2009, President Barack Obama removed the bronze bust of Winston Churchill that had been displayed in the Oval Office as a post-9/11 commemoration from Great Britain. Was that just a décor makeover or was it symbolic of unease with what Churchill stood for — the rejection of Neville Chamberlain's peace at any price and the courage to do what it takes to defeat evil? A fourth round of sanctions were imposed on Iran last week. Yet the times continue to have similarities to the late 1930s, when weakness and disunity among allied powers enabled...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in AfghanistanBy PETER BAKER Published: December 5, 2009 WASHINGTON — On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminating about war. He had come from Arlington National Cemetery, where he had wandered among the chalky white tombstones of those who had fallen in the rugged mountains of Central Asia. How much their sacrifice weighed on him that Veterans Day last month, he did not say. But his advisers say he was haunted by the human toll as he wrestled with...

To think that Boris and Natasha lived right here in South Dakota, and we didn't even know it! Recently, Walter Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Steingraber-Trebilcock-Myers - a couple who once lived in Aberdeen - were arrested for spying. The news rocked the nation. Well, actually, the nation immediately forgot the story. Still, South Dakota hasn't forgotten. It's not every day suspected spies are found traipsing through your own neighborhood. The espionage likely started after they left Aberdeen, but you still wonder if that abandoned shopping cart you saw in aisle 8 of Kessler's might have contained a coded message. The...

Vienna/Tehran (dpa) -- The United States is willing to give Iran time to come up with a response to a proposed multinational nuclear fuel deal, the US ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Glyn Davies, said Monday. "We want to give some space to Iran to work through this. It's a tough issue for them, obviously," Davies told reporters in Vienna, adding, however, that Washington hopes for a response soon. Since the IAEA drew up a draft deal last month to ship Iranian uranium abroad and exchange it for foreign-made fuel for a medical nuclear reactor in Tehran,...

This weekend’s feedback is in response to a number of queries about the Church of England (Anglicans) officially apologizing to Darwin. However, they don’t speak for all attenders of this church, since many of them are still faithful to Scripture and are appalled by their ‘leaders’. There are numerous mistakes in the article by the official CoE representative, a Rev. Dr Malcolm Brown, on the official CoE website, and Jonathan Sarfati replies point-by-point...

Note: The following text is a quote: Superseding Indictment Returned Charging Members of the Krazy Locos Criminal Street Gang with Two Homicides, Robbery, Firearms, and Narcotics Charges Jeffrey H. Sloman, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Michael F. McAuliffe, Palm Beach County State Attorney, John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, Hugo Barrera, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Anthony V. Mangione, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Office of Investigations, and Ric L. Bradshaw, Sheriff, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office,...

Before we go anywhere, with the Nobel Peace Prize, I think something should be said in defence of Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain has received a bad press, these last 70 years, though famously it was a good press after he signed the Munich agreement 71 years ago with Adolf Hitler, and flew home to England promising, "Peace in our time." Let us grant, the result of his policy of appeasement was not what he intended; and let us allow, that Hitler negotiated in bad faith.........

They help erase what happened in Copenhagen didn't they ? "I would like to thank the Noble Committee"...

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

On the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has defended his response to the threat posed by Hitler. Chamberlain became prime minister in 1937 when Stanley Baldwin retired following the abdication of Edward VIII. He had been a Conservative MP for 19 years, some of which were served in senior ministerial positions, including chancellor. However, many historians believe Chamberlain's legacy as prime minister was tainted by his government's policy of appeasement towards Hitler. But Mary de Vere Taylor, who lives in Ashburton, Devon, has defended her grandfather, describing him...

It is easy now to deride the efforts of Neville Chamberlain. But at the time there seemed to be a realistic chance of peace ) It is 70 years since war broke out in 1939, but historic questions remain. “Appeasement” is still a dirty word, but so is “war-monger”. President Bush repeatedly used the memory of Winston Churchill in 1940 to justify his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Revisionist historians question whether Neville Chamberlain, the architect of the 1930s appeasement policy, had any choice. One witness was Sir Nevile Henderson, who published his account in Failure of a Mission. Henderson...

