Free Republic

The wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa. Out of desperation, much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil she can lay her hands on: copper for electric and telephone cables, cobalt for mobile phones and jet engines - the basic raw materials of modern life. It is crude rapacity, but to Africans and many of their leaders it is better than the alternative, which is slow starvation. China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa...

PETER HITCHENS: How China has created a new slave empire in AfricaBy PETER HITCHENS Last updated at 12:00 PM on 28th September 2008 I think I am probably going to die any minute now. An inflamed, deceived mob of about 50 desperate men are crowding round the car, some trying to turn it over, others beating at it with large rocks, all yelling insults and curses. They have just started to smash the windows. Next, they will pull us out and, well, let's not think about that ... I am trying not to meet their eyes, but they are staring...

Russia’s Restless Muslim Republics By Uwe Klussmann Although Russia is celebrating the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it still has its own problems in the region as its Muslim republics are drifting toward a partisan war. Last Monday, an eerie funeral procession passed through the center of Nazran in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. Hundreds of people silently crowded around the coffin of Magomed Yevloyev. The 37-year-old lawyer and founder of a Web site ( www.ingushetiya.ru) that was critical of the government was killed in police custody. The authorities said that he was shot in a police car “inadvertently”...

Perhaps it is time they went back to this again, more accurate.

Barack Obama is EMBARRASSED of America because..

America has become an empire. Everyone says so. This is a surprise to most Americans, since few imagined that they were building such a thing. But, as historians such as Walter Nugent and Robert Kagan have recently taught us, Americans have been at this imperialist expansionism for quite some time — really since the beginning of the republic. How else to explain that the United States has gone from a handful of agrarian colonies to a world-spanning colossus in the space of only a few centuries? As you read this, American military might is deployed across the planet. The U.S....

America’s longing for an empire has a long history NEARLY 50 years ago, when William Appleman Williams, one of the 20th century’s most important historians of diplomacy, drew attention to America’s persistent search for an empire, he was denounced for being pro-communist. To challenge deeply held beliefs about American innocence was shocking enough. To contradict cold-war propaganda was worse. Recently, however, such ideological conformism has been disappearing. It has become acceptable to speak of empire, both among those who defend American foreign policy and those who condemn it. “If people want to say we’re an imperial power—fine,” says William Kristol,...

MOSCOW -- The Byzantine Empire fell in 1453. But you wouldn't know it in Russia, where Vladimir V. Putin has been behaving as though the 15th century never ended, as though he is the direct descendant of the Byzantine kings and Moscow remains the "Third Rome" it declared itself to be in 1472. Just like the leaders of Byzantium centuries ago, Putin and his supporters talk about Russia today as if it were a divinely ordained power, destined to withstand the decay and destruction of the West. The "double eagle" emblem, originally adopted in Russia about the time of the...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheik Muhammad Abu Al-Qat', which aired on Al-Manar TV on May 10, 2008: Sheik Muhammad Abu Al-Qat': Today, on May 10, 2008, at 22:50 – through Al-Manar TV – let me bring good tidings to the Muslims: Allah willing, the American empire will very soon collapse. They object to any talk about the destruction of the state of Israel. Interviewer: And they are celebrating its 60th anniversary... Sheik Muhammad Abu Al-Qat': That's not the issue. We say that Allah willing, within 10 to 12 years, America will collapse. This won't...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An individual is not entitled to parachute off New York City landmarks, including the Empire State Building, no matter how extensive his training, a New York appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The ruling reversed a 2007 decision, which said that stuntman and former Discovery Channel host Jebb Corliss, 31, did not put people at risk when attempting to parachute from the Empire State Building's 86th floor observatory floor in 2006. In overturning that decision, the four-judge panel ruled that an accidental misstep or a faulty parachute could have put bystanders and security professionals at risk. "Even...

The following is a conclusion of a long article by a philosopher Lee Harris where he is deconstructing a frequently heard lately charge of "blowback" to US actions in the world (i.e. that 9/11 was a "blowback" for the United States' foreign policy toward the Muslim world over the past half century or so, going back to the CIA engineered coup in 1953 that ousted Iranian leader Mossadegh, and that  "we had it coming" as a response to "American imperialism") ...This conclusion, however, poses a radical dilemma. A libertarian can plausibly argue that politicians should not interfere with domestic affairs,...

