Free Republic

One year ago American forces killed Osama bin Laden the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack against the United States. Obama took a victory lap. It was a triumph of symbolism over substance. As George Bush said, “It was just a matter of time.” It is widely believed that Osama’s aim was just terrorism, but terrorism is only a tactic. What was he really trying to do? Michael Scheuer who was the head of the CIA get bin Laden team under Bill Clinton said bin Laden’s goal was to bankrupt America and thus destroy its influence in the world. With the...

A growing number of Indian women are buying guns in order to protect themselves from untoward situations Dr Harveen Kaur carries a lightweight .22 revolver in her bag every time she leaves her house and is of the opinion that the police is unable to protect her. She thinks that the surge in attacks against women is one of the many reasons why women in India are enticed to keep weapons. It is estimated that there are around 40 million guns in India, making it the second largest country to have such a huge weapon count after United States. Most...

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations committee turned the proud men and women of our military into a political football. During a hearing on the long-stalled Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), two top Obama administration officials constantly invoked the military a reason to ratify fatally flawed treaty. In her written testimony, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “no country is in a position to gain more” from the treaty because “as the world's foremost maritime power, the United States benefits from the Convention's favorable freedom of navigation provisions.” She also declared the treaty would “secure U.S. sovereign rights over...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday that the United States is not about to “get gouged” by Pakistan — which despite having received billions in U.S. aid is demanding $5,000 for every truck that carries supplies into Afghanistan across its border. The dispute over the border crossing is once again in the spotlight after Pakistan sentenced to 33 years in prison the Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA track down Usama bin Laden. Panetta on Sunday called that decision “disturbing,” though he said the U.S. government will continue to “work at” its troubled relationship with Pakistan. Yet with Islamabad continuing...

The Heart of a WarriorSo far away from home in distant and often desolate lands our young men fight for freedoms with blood stained hands with heavy hearts embrace brothers who die in their arms the reality of war in the action and way of so many harms the call of duty, honor and country ring loudly in their ears willingness to fight and die maturity far beyond their years Shouldering the burden of any moment they too may fall they fly the flag of freedom while standing tall at the wall the depth of purpose as warriors they must...

On this day when we remember the people who sacrificed for our freedom take some time to read about the people in other countries that benefited so greatly from that sacrifice.I’ve always enjoyed visiting countries formerly in the Soviet Bloc. The contrast between how people live there today – compared to just twenty years ago – inevitably provides a fascinating lesson in the difference between a free economy and a government-controlled system. We observed that lesson in previous excursions to Prague, Berlin, and Poland, and this year we traveled to Budapest to see how the people there have adapted to...

President Barack Obama needs an agreement with Iran to get reelected, claims a senior Iranian legislator speaking to government-controlled media. Iran is locked in talks between six world powers, including the United States, over its unsupervised nuclear program and Tehran’s demand to enrich high-grade uranium. "No international consensus will be made for any measure in the next six months and until the presidential election in the US, and at present it is the US which is in need of an agreement with Iran and attempts to lead the western sides to the same path," said Mahdi Sanayee. A member of...

Let’s make foreign policy like it’s 2000. I think we will support our troops and vets by revisiting the foreign policy that former President Bush expressed in 2000. Otherwise, we will send brave hearts into vain battles. In October, 2000, George W. Bush debated Al Gore on C-SPAN. He said: “I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying: ‘We do it this way, so should you.’ … It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself on foreign policy; if we’re an arrogant...

The UN Security Council has condemned the use of heavy weapons by Syria's government during a massacre in which 108 people were killed and 300 injured... Going into the meeting, Syria's big-power ally, Russia, made it clear that it needed to be convinced of the Syrian government's culpability for what had happened at Houla... Opposition activists say the Syrian military bombarded Houla after demonstrations. They say that some of the victims were killed during the shelling, while others were shot dead at close range by the regime militia known as the "shabiha"... Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations told...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it was "disturbing" and "difficult to understand" Pakistan's 33-year prison sentence for a doctor who aided the United States in finding terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Shakil Afridi, a 48-year-old Pakistani doctor, was convicted last week of high treason by a Pakistani tribal court for working with the CIA by running a fake vaccination program near the al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an attempt to collect DNA samples from bin Laden's relatives to try to confirm his location.