WASHINGTON'S traditional means of projecting power abroad was growing "increasingly obsolete" and its billion-dollar military hardware could be as ineffectual against future threats as the heavily fortified Maginot line was in defending France against the Nazis, a senior Pentagon adviser has warned. In a wake-up call to US military chiefs, Andrew Krepinevich, a leading architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, argued that the Pentagon was ill-equipped to counter rising powers such as China, hostile states such as Iran, the threat from irregular forces such as Hezbollah, and terrorists such as al-Qa'ida. It was also wasting billions on...

The mother of New York Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain has been busted for allegedly slinging hardcore drugs to an undercover cop. Jacqueline Standley was arrested at her Lincoln, Neb. apartment on Saturday night after allegedly selling ".6 gram of methamphetamine in a plastic bag" to a cop for $110 back in February

President Barack Obama will send his Vice President Joseph Biden and a top-level delegation to the Munich Security Conference this weekend to hear what US allies have to say before his new foreign policies go into effect. Biden's speech at the conference Saturday was billed by an Obama official who requested anonimity as "the first major foreign policy of this White House." While Obama focuses on the economic crisis back home, Biden in Europe "will outline the sort of vision of foreign policy and national security policy that this administration brings to the world stage now that it's in power,"...

The Obama administration has asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon's budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent -- about $55 billion -- a senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television news that the U.S. isn't an enemy of the Muslim world. Obama told the Dubai-based network that he had Muslim relatives and that he lived in the Muslim-majority nation of Indonesia for several years.

In Indonesia alone, 19 million Muslims support violent jihad but Barack Obama believes the problem is only with a few rogue Al-Qaeda terrorists.In a 2006 Pew international survey a majority of Muslims believe that Arabs are not behind the 9-11 and millions believe that violent attacks against civilians are acceptable. The Politico reported on Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya tonight.The post-partisan president once again bashes President Bush: The interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya Network was a dramatic piece of public diplomacy aimed at capitalizing on the new American president's international popularity, though it balanced America's traditional commitment to Israel, whose security...

We are in danger of letting the strong strain of appeasement and pacifism now abroad in the land prevent us from taking early steps now that will prevent unspeakable calamities later. The classic case of history is the appeasement of Adolf Hitler leading up to World War II. The West finally woke up to the need to stop Hitler, but by then, instead of a relatively small police operation we had World War II that cost 72 million lives and untold other casualties, property damage, and international disruption. The issue now is whether we are displaying the same moral blindness...

The Foreign Ministry is examining an initiative aimed at reaching a long-term non-belligerence pact with Lebanon to prevent renewed fighting along the northern border. The initiative was first revealed two weeks ago during a strategic discussion over the future of the Middle East peace process that was held as part of the ministry's evaluation of regional developments. The evaluation is the first of its kind, and was initiated by ministry director-general Aharon Abramovich, and later supported by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Livni's close advisers and senior ministry officials participated in the discussion. Given the officials' close relationship with Livni, the...

Seventy years ago on September 29, 1938, the leaders of Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain concluded an agreement in Munich that has gone down in history as one of the West's greatest political debacles. According to it, Hitler was allowed to take over a region of the Czechoslovak Republic, known as the Sudetenland, which contained a large ethnic German population. He had been threatening to use force to achieve his ends, and the British and French appeased him hoping to avoid a new and devastating conflict. Of course the agreement did not foster peace: rather it paved the way...

LONDON, England (AP) -- An amateur diplomat alarmed British officials during World War II by proposing that Germany and Britain divide the world between them, according to records released Sunday. James Lonsdale-Bryans, a fascist sympathizer, traveled to Italy early in the war to meet the German ambassador, Ulrich von Hassell. "It would appear that Bryans may be taking part in unofficial discussions," said a Secret Service memo released by the National Archives. "Bryans' idea is that the world ought to be divided into two parts. That Germany should be given a free hand in Europe and that the British Empire...

Samantha Power, former foreign policy advisor to the Barack Obama campaign, has penned a strange defense of Barack Obama's willingness to negotiate with America's enemies. In this week's Time magazine, Power argues that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's diplomatic engagement with Adolf Hitler in 1938 should not sully diplomacy's good name. She writes: . . . instead of caricaturing diplomacy by invoking the Munich Agreement as code for spinelessness, it is worth studying Chamberlain's failed effort in the Munich talks for lessons in how not to negotiate. He was unprepared, unsophisticated and ultimately unsuccessful in preventing World War II. Having...

We haven't had an installment of our ongoing series presenting Churchill's speeches in a long time. We now return the series with Part 9: Churchill's eulogy for Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons. It is so exemplar of Churchill's ability to use the English language. Never does he sacrifice one inch of his beliefs regarding the differences between these two British leaders, and yet he praises Chamberlain so highly and kindly nonetheless. So honorable, and truly amazing.There are lessons here. Moral lessons, about how we should retain our humanity in spite of political differences. Political lessons, as shown in...

What did Chamberlain do? What is appeasement? And what happened to John McCain's arms? One of the little election year mini-dramas making the Internet rounds is of MSNBC's Chris Matthews' insistent questioning of talk show host Kevin James over the issue of appeasement. "What did Chamberlain do?" Matthews asks his Hardball guest repeatedly. Mr. James was unable to answer with historical specifics. As it happens, I've met Mr. Matthews, spending an afternoon with him several years ago at his MSNBC office in the company of a friend who was interviewing him for a profile in the Financial Times. The article...

What did Chamberlain do? What is appeasement? And what happened to John McCain's arms? One of the little election year mini-dramas making the Internet rounds is of MSNBC's Chris Matthews' insistent questioning of talk show host Kevin James over the issue of appeasement. "What did Chamberlain do?" Matthews asks his Hardball guest repeatedly. Mr. James was unable to answer with historical specifics. As it happens, I've met Mr. Matthews, spending an afternoon with him several years ago at his MSNBC office in the company of a friend who was interviewing him for a profile in the Financial Times. The article...

Former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said Saturday that it will hurt to give up the Golan Heights as part of a peace agreement with Syria, though it is a possibility. "The thought of ceding the Golan Heights gives me a bellyache, but for real peace one must be willing to pay a real price. Theoretically, Israel can do without the Golan," said Halutz during a cultural event in Beersheba, Saturday. Halutz refused to divulge whether he knew about the negotiations held for the past year between Syria and Israel with Turkish mediation since they began or whether...

How woefully ignorant is the Democratic front-runner on matters of national security, international relations and the intractable conflicts that have plagued the Middle East for decades? The recent foreign policy statements of the former community organizer have demonstrated such incorrigibly poor judgment and appalling naivete that three prominent Democrats have seen fit to distance themselves from Obama’s ludicrous position, which he somehow views as virtuous, of meeting unconditionally with the nations enemies. Senator Joe Biden tells us that Obama, “gave the wrong answer” in last July’s YouTube debate, but he assures us that Obama has, “learned a hell of a...

Bush's comments about appeasement reverberated across the U.S. campaign trail, offering a new platform for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to sharpen their lines of attack. In the speech, Bush warned that the United States must not negotiate with Iran or radical groups such as Hamas. "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:...

So, Dubya goes before the Israel Knesset for their 60th Anniversary and criticizes appeasement: "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," the President said to the country's legislative body, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is –- the false comfort of appeasement, which has...

John Burroughs is executive director of the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy...What is needed is not another UN Security Council resolution strengthening existing sanctions. Rather the Bush administration should talk directly with Iran, and soon, because the U.S.-Iran confrontation is heating up dangerously...In a recent interview, Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei said, "We are moving rapidly toward an abyss." It is not too late to step away.

