Free Republic

AS HILLARY CLINTON puts together what she hopes will be a winning coalition in November, many progressives remain wary — but she has the war hawks firmly behind her. “I would say all Republican foreign policy professionals are anti-Trump,” leading neoconservative Robert Kagan told a group gathered around him, groupie-style, at a “foreign policy professionals for Hillary” fundraiser I attended last week. “I would say that a majority of people in my circle will vote for Hillary.” As the co-founder of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, Kagan played a leading role in pushing for America’s...

(September 4, 2013) A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a high profile article from one Elizabeth O’Bagy arguing that the majority of the Syrian rebels were actually moderates. Senator McCain mentioned Elizabeth O’Bagy’s op-ed during the Senate hearings, when he wasn’t playing poker, and tweeted it. That should come as no surprise, considering that O’Bagy is credited with arranging McCain’s infamous photo op with the Syrian rebel leadership. The Wall Street Journal lists O’Bagy’s role as the Institute for the Study of War. It leaves out the fact that she is the political director for the Syrian...

Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill. The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have...

Sen. John McCain has hired a controversial Syria analyst who recently was fired by one D.C. organization and resigned from another after it emerged that she inflated her academic credentials. The Republican senator's office confirmed to Fox News that Elizabeth O'Bagy was hired as a legislative assistant, and will start work next week. "Elizabeth is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and analysis in multiple briefings over the last year. I look forward to her joining my office," McCain said in a statement.

Sen. John McCain has hired Elizabeth O'Bagy, the Syria analyst in Washington who was fired for padding her credentials, The Cable has learned. She begins work Monday as a legislative assistant in McCain's office. O'Bagy was a young but well-respected adviser at the Institute for the Study of War and had emerged quickly as an important voice among those arguing in favor of intervention in Syria. McCain and others had cited her work publicly before her nascent reputation collapsed when it was discovered that her claims to having a combined masters/PhD were false and that in fact she had not...

Sen. John McCain has hired Elizabeth O'Bagy, the Syria analyst in Washington who was fired for padding her credentials, The Cable has learned. She begins work Monday as a legislative assistant in McCain's office. O'Bagy was a young but well-respected adviser at the Institute for the Study of War and had emerged quickly as an important voice among those arguing in favor of intervention in Syria. McCain and others had cited her work publicly before her nascent reputation collapsed when it was discovered that her claims to having a combined masters/PhD were false and that in fact she had not...

Her research on Syria influenced key lawmakers—but Dr. Elizabeth O’Bagy wasn’t who she said she was. For the first time, she tells Josh Rogin she was never even in a PhD program. Elizabeth O’Bagy, the Syria researcher at the center of a week-long controversy surrounding her academic credentials and her work with the Syrian opposition, admitted for the first time to The Daily Beast she was never enrolled in a Ph.D. program despite representations she made to the press and multiple organizations for whom she worked.

Elizabeth O’Bagy, the Syria researcher at the center of a week-long controversy surrounding her academic credentials and her work with the Syrian opposition, admitted for the first time to The Daily Beast she was never enrolled in a Ph.D. program despite representations she made to the press and multiple organizations for whom she worked. O’Bagy, whose work on the Syrian opposition was hailed by Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), was fired from her job as the lead Syria researcher at the Institute for the Study of War on Sept. 10 after it was revealed that...

Elizabeth O’Bagy, a pro-Syrian opposition analyst whose credibility has come under fire, might have even more explaining to do – as court documents show she once vouched for a rebel group whose website displayed extremist and anti-American images. Among the pictures was one showing a burning U.S. Capitol. O’Bagy was fired earlier this week by the Institute for the Study of War for allegedly lying about her academic credentials. Her writings had been used by U.S. officials to bolster their case for military action against the Assad regime. O’Bagy discussed the rebel group in question in a June 19, 2013...

Elizabeth O'Bagy, who was paid by the British and US government to provide propaganda favorable to the Islamists fighting in Syria has apparently committed perjury in the trial of American Eric Harroun, who was accused of fighting alongside al-Nusra in Syria., an Al Qaeda linked group. O'Bagy submitted an affidavit that his group was not Islamist.Until recently, their web site included a picture of the US Capitol in flames. Click here to see affidavit.

Contrary to claims from its editorial pages editor, a Wall Street Journal editor knew of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s connections to the Islamist Syrian Emergency Task Force and took at least three days to publish a clarification. “We were not aware of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s academic claims or credential when we published her Aug. 31 op-ed, and the op-ed made no reference to them,” editorial pages editor Paul Gigot told Politico in a statement on September 11. “We also were not aware of her affiliation with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, and we published a clarification when we learned of it,” Gigot wrote....