LWF Publication Develops Theological Insights to Resist the Domination of Empire Today SAN DIEGO, California, USA/GENEVA, 5 December 2007 (LWI) - The venue and host of their meeting was strategic—a downtown congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) surrounded by corporate high-rise buildings that symbolize *empire, but gathering, around a meal prepared by a formerly homeless person who currently feeds the poor, elderly and those without shelter. The group comprising seven authors of a recently published book of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) gathered on 16 November at the First Lutheran Church in San Diego, California’s second largest...

Just call us “leader of the free world.” The United States is getting tagged as an “empire” from all quarters. Indeed, it’s been a century since the notion of an American empire got such wide circulation, and back then Washington truly had designs on such expansion. (Google “Spanish-American War” if you’re interested.) The empire charge has long been a staple of the political extremes. It’s even bubbled up in the presidential race. Lefty Rep. Dennis Kucinich insists that we must abandon “the ambitions of empire.” Hyper-libertarian Rep. Ron Paul says we could afford health care if we weren’t running...

Anti-war presidential candidate Ron Paul says his campaign is about "restoring the vanishing American dream." And he is criticizing what he calls "the cartel controlling the banking and monetary system" in the United States. Fresh off his third-quarter fundraising surprise of $5 million, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the libertarian "revolution" he has started is growing across America. Paul told conservative activists at the "Defending the American Dream Summit" in Washington, DC, that the conference would be more aptly called the "Defending the Vanishing American Dream Summit." The Texas congressman said his Republican rivals often talk about a "flat...

The ethnic origins of General David Petraeus are apparently Dutch, which is a shame because there’s something sonorously classical about the family name of the commander of the US forces in Iraq. When you discover that his father was christened Sixtus, the fantasy really takes flight. Somewhere in the recesses of the brain, where memory mingles hazily with imagination, I fancy I can recall toiling through a schoolboy Latin textbook that documented the progress of one Petraeus Sixtus as he triumphantly extended the imperium romanum across some dusty plain in Asia Minor. The fantasy is not wholly inapt, of course....

The drive-by media never ceases to amaze with their inability to notice world events, much less understand the global maneuvers in the War on Terror. Ever since Secretary of Defense Gates told Vladimir Putin to butt out concerning his bid to muck up the US - European Missile Defense Shield, several developments have shown how he has been forced to scramble to maintain at least a minimum level of influence over world events. Putin is an excellent practitioner of the bluff and bluster school of foreign policy, even as he struggles by "putting fingers in the dykes" of his dissolving...

It comes right down to freedom. They want to go back to small government. Not smaller government. Small government as it was originally intended. And that is what really unites most of our support. The word ‘freedom’ is a short-hand way of explaining Paul’s platform. Paul supports a drastically reduced federal government- the elimination of the IRS, he believes state’s should be left to regulate abortion and marriage policies. He questions many international organizations and agreements, such as the World Trade Organization, NAFTA and the country’s membership to the United Nations.

Hamas creating 'empire of darkness' By Carolynne Wheeler in Jerusalem Last Updated: 2:16am BST 21/06/2007 The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, last night described the Hamas militant group now controlling Gaza as "murderous terrorists" intent on creating an "empire of darkness and injustice". Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the separation of Gaza from the West Bank was a threat to hopes for a Palestinian state "There is no dialogue to be initiated with those murderers," Mr Abbas said in his first public addressed since Hamas gunmen seized control of the Gaza Strip last week. His uncharacteristically fiery speech raised concerns...

How 'Mad' King George's heirs put the Empire together one piece at a time By Caroline Davies Last Updated: 2:37am GMT 23/03/2007 Kew Palace slotted an important piece of its royal history back into place yesterday when it unveiled a cabinet of jigsaw maps used to teach King George III's children. This jigsaw map of Scotland is one of many used to teach geography to King George III's children The mahogany cabinet houses a collection of dissected maps – precursors of the jigsaw puzzle – and was a main feature in the nursery at Kew, the King's main home, in...

We are losing our wars in the Muslim world because our vision of history is at odds with reality. This is a well-established condition of successful societies, a condition that inevitably grows more worrisome with time and continuing success. In fact, what empires have most in common is how their sacred narratives come to rule their strategic behavior - and rule it badly. In America’s case, our war narrative works against us to promote our deepest fear: the end of modernity. A nation’s evolving storyline gives concrete form to an accumulation of success and translates this into an assurance of...

He should be up in about 5 minutes. He's written a book about a possible civil war between the right and left.

Producer Joel Silver's Silver Pictures has optioned Empire, an upcoming book from bestselling sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, for a big-screen adaptation. The novel is currently slated to hit bookshelves on November 28. According to the Card's official Web site, here is the story of Empire: The American Empire has grown too fast, and the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point. The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone. The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side and militia...

Elements of forgotten empire While the Sassanids are perhaps best known for their defeat at the hands of Arab forces in 642 CE, a new exhibition reveals more about their empire than its sudden final collapse, writes David Tresilian in Paris Sassanid king Shapur III (reigned 383-388) shown spearing a leopard, fourth century (St Petersburg: Hermitage Museum) Occupying the ground-floor rooms of the Musée Cernuschi in Paris until 30 December, Les Perses Sassanides, Fastes d'un empire oublié (The Sassanid Persians: Splendours of a Forgotten Empire) is an exhibition that brings together items from major European and North American museums and...

According to the cosmopolitan argument for empire, there is a tendency for empires to be more tolerant and pluralistic than the more local regimes they subsume, precisely because they draw on a wider variety of cultural traditions and values. James Madison makes essentially this argument in Federalist 10 when he writes:

The search continues for the numinous or hieroglyphic significance of the date September 11. Believers in propaganda by deed, like Gavrilo Princip and Timothy McVeigh, usually choose to invest themselves with portentousness by selecting an anniversary that will freight their murder with meaning. Often, it is a date that only meant something to a very limited or arcane circle until its true value was unveiled to a stunned world. Thus Princip chose the date of Serbia's 14th century defeat in Kosovo and McVeigh chose the anniversary of Janet Reno's bloodbath at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. I've also...

PATTANAM, India -- Pottery shards, beads, Roman copper coins, and ancient wine bottles litter the strata beneath this small seaside village in India's southern Kerala state. The 250 families, mostly agricultural laborers, who live in Pattanam, 260 kilometers (161 miles) north of Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, find the objects pretty, but would rather dig up the ground and build larger homes. But according to archaeologists K.P. Shajan and V. Selvakumar, they may be destroying the remnants of Muziris, a well-documented trading port where Rome and India met almost 3,000 years ago. They say that, based on remote sensing data, a river...

"When you look at the golden age of piracy, 1692 to about 1725, pirates were considered what they in fact were -- ruthless brigands, murderers, thieves," says W. Thomas Smith Jr., co-author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates." "Robert Louis Stevenson's book romanticized pirates and made them very personable. That was taken a step further with the story of 'Peter Pan,' where Captain Hook was loosely based on the image of Blackbeard -- and as we all know, Blackbeard was a horrible guy." So, Mr. Smith, who's your favorite pirate? "I would have to say, I guess, Blackbeard --...

IN these violent times, Um Ahmed takes steps to ensure her safety, strapping on a suicide belt before going to bed at night. The mother-of-eight is one of a group of 20 women who, according to the local al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander, is prepared to die for her cause, should there be an unexpected Israeli assault on Abasa, near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Ahmed, and women like her, are changing the face of terrorism by declaring their willingness to die for the cause. The first recorded suicide bomber involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a woman, 28-year-old...

A coalition calling itself "Bush Go Home" said Monday it hoped some 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators will take to the streets of Vienna Wednesday to protest against the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush. "The name George Bush, the name of the American president, has become a symbol for war crimes, for Abu Ghraib, for Guantanamo, for Jenin, said organizer Michael Proebsting, a member of the Austrian faction of the League for the Fifth International. The coalition is made up of groups including the Communist Initiative, the Anti-Imperialist Coalition and representatives from Austria's Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi and Palestinian communities....

All empires have come to an end sooner or later, usually as the result of long decay culminating in military defeat. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire took at least two centuries; even after its collapse, its successor state in the East, Byzantium, survived for another thousand years. The tsarist empire lasted for more than four and a half centuries; its agony, accompanied by a succession of military debacles and the emergence of an aggressive revolutionary movement, spanned half a century. But the Soviet Union disintegrated at the seeming peak of its world influence, without a shot being...