LONDON (Reuters) - Six years after the September 11 attacks, a few cautious voices are beginning to suggest the unthinkable -- maybe it is time to consider talking to al Qaeda. The idea will revolt some people and raises obvious questions -- through what channels could such a dialogue take place and what would there be to negotiate? But proponents say al Qaeda has established itself as a de facto power, whether the West likes it or not, and history shows militant movements are best neutralized by negotiation, not war. "No insurgency or terrorism has been defeated by warfare or...

With British confidence in their leaders at a low ebb, new Prime Minister Gordon Brown assumed office last week pledging to undertake measures designed to restore public trust in the government. Following through on his promise, Brown presented a new plan Tuesday that would dramatically revise the Constitutional powers of the British government, with an eye to strengthening the checks and balances. In his first statement to the House of Commons since assuming power last week, Brown said he would surrender to Parliament 12 powers traditionally reserved for the prime minister under the "Royal prerogative," including the power to declare...

...I've spent a great deal of time thinking about Churchill while working on my book "Troublesome Young Men," a history of the small group of Conservative members of Parliament who defied British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Adolf Hitler, forced Chamberlain to resign in May 1940 and helped make Churchill his successor. I thought my audience would be largely limited to World War II buffs, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the president has been reading my book. He hasn't let me know what he thinks about it, but it's a safe bet that he's identifying...

Ramping up on Iran Because Neville Chamberlain didn't think the worst of Adolf Hitler, millions and millions of people paid a price in lives and treasure. Because President Roosevelt didn't think the worst of Japanese militarism, Pearl Harbor happened. Because we didn't think the worst of Islamofascism, the attacks of September 11, 2001, happened. Because we didn't think the worst of Saddam Hussein, the elder President Bush left Saddam on his throne so Iraq could fight another day. There are some American statesmen who think the worst of Iran. Newt Gingrich, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said in a message...

Did Hirohito play an active part in planning and conducting the war? Japanese emperor Hirohito expressed doubts about going to war with China in the 1930s and 40s, extracts from a diary of one of his advisers reveal. They show Hirohito was afraid the Soviet Union would intervene. The diary by Kuraji Ogura, who worked as a chamberlain to Hirohito in World War II, was found recently and parts have been published in Japan's media. The full text may help solve the debate about how much responsibility the emperor had for Japan's wartime action. South Pacific visit The document...

By Pedro O. Vega As published today in the Johnstown Tribune DemocratThe situation in which we find ourselves in Iraq because of the war on terror defies my attempts at originality to describe. I find myself in need of laying hold of aphorisms and clichés said by the truly Great Ones, and some not-so-great. The first one that comes to mind is from Thomas Paine, an American Founding Father, written in 1776. It’s one I used in a previous column, one I keep returning too because of its sheer wisdom: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer...

Every decision we make involves risks and benefits. On the world stage, the upside of preemption is that we don't have to live through the consequences of appeasement. The downside is the endless chattering and speculation of politicians and pundits because preemption assures that we'll never know what those consequences might have been. For parents of teenagers the analogy is obvious. We're confronted every day with conflicts that require parental judgment and the judicious application of authority. When my sixteen year old son asks if he can get on the subway and go to a video-game show in the city,...

How best to respond to Iran's bullish nuclear ambitions? Hawks can be dismissed as warmongers; doves can be blamed for a policy of appeasement, as our history shows. Few things are as important for humanity as the issue of war or peace. Yet whether to fight or not can be a very controversial subject. Getting the decision right depends on timing as well as judgement. I learnt that lesson when young, because I remember Neville Chamberlain's return from Munich. He waved his famous piece of paper with Hitler's signature on it and the British people were told there was to...

In his upcoming book about the horrors of the 20th century, "The War of the World," the British historian Niall Ferguson has a chapter called "The Pity of Peace." It is about 1938, when World War II loomed, and Britain -- especially and importantly Britain -- did precious little to stop it. The warnings of Churchill -- "believe me, it may be the last chance . . ." -- were ignored, and the government under Neville Chamberlain obstinately pursued a policy that forever after made the word appeasement one of the most odious in history. Somehow, though, it looks like...