Excerpted from The Daily Caller: The Institute for the Study of War knew that controversial Syria analyst Elizabeth O’Bagy lacked a Ph.D. long before it fired her, according to the group’s own website. The Institute announced Wednesday that it had fired O’Bagy, ostensibly for faking her PhD credentials. The termination came after a series of articles in The Daily Caller revealed O’Bagy’s connection with a pro-rebel lobbying group that was not disclosed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed by O’Bagy. In fact, the neoconservative think tank knew she was in a joint Ph.D. program all along. The author bio from...

A Washington scholar whose writings on Syria were touted by top U.S. officials in making the case for a military strike has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for allegedly lying about her education credentials. The development comes after Elizabeth O'Bagy's credibility and objectivity had come under scrutiny over her work with a Syrian opposition advocacy group. The institute, where she had worked as a senior analyst, on Wednesday posted a terse statement on its website claiming she also misled the organization about having a Ph.D. "The Institute for the Study of War has learned and...

The United States and its allies are engaged in a tense and confusing intervention within Syria, where arms and aid are being sent to rebels whose loyalties are under question. As the Washington Post reported on February 23, “A surge of rebel advances in Syria is being fueled at least in part by an influx of heavy weaponry in a renewed effort by outside powers to arm moderates in the Free Syrian Army, according to Arab and rebel officials.” The Free Syrian Army works alongside Al Nusrah, a terrorist organization associated with Al Qaeda. “The new armaments, including anti-tank weapons...

The imposition of Islamic law in rebel territories in Syria has begun, a new article in the Washington Post shows. It apparently starts with strokes of a pipe for punishments rather than the more severe punishments of stoning or cutting off a hand. Liz Sly’s Washington Post article explores the changes that Jabhat Al Nusra is making in war-torn Syria: “During a demonstration against the Syrian regime, Wael Ibrahim, a veteran activist, had tossed aside a banner inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith,” she writes. “And that, decreed the officers of the newly established Sharia Authority set up to...

Any serious peace plan needs to put security front and center. For more than two years, impassioned advocates have called for U.S. military intervention in Syria in order to advance a peace settlement. Now, in the wake of last week's horrific chemical weapons attack in a suburb of Damascus, military intervention finally looks imminent. But what of the prospects for peace? At the moment, views are split within and outside the Obama administration over whether the United States should strike Bashar al-Assad merely to punish him for using chemical weapons -- reasserting U.S. regional credibility in the process -- or take...

NOTE: This piece was written before John Kerry trotted out his imbecilic “unbelievably small” comments and Vladimir Putin offered The One a fig leaf. The advice herein remains the same, only the timetable might change… What happens when a majority of voters elect an unqualified hack as the head of state? Lots of bad choices and lots of bad outcomes. After watching Barack Obama make mistakes on the world stage for five years you might have thought he was beginning to figure out what he was doing. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. He’s as clueless as ever… First he suggests...

The Elizabeth O’Bagy WSJ article is an argument for intervention. Unfortunately it rests on the incorrect premise that the Al Nusra Front is Islamist and the Free Syrian Army’s brigades aren’t. (in April) “My sense is that there are no seculars,” said Elizabeth O’Bagy, of the Institute for the Study of War, who has made numerous trips to Syria in recent months to interview rebel commanders. So now Elizabeth sets out to make the opposite argument.Contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely, or even predominantly, by dangerous Islamists and al Qaeda die-hards… Moderate...

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a high profile article from one Elizabeth O’Bagy arguing that the majority of the Syrian rebels were actually moderates. Senator McCain mentioned Elizabeth O’Bagy’s op-ed during the Senate hearings, when he wasn’t playing poker, and tweeted it. That should come as no surprise, considering that O’Bagy is credited with arranging McCain’s infamous photo op with the Syrian rebel leadership. The Wall Street Journal lists O’Bagy’s role as the Institute for the Study of War. It leaves out the fact that she is the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force...

Sen. John McCain wanted to spend the night with rebels linked to kidnappers during his visit to Syria in May, according to a pundit who has been advocating an American strike against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Elizabeth O’Bagy, Syria team leader at the Institute for the Study of War, told The Daily Caller the Arizona Republican was so taken with his Sunni guerrilla hosts that he had to be “forced” by his security detail to leave. In an exclusive interview with TheDC, O’Bagy described the trip she arranged for the senator through the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF). “The rebels had...