Yugoslavia is gone, forever. The country that emerged from World War I and Versailles as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, land of the South Slavs, has passed into history. Sunday's vote in Montenegro, a tiny land of fewer people than the Washington, D.C., this writer grew up in, voted Sunday to secede from Belgrade, establish a nation and seek entry into the European Union. In 1991, Macedonia peacefully seceded. Slovenia and Croatia fought their way out, and Bosnia broke free after a war marked by the massacre at Srbenica and NATO intervention. Bosnia is itself subdivided into...

History has not dealt kindly with imperial ambitions, and America, however benevolent her intent, cannot hope to be an exception. Something remarkable happened on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Commentators began to declare, in somewhat exultant tones, that America had at last become a true empire. America was of course also a benevolent empire, they insisted, but that nod to altruistic tradition could not hide their excitement that America had at last joined the greatest empires of the past. Implicit in these giddy declarations was the assumption that empire was an exalted state of power and...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Two topics looming large in the world arena -- the Hamas-led Palestinian government and Iran's nuclear program -- are drawing close attention these days from the Vatican's foreign policy experts. On the Palestinian situation, the Vatican believes Hamas should be pressed to moderate its positions, but it opposes the U.S. and European strategy of cutting off foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority. On Iran, the Vatican has encouraged the Iranian government to cooperate more fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that its nuclear program is peaceful. At the same time, Vatican officials believe...

-snip- The president moves about like Caesar Augustus, with a vast, graded court of civil and military aides, doctors, secretaries, valets, hairdressers, makeup artists, bodyguards, drivers, baggage handlers, cooks, food tasters, Praetorian guards, snipers, centurions, bulletproof limos, a portable hospital, and an armored rostrum. And that’s when he travels in the U.S. -snip- After all, the long-term mean value of paper currency is zero. Is the dollar magic, so that it is permanently immune from the norm? For the last 100 years, it has lost value more quickly than the Roman denarius after Nero. -snip-

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are to arrive today. Why such inaction in the Senate? Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws? Because the barbarians are to arrive today. What laws can the Senators pass any more? When the barbarians come they will make the laws. Why did our emperor wake up so early, and sits at the greatest gate of the city, on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are to arrive today. And the emperor waits to receive their chief. Indeed he has prepared to give him...

<p>Being someone of a liberal persuasion, it might come as a surprise that I not only sympathize with neoconservatives, I genuinely agree with much of what they have to say. Unlike traditional conservatism, neoconservative philosophy amounts to more than just “Leave us alone.” It inherently rejects both “Fortress America” isolationism and Kissingerian realism in favor of an activist foreign policy of promoting human rights and propagating democracy.</p>

A leading Chinese critic of the Communist party and an international press freedom group have denounced US portal Yahoo for allegedly assisting Beijing authorities to track down and prosecute a dissident three years ago. Political critic Liu Xiaobo and Reporters Without Borders said the case of jailed dissident Li Zhi showed that Yahoo had helped China suppress dissent even before its widely publicised role in the prosecution of an outspoken journalist last year. The allegations, which are based on copies of a defence statement by Li’s lawyers that has been posted on reformist websites overseas, will fuel already fierce debate...

The Case For Goliath: How America Acts As The World's Government in the Twenty-first Century (2005) Author Michael Mandelbaum We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind--black or white, Christian or not, left, right or a million different--to be free, free to raise a family in love and hope, free to earn a living and be rewarded by your efforts, free not to bend your knee to any man in fear, free to be you so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others. That's what we're fighting for. And it's a battle worth fighting. And...

MANAMA, Bahrain (NNS) -- England’s Prince Andrew awarded Capt. John Peterson the Honorary Order of the British Empire (OBE) during an investiture ceremony Jan. 25 at the British Embassy in Manama, Bahrain. Peterson, chief of staff for Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, was given the prestigious award for his leadership of coalition forces, which included a large number of Royal Navy sailors and marines, in the campaign to secure Iraqi oil assets during the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Prince Andrew, who is the Duke of York, knight commander and aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth II, congratulated Peterson...