It appears the Caucasus Emirate’s representatives finally realized that it is no longer enough to talk about “worldwide jihad” and position the war in the Caucasus as part of it. Caucasus Emirate websites normally provide information about jihadist achievements around the world – in countries and territories such as Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Kashmir and so on. However, the leadership of the North Caucasus insurgency now realizes that the region’s ordinary residents are not interested in what is going on in Yemen or Sudan: they are much more concerned with what is happening in neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan, as the latter...

The father of a U.S. soldier who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan thanked the motorcycle riders of Rolling Thunder on Sunday for raising awareness of missing-in-action troops and prisoners of war. At the annual Rolling Thunder rally on the National Mall, Bob Bergdahl promised his son: "You will come home. We will not leave you behind." Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 26, of Hailey, Idaho, was taken prisoner in Afghanistan nearly three years ago. He is the subject of a proposed prisoner swap in which the Obama administration would allow the transfer of five Taliban prisoners long held at the U.S....

Barack Obama has taken his reelection campaign to new depths with a television ad targeting veterans released last week timed for Memorial Day.Now never mind that Memorial Day is to honor those killed in service while Veterans Day is set aside to honor living service members. We know that Obama has trouble differentiating the two. ("On this Memorial Day as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes--and I see many of them in the audience here today..." Obama, May 26, 2008)The Associated Press quots Obama in the ad:"It's because of what they've done that we've been able to...

Rolling Thunder made it to the White House this year, but the experience for the motorcycle-riding patriots was more pro forma photo oppportunity than heartfelt meeting with President Obama, the group says. “Well, we had a good meeting with his staff and a defense official. But we were supposed to have time with the president,” founder and executive national director Artie Muller told The Washington Times in an interview after the meeting Friday. “When we were there in the past, the president himself talked to us about the issues that concern us - veterans health care, the fate of prisoners...

Naveen Jindal-led Jindal Steel and Power's (JSPL) ambitious $2.1-billion investment plan in Bolivia is all but over as the company has said it is "not hopeful of continuing" with the project, which was touted as the biggest foreign investment plan in the Latin American country. Through its subsidiary Jindal Steel Bolivia (JSB), the company had in 2007 secured 40-year development rights to the El-Mutun iron ore mine, which holds reserves of around 20 billion tonnes, considered to be one of the largest untapped iron ore deposits in the world. However, with no commitment from the Bolivian government over supply of...

The Air Force says its F-22 Raptor brings something to the battle that no other U.S. jet fighter can match: Its ability to evade radar through stealth technology. But now critics are offering up a troubling hypothesis: Could the very materials that make the Raptor stealthy be contributing to problems of dizziness and disorientation that some pilots have experienced in the cockpit? Air Force investigators are looking into the possibility that toxic substances are infiltrating the pilot's air supply. That's one of their main theories. The other is that pilots are simply not getting enough oxygen. Pierre Sprey, who was...

Yen-yuan direct trading to start in June Exchange rates between yen and yuan will be determined by their transactions, departing from "cross rate" system Japan and China are expected to start direct trading of their currencies as early as June as part of efforts to boost bilateral trade and investment, according to reports. With the planned step, exchange rates between the yen and the yuan will be determined by their transactions, departing from the current “cross rate” system that involves the dollar in setting yen-yuan rates, Kyodo News said on Saturday. The two governments are eyeing setting up markets in...

The French aided the Americans in their revolution against their British oppressors. Now Benoît Pous-Bertran de Balanda, the descendant of a French general who fought for the Americans, is trying to help his wealthy countrymen escape what he calls the tyranny of a new Socialist government primed to severely tax the rich. And France’s loss could be New York’s gain. Mr. Pous-Bertran de Balanda, 30, is a broker for wealthy French clients looking to buy apartments in Manhattan. With the election of the Socialist François Hollande as president this month, the wealthy in France are suddenly scrambling for places to...

Greece's once-thriving sex industry has become the latest victim of the debt crisis as Greeks spend less on erotic toys, pornography and titillating underwear. About 50 people, almost all young men, lined up on Friday as the Athens Erotic Dream - the country's biggest sex fair - opened its gates in a nondescript building squeezed against a highway on the outskirts of the capital. The annual show attracted big crowds when it opened in 2008, at the height of the economic bubble. But interest has wilted alongside the economy, mired in its fifth consecutive year of recession. The austerity measures...

