Free Republic

One national security expert calls it the mega-threat you haven't heard of. But America's enemies know all too well about the destructive potential of an electromagnetic pulse attack. In the hit film Ocean's Eleven, thieves used it to shut down the city of Las Vegas. In last summer's blockbuster, War of the Worlds, alien invaders used it to cripple the Earth's infrastructure. And the heroes of The Matrix used it to disable rampaging robots. It is an electromagnetic pulse bomb, also known as EMP. But EMP is not just another Hollywood special effect. A growing number of national security experts...

Iran has enlisted Russia in yet-another time-buying feint, a just-announced "basic agreement" whereby Moscow and Tehran will reportedly jointly manage the latter's spent nuclear fuel. Even though the details of this arrangement remain to be made public, two things are certain: (1) Iran has not abandoned its determined effort to obtain nuclear weapons and (2) far from preventing such an outcome, this gambit will likely afford the Iranian Islamofascist regime a chance to achieve it. As a result of Russian connivance with its client, Iran, the mullahs in Tehran and their frontman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be able not only to...

President Bush's announcement Tuesday that he would support the effort of a United Arab Emirates-owned company, Dubai Ports World, in its bid to take over a lease for part of the Port of New York and other major U.S. seaports — even to the point of vetoing legislation that would block the deal — is as regrettable as it is untenable. President Bush has dug in his heels on a fight he surely cannot win. The only political figure of note who has fully supported his position publicly seems to be former President Jimmy Carter — a salutary reminder of...

The federal bureaucracy has made a strategic mistake that threatens to cost the President dearly. The question is not whether the ill-advised decision taken last week by the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (known by its acronym, CFIUS, pronounced syphius) will be undone. Rather, the question is: By whom -- and at what political cost to Mr. Bush? In the latest of a series of approvals of questionable foreign takeovers of American interests, CFIUS has given the green light to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to acquire contracts to manage port facilities...

How would you feel if, in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. government had decided to contract out airport security to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country where most of the operational planning and financing of the attacks occurred? My guess is you, like most Americans, would think it a lunatic idea, one that could clear the way for still more terror in this country. You probably would want to know who on earth approved such a plan -- and be determined to prevent it from happening.

Patriots must act By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. Jan 31, 2006 The most consequential part of President Bush's State of the Union address tonight, at least in the near-term, will be the section he devotes to the need to ensure that the Nation's law enforcement and intelligence communities have the tools they need to protect us. In particular, he will make a strong case for the Patriot Act; one we can only hope the minority of Senators currently blocking its reenactment will heed. Mr. Bush afforded a small group of us an insight into his thinking on this and related...

Each day’s headlines underscore a central reality of our time: The United States has no choice but to make real progress on energy security — specifically by reducing the exclusive reliance of America’s transportation sector on gasoline and diesel fuels, most of which are derived from oil imported from overseas. Consider a sampler of recent developments in nations from which we obtain such oil: Saudi Arabia: Sunday’s Los Angeles Times gave prominent treatment to expressions of growing frustration by U.S. officials about the lack of Saudi cooperation in countering terrorism. The bottom line is that, while the Saudis may be...

The news from Iraq at this writing features a video of a terrorist murdering a man believed to be a kidnapped American civilian. The victim was trying to help rebuild that country. His cold-blooded execution is a reminder of what our Islamo-fascist enemies have in mind for all of us, non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Perhaps the murder was committed by putting a bullet in our countryman's head, rather than removing it, in deference to the recently disclosed injunction from an al-Qaida leader to one of his franchisees in Iraq that beheadings have proven counterproductive to the cause.

The news from Iraq at this writing features a video of a terrorist murdering a man believed to be a kidnapped American civilian. The victim was trying to help rebuild that country. His coldblooded execution is a reminder of what our Islamofascist enemies have in mind for all of us, non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Perhaps the murder was committed by putting a bullet in our countryman's head, rather than removing it, in deference to the recently disclosed injunction from an al Qaeda leader to one of his franchisees in Iraq that beheadings have proven counterproductive to the cause. The...