Ex-secretary of State predicts a gradual reduction in troops to start in 2006, but says there will be a military presence for a long time. LONDON — Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in an interview to be broadcast today that the United States would have a military presence in Iraq for years, although a gradual withdrawal probably would start in 2006. In the interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Powell said a massive, rapid pullout would be a "tragic He also said U.S. intelligence services had not revealed their doubts to the Bush administration about the reliability...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Peter E. Haas Sr., an heir of Levi Strauss & Co. who helped build the jeans company into a socially conscious clothing empire, has died. He was 86. Haas died of natural causes Saturday in his San Francisco home, company spokesman Jeff Beckman said Sunday. A great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, Haas continued the tradition of the jeans pioneer, teaming up with his older brother, Walter A. Haas Jr., to transform the small maker of Western apparel into one of the world's most famous clothing brands during his 60-year career with the company. "Throughout his career and...

Books discussed in this essay: The Tragedy of American Diplomacy by William Appleman Williams The Imperative of American Leadership: A Challenge to Neo-Isolationism by Joshua Muravchik Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq by Larry Diamond A Republic Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny by Patrick J. Buchanan The Sheriff: America's Defense of the New World Order by Colin S. Gray American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy by Andrew Bacevich America's Inadvertent Empire by William E. Odom and Robert Dujarric The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise...

Islamic Jihad: The Conclusive Case The Romans conquered the barbarians—and the barbarians conquered Rome. So it goes with empires. And comes now the penultimate chapter in the history of the empires of the West. This is the larger meaning of the ritual murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, the subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid, the Paris riots spreading across France. The perpetrators of these crimes in the capitals of Europe are the children of immigrants who were once the colonial subjects of the European empires. At this writing, the riots are entering their 12th night...

The struggle over Palestine, with contradictory promises made by Britain to both Jews and Arabs, fueled four Arab-Israeli wars, brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, contributed to the use of oil and terrorism as political weapons, and was used as a pretext (amongst others) for Islamists dedicated to Israel's and the West's destruction.

NANGALAM, Afghanistan (Oct. 2, 2005) -- Camp Blessing is arguably one of the most successful bases in Afghanistan. This is due to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment who patrol the base, one of the most remote and smallest Marine Corps post in Afghanistan. They have confiscated thousands of pounds of enemy munitions and captured numerous suspected anti-coalition militia personnel. “We do our best to make ourselves parts of the community out here since we’re so far away from other bases,” said 1st Lt. Patrick E. Kinser, assault force commander, from Jonesville, Va. “We’ve established such a relationship with the local...

War and Empire: the Debate -- On-Demand Webcast Victor Davis Hanson v. Arianna Huffington: Is America an Empire? If so, are we an empire of good intentions ... or of reckless might? Where do we go from here? (Video)

An early reference to Alexander of Macedon is the first hint of where the British Museum is heading in its new exhibition, "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia." After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander who crushed the largest empire the world had yet known. Indeed, his burning of Persepolis in 331 B.C. was considered an act of vandalism. But the show, which runs through Jan. 8, goes further, challenging the version of history that ancient Greece, starting with Herodotus, bequeathed to the West. Put simply, in that version Greece heroically...

China's drive to be an imperialist nation started in 1949, when it has occupied by force Tibet and Eastern Turkistan. Later, after a few years, it absorbed Manchuria and Mongolia as gifts from Stalin. However, that has not stopped the appetite of China. In 1962, China invaded India. China occupies about 10 per cent of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1964, China invaded the USSR, in 1979 Vietnam. It has already taken over the Spartley Island, a potentially rich island with petroleum and natural gas, which belongs to Vietnam. Now it is preparing for the invasion of Taiwan....

WASHINGTON -- There is plenty of blame going around these days for the horrific London bombings. A small minority criticizes London authorities for not expecting the attacks. Even many tolerant Brits are saying that the British Muslim community should have been more watchful. The vast majority, of course, rightly blames the perpetrators themselves, the young Muslim radicals who refer to London as "Londonistan." But there is one group that is almost escaping censure -- and it was this group that deliberately and self-righteously set the stage for what happened nearly two weeks ago: the sweet, well-meaning, all-knowing liberal multiculturalists who...

NOTE: This is a vastly expanded and updated version of a prior review from this group, which includes a host of quotes from those behind the film. It came via the group’s e-mail list, where the site itself appears to be down for the moment. WAR OF THE WORLDS: Steven Spielberg and H.G. Wells on Occupations, Empires, and "Current Relevance" Updated Final, SPOILERS New Republican Archive. Movie Reviews. July 11, 2005. (Contact: newrepublicanarchive@juno.com). War of the Worlds is not only a tense portrayal of the terror and horror of war, particularly for those on the losing side of a modern...