TORONTO: Research In Motion Ltd is preparing for a major restructuring beginning in the next couple of weeks that will see it eliminate at least 2,000 jobs worldwide, the Globe and Mail reported on Saturday, citing unnamed sources. The Canadian newspaper, citing several people close to the company, reported that the next round is layoffs is said to be planned for around June 1 - a day before the BlackBerry smartphone maker's first quarter ends - but some expect the announcement even earlier. One person familiar with the company's plans said the layoffs may cut even deeper than 2,000 jobs,...

REMEMBERING THOSE WHO GAVE EVERYTHING SO THAT WE MAY REMAIN FREE

Krugman, Fingleton, and Japan By James Fallows May 26 2012, 10:22 AM ET /snip This is a case I sympathize with, and have made various times -- for instance, in the Atlantic two years ago. I am sure that Fingleton has noticed that Paul Krugman, long a skeptic of the "Japan is stronger than it looks" view, now agrees. Or so a new interview with Martin Wolf in the FT suggests: The conversation turns to the Japanese crisis of the 1990s. In retrospect, I [Wolf] suggest, the Japanese seem to have managed the aftermath of their crisis quite well. He...

As we reported last week, every gun owner concerned about the future of our Right to Keep and Bear Arms should be aware that the United Nations and the global gun eradication movement are attempting to eliminate our Second Amendment freedoms by drafting a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. This treaty would cover tanks, helicopters, and other heavy weapons but could also include civilian rifles, shotguns and handguns. The treaty's language will be finalized by the U.N. this July during a four week conference. In an attempt to thwart this serious threat to our sovereign rights and freedoms, earlier this year,...

The provision of primary medical care and medicines to about 9 million people is at risk of collapse due to the accumulated debts of the National Organization for the Provision of Health Services (EOPPY), as the government has reneged on its promise to settle all arrears to private suppliers of the old insurance funds that now comprise EOPPY by the end of March, totalling 1.7 billion euros. Pharmacists last week decided to indefinitely suspend dispensing medicines on credit, protesting the accumulation of debts of 540 million euros for prescriptions up to March. The insured now have to pay themselves for...

Political uncertainty and fears of a Greek eurozone exit that have recently come on top of the protracted recession and choking lack of liquidity seem to have accelerated the downturn in the real economy, which is near crash condition. Together the rise of the black economy and the freeze in payments, the clearest sign of disintegration is in public revenue collection. After showing a timid rise in the beginning of May, it nosedived right after the May 6 elections. By May 20 the fall was in the order of 20 percent, with taxpayers putting off paying dues and the practice...

Iran may agree to negotiate its ongoing enrichment of uranium to higher levels if the West recognizes it has the "right" to do so for peaceful purposes, its foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday, according to a report by Iranian news agency IRNA. However, another news agency quotes the spokesman differently. "If Western countries (accept) that our 20 percent enrichment program is peaceful and then ask us not to do it, the Islamic Republic of Iran will think about their demand," Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted by IRNA as saying. Iran previously rejected the demand to stop higher level enrichment and...

Some bad news for the vehement anti-war set: they've lost the spending argument. A new chart reveals that in the last decade, spending on national security, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined paled in comparison to entitlement spending -- 19% to 65%, respectively. Over to you, infographic: "About 65 percent of federal expenditures over the last ten years have gone towards entitlements,"Paul Miller writes. "By comparison, about 15 percent has gone towards national defense, excluding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has cost three percent, and only about one percent has gone towards the war in Afghanistan (including the cost of...

Spain is spiralling into the vortex of debt-deflation. This has nothing to do with Greece. It is not the result of fiscal extravagance over the past decade, or other such Wagnerian myths. The country’s collapse is the mathematically certain - and widely predicted - result of ferocious monetary and fiscal contraction on an economy struggling to deal with a housing bust. In Spain, unemployment has reached 24.4pc, or 32pc in Extremadura. More than 1.5m households have no earner at all Monetary tightening by the European Central Bank caused Spanish real M1 deposits to fall at an 8pc rate in mid-to-late...

The Hellfire Missile is great, but personally, I love it when the 30mm Chain Gun is employed. The first few shots may miss some of the bad guys, so they try to run away, praying to Allah for "mercy" the whole time. But then, they all die tired and breathless, knowing Allah has failed them. Actually, not all die, but it's always great to leave a few survivors to tell everyone else what happens when you mess with Army Aviation.

BAMAKO - Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants have joined forces in northern Mali and say they will create an independent Islamist state. The groups took advantage of a military coup in Bamako to seize control of the territory in early April. Resistance is growing in the north to the efforts to introduce Islamic law. In the northern Malian town of Gao, court is in session. Commissioner Abdoulaye Maiga begins by reading from the Quran in the roadside courtyard outside the former police station. Once an area businessman, Maiga is a member of the militant Islamist sect Ansar Dine that residents...

Thirty officials of the North Korean regime who were involved in talks with South Korea have been executed or died in "staged traffic accidents," according to a human rights report.

A German teenager has been rescued from a Bosnian couple who are accused of starving and beating her for years and of harnessing her to a horse cart and making her pull it.The 19-year-old, kept in a hamlet near the northeastern town of Kalesija since 2004, had been taken to safety and the couple had been detained for investigation, regional prosecutors said on Sunday. Damir Arnautovic, a spokesman for the prosecution in Tuzla, said the woman had been in a bad physical and psychological state and had no papers. She was not named. He said Milenko Marinkovic, 52, and his...

Strong messages from the head or the IMF, the head of Deutsche Bank, and the president of the Bundesbank are highly likely to drive Greek voters away from New Democracy and Pasok in the June 17 elections. The Guardian writes It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks. The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing director, Christine Lagarde, said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens. In an uncompromising interview with the Guardian, Lagarde insists...

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Sunday indirectly confirmed recent remarks by the Ambassador to Israel that the U.S. is “ready from a military perspective’’ to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon if international pressure fails. The U.S. and members of the United Nations Security Council recently met in Baghdad for talks about Iran’s suspected nuclear weapon program. Iran denies it has military intentions but has called for the destruction of Israel. “We have plans to be able to implement any contingency we have to in order to defend ourselves,’’ Panetta said on ABC’s This Week. Earlier, Panetta said,...

Move a Chicagoan to San Diego and soon he'll forget the wind, sleet and snow and start complaining when the temperature drops below 60 degrees. Relations between Israel and the United States are warmer under President Obama than under previous administrations, yet we hear that the President has a "Jewish problem." The problem is not Obama, but us: In only three years, we've lost historic perspective. We're criticizing Obama for what would have gone unnoticed in other administrations.. Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger threatened to "reassess" America's relationship with Israel. Obama has declared that America's bond with Israel is "unbreakable,"...

When Dr Harveen Kaur Sidhu travels from her home in an upmarket neighbourhood of the north-western Indian city of Chandigarh, she always slips her lightweight .22 revolver in her bag. The gun is a new purchase – Sidhu got her licence only a year ago – but now the 33-year-old dentist won't travel without it. "I don't have faith in the police to protect me. There are so many attacks on women these days. It's everybody's right to defend themselves. I think all women who are vulnerable should be carrying guns," Sidhu said. She is not alone. A growing number...

Effete: affected, overrefined, and ineffectual; see "Chris Hayes." OK, I appended the name of the MSNBC host to the dictionary definition. But if ever you wanted to see the human embodiment of the adjective in action, have a look at the video from his MSNBC show this morning of the too-refined-by-half Hayes explaining why he is "uncomfortable" in calling America's fallen military members "heroes." Hayes is worried that doing so is "rhetorically proximate" to justifications for more war. Oh, the rhetorical proximity! View the video after the jump.

Guido Westerwelle is supposed to be the German version of a libertarian. Currently serving as Foreign Minister, he was the chairman of the supposedly pro-market Free Democratic Party for 10 years and Wikipedia says he was known as a “proponent of an unlimited free market economy.” Sounds like a good guy, right? Just the type of person who can explain that Europe’s problem is too much government. The kind of policy maker who can argue for cutting back the welfare state, slashing tax rates, and ending bailouts.That’s the optimistic spin, but now let’s look at the column Westerwelle wrote for...

House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet. The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet. It’s an unpopular idea with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, and officials with the Obama administration have also criticized it. “We're quite concerned,” Larry Strickling, the head of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said in an interview with The Hill earlier this year.

Mérida, 25th May 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – From 1 June the commercial sale of firearms and ammunition will be banned in Venezuela, confirmed Venezuelan Justice and Interior Relations minister Tareck El Aissami yesterday. Since the measure was first passed on 29 February over 805,000 rounds of ammunition have been recovered by Venezuelan authorities as part of an auditing process of gun stores. These are now held by the Venezuelan Anonymous Company of Military Industries (Cavim), which manufactures ammunition for state security bodies. The announcement was part of the first annual presentation by the Presidential Commission for Disarmament and Control of Arms...

JERUSALEM—After a prolonged chill, security ties between Israel and China are warming up. With Israel offering much-needed technical expertise and China representing a huge new market and influential voice in the international debate over Iran's nuclear program, the two nations have stepped up military cooperation as they patch up a rift caused by a pair of failed arms deals scuttled by the U.S. The improved ties have been highlighted by this week's visit to Beijing by Israel's military chief and a training mission to Israel by the Chinese paramilitary force that, among other things, polices the restive Tibetan and Muslim...

France's new president, François Hollande, has put the German chancellor on the defensive with his growth agenda. Now Angela Merkel is planning to strike back. She is calling for structural reforms to save the euro with a six-point plan aimed at harmonizing austerity and growth in Europe once again. The more European leaders talked at a dinner last Wednesday, the grimmer Angela Merkel looked. One after another, they spoke out in favor of the joint assumption of debt and against the strict austerity course Berlin is calling for. The chancellor stared silently at the man who was responsible for this...

This euro crisis is now getting extremely serious. Events are happening quickly, closing-in on policy-makers and threatening to engulf us. Across the single currency zone, fears are rising and, even in the most moderate nations, populations are becoming more restive. History is locked on fast-forward. Some say that seemingly arcane economic policy debate doesn't matter. In the UK, in particular, but across much of the rest of Western Europe too, the political and media classes have long displayed a tendency to roll their eyes whenever anybody with even a smattering of economic insight has had the audacity to show it....

For the majority of Americans, Memorial Day is first and foremost a three-day weekend. Time to watch the Indianapolis 500 or a baseball game; time to open the swimming pool or have a picnic. The American flag will be appropriated to embellish ads for supermarkets, department stores, car dealers, and home improvement centers. Sales on everything from garden fertilizer to bedroom furniture will be accompanied by perfunctory messages urging us to “remember those who died for our country� as we clip our coupons and make our way to the mall. The nearest most folks will get to any graveyard,...

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the United States can now focus on new global challenges after a long decade of war in an election-year commencement address to jubilant graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. "Winding down these longs wars has enabled us to replace and rebalance our foreign policy," Biden told the Army cadets and their families at the storied academy's football stadium. Biden's speech echoed some of the themes of military success struck by President Barack Obama in his commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy last Wednesday. Biden, like Obama, said U.S....

In an aggressive effort to boost deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun to increase by nearly 25 percent the number of agents assigned to find and deport illegal immigrants with criminal records, pulling 150 officers from desks and backroom jobs to add extra fugitive search teams around the country. The plan was launched when the number of deportations slumped after several years of growth, partly because of the drop in illegal immigration along the Southwest border. But critics, including some inside ICE, denounced the effort as politically inspired to help President Barack Obama's re-election campaign. The move, which...

Afghanistan's parliament on Saturday ratified a strategic partnership agreement between Kabul and Washington. The deal was approved in the Walasi Jirga with more than 150 lawmakers turning out for the vote. Only a handful of lawmakers voted against the measure. The pact covers security, economics and governance, and spells out the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan beyond 2014 when most NATO forces are planning to conclude their combat role. It does not commit the U.S. to any specific troop presence, but pledges U.S. aid for Afghanistan for at least a decade after most foreign combat forces leave. The agreement also allows...

Well, for starters, it means that all the timetables you've heard about for the last decade were just rendered inoperative and the world just found out that Iran is much further along than my favorite people, 'the smartest guys in the room' believed. I'll leave the details of the physics to those that want to go down that rathole, and explain it in everyday automotive terms. Your mission is to go from point A to point B over land at up 20 miles an hour. Yes, you're in the 21st century, and have everything the world produces at your disposal...

NEW DELHI: India said it may stop European carriers from flying into the country if the European Union bans airlines from the South Asian nation that boycott the EU's new emissions fee system. "We will take retaliatory actions to counter steps taken by the EU. If Europe bans our carriers we will ban theirs as well," the senior government official, who did not want to be named, told reporters late Friday. The EU in mid-May gave India and China a month to comply with the airline carbon emissions fee system across the 27-nation bloc, or face penalties for flights into...

The Government is drawing up plans for emergency immigration controls to curb an influx of Greeks and other European Union residents if the euro collapses, the Home Secretary discloses today. In an interview in The Daily Telegraph, Theresa May says “work is ongoing” to restrict European immigration in the event of a financial collapse. People from throughout the EU, with the exception of new member countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, are able to work anywhere in the single market. However, there are growing concerns that if Greece was forced to leave the euro, it would effectively go bankrupt and...