Listen While You Freep! Five channels, five programs every day and each one playing for 24 hours and on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! 1pm est- The Right Hour : Remember feeling annoyed when the administration said after 9/11 that the best way to help out with the war effort was to go shopping? How many times in the past few years did you wonder why the president wasn’t speaking forcefully about the war and the terrorists. Why should we wait around for...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version December 07, 2005, 1:19 p.m. The Political Front Information is an important tool on the road to victory. In recent days, the prospects of the war for the free world have been buffeted by hysterical reactions to reports that the U.S. military has been secretly paying to place stories in the Iraqi press. The dust-up has caused panic in some circles, with congressmen demanding investigations and officials scurrying for cover. The result, for the moment at least, is an American rout in the war of ideas. This debacle evidently came...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be spending the week in Europe and apparently the message she will deliver to our so-called allies is as undiplomatic as it is needed: Get serious. It is a message that a lot of other people in this country — notably the media and academia — should take aboard, as well. Some in Europe are in a swivet over unconfirmed press reports that the U.S. government has been secretly operating detention facilities in unnamed Eastern European countries and covertly transporting suspected Islamist terrorists through the continent's airspace and airports. Anti-American parliamentarians and bureaucrats have...

President Bush is a man on a mission this week. He is seeking to reinvigorate his leadership and rehabilitate his public standing by addressing an issue of enormous import to the country and of no less concern to its citizens: the insecurity of our borders and the dysfunction of our immigration policies. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Bush will benefit politically from his visits to border states and meetings with those charged with protecting them and the rest of us from illegal aliens - many of whom are looking for economic opportunity, but some of whom may well...

Farewell to Europe 11/12/05 Not too long ago, the conventional wisdom was that Europe was going to emerge as a unified and mighty economic and political superpower. We were told it would engage in earnest, if friendly, competition with the United States, but that, thanks to its substantially larger population and productive capacity, the European Union (EU) would inevitably displace America on the world stage. It took less than a fortnight of rioting in France, and now in several other countries of what Donald Rumsfeld has called Old Europe, to lay bare the preposterousness of this prospect. Even before Islamists...

Listen While You Freep! All programs are replayed for 23 hours and again on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! 1pm EST - The Buzz Cut - 'ENABLING DANGER AND BLAMING AMERICA!' In 'Dereliction of Duty,' Buzz wrote about the criminal neglect of the Clinton administration and their many failures to confront the gathering storm of terrorism. He revealed that President Clinton knew about Al Qaeda and the 9-11 plot as early as 1996. Last week's revelations pointed the finger, once again, at the...

The New Yorker, a house organ of the left, recently published a fawning – yea, fatuous – article about Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative activist who heads Americans for Tax Reform and is one of the movement's most visible, serial bashers of its leftist partisan foes. What's going on? The most benign explanation is that the article is a deserved, if grudging, admission by the left of the effectiveness of the man it calls the right's "ringleader [who] keeps the conservative movement together." This proposition is bolstered by a comment made by the author, John Cassidy, in an online interview...

Hugh and I have been trading emails on this the past couple of days, and even though I’m not sure if we have reached an accord, he and Frank Gaffney took down the CAIR shill today piece by piece. I give credit where it is due, and the difference from yesterday to today was a matter of preparation. The underlying purpose for yesterday’s interview with Ayloush was to discredit Rep. Tancredo’s “nuke Mecca” threat by offering the point of view of a “moderate” muslim from a “mainstream” organization. Ayloush is not moderate, and CAIR is not mainstream...

In the wake of recent bombings in London and Egypt confirming the vulnerability of even relatively vigilant societies to Islamofascist terrorism, the question occurs: Are we serious about fighting this menace with every instrument at our disposal? A test of the seriousness of the U.S. Senate will be offered as soon as today [July 26]. Senators will be asked to choose between two amendments to the defense authorization bill (S.1042) bearing on one of this country's most powerful and yet largely unutilized tools: Denying U.S. investment capital, technology and other commercial benefits to state-sponsors of terror. To be sure, successive...

Memorandum for President George W. Bush: The speech you will give tonight about the status of and prospects for the war will likely prove to be among the most important of your presidency. In the final analysis, the American people and history will both judge the latter principally by your conduct of the former. Indeed, you were rehired by the voters largely because they had more confidence in your leadership as a war president than in your opponent's judgment and abilities. To continue enjoying this confidence, however, the speech must not be seen as a box-checking exercise in which today's...

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr. When a United States Senator says something deeply offensive, there are usually but two immediate recourses: Either he or she voluntarily apologizes, or colleagues formally censure the senator. If the senator happens, however, to be a member of the leadership -- as was the case with then-Majority Leader Trent Lott in December 2002 -- another option is available: The humiliating loss of power resulting from the forced removal from that high office. Such a remedy clearly seems appropriate in the case of the Senate's unapologetic and as-yet-uncensored Minority Whip, Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat.