Free Republic

On Sunday, Democratic delegates convening in Denver were prayed over by representatives of various faiths. One stood out: Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. With this choice, Barak Obama's campaign has committed a strategic error of the first order. After all, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has been identified by the Department of Justice not only as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood - a global Islamist movement with the stated mission in America of "destroying Western civilization from within." Worse yet, it has also been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the United...

The War with Iran By Frank J. Gaffney Jr. Last week’s Iranian missile tests prompted another round of fevered speculation that war might erupt between Iran and the United States. Largely lost in the frenzy is an unhappy fact: The Iranian mullahocracy has been at war with this country since it came to power in 1979. The problem is that the weapons available to Tehran for prosecuting its jihad against “the Great Satan” are no longer simply truck bombs and suicide vests. Its proxy army, Hezbollah, has taken over Lebanon and operates terror cells from Iraq to Latin America and...

Last week’s Iranian missile tests prompted another round of fevered speculation that war might erupt between Iran and the United States. Largely lost in the frenzy is an unhappy fact: The Iranian mullahocracy has been at war with this country since it came to power in 1979. The problem is that the weapons available to Tehran for prosecuting its jihad against “the Great Satan” are no longer simply truck bombs and suicide vests. Its proxy army, Hezbollah, has taken over Lebanon and operates terror cells from Iraq to Latin America and even inside the United States. With help from Communist...

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates summarily fired the top civilian and military Air Force officials last week, the reason he gave was a grave failure of leadership with respect to that service’s nuclear missions. The low priority assigned by the Pentagon to its nuclear stewardship responsibilities is systemic and acute. Consequently, this act of accountability is both warranted and a needed wake-up call to all the armed forces. As it happens, there is another ground on which the dismissal of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne could be justified. He was specifically brought in to clean up Air Force procurement, but...

A Tale of Two Books   By Frank J. Gaffney Jr. FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, June 03, 2008 I don’t generally make a habit of disagreeing with Peggy Noonan.  She is after all, one of the most thoughtful, accomplished and influential wordsmiths of our time.  She is also a much-admired friend and colleague.In an essay published last week in the Wall Street Journal last weekend, however, Peggy offered what amounted to a defense of Scott McClellan’s new memoir of his years in the George W. Bush administration, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. To...

President Bush is absolutely right to criticize sharply direct negotiations with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Barack Obama’s embrace of the idea of direct negotiations is both naïve and dangerous and should be a big issue in the campaign. The reason not to negotiate with Ahmadinejad is not simply to stand on ceremony or some kind of policy of non-recognition. It is based on the fundamental need to topple his regime by increasing the sense the Iranian people have — that he has isolated Iran from the rest of the world, to its severe and ongoing detriment. The Iranian regime is almost...

There is something unique about what has come to be called the War on Terror. In this conflict, as the U.S. government struggles to defeat the enemy and keep our people safe, it is up against not only those who overtly and unambiguously seek to destroy us. It also confronts those prepared to reveal classified information and programs, even when that makes it harder to vanquish our foes and protect this country. The latter fall into four principal categories: • Some call themselves "journalists" who work for traditional news organizations, notably the New York Times. On occasion, they win Pulitzer...

Today I had a private conversation with Douglas Feith and Frank Gaffney Jr. It came about due to a conference call that was arranged by the Center for Security Policy of which the latter is the President. The subject of the call was Feith's recent book War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. Feith as you may recall was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on 911. As such he was in the thick of things. Of all the players in the planning of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism, few were...

Totalitarians have an uncanny appreciation for the subversive effect of foreign propagandists. The Nazis had Lord Haw-Haw, Imperial Japan its Tokyo Rose, the Soviets the World Council of Churches (among many others) and the North Vietnamese Jane Fonda. Now, our time’s totalitarian ideologues – the Islamofascists – have the New York Times. This may not seem to be exactly a news flash. After all, the Times has been rendering invaluable service to the enemy’s information operations and military campaigns for years. To cite but a few examples: In December 2005, the paper disclosed a highly classified program for monitoring suspected...

The Coughlin Affair By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. Monday, February 25, 2008 Imagine trying to fight a war without a clue as to what motivates your enemy or governs his strategy for your destruction. Actually, you don’t have to work too hard to get your head around such an insane idea; it is the current practice of the United States government. This is not, of course, the way it is supposed to be. According, for example, to the Pentagon’s own guidelines as reflected in the Army’s Field Manual 34-130 dealing with Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), one of the...

Last month, the president announced his intention to sell Saudi Arabia some of our most sophisticated weapons. This is a bad idea, and you should let your representative know it right away. The proposed $20 billion deal includes “satellite-guided weaponry” and “high-tech munitions,” including 900 JDAM bombs. The JDAM is arguably the smartest “smart bomb” in our arsenal. Its electronics can “guide the bomb to its target regardless of weather.” And, it is also resistant to the jamming of its GPS system. According to Reuters, the deal appears to be part of an “effort to persuade Saudi Arabia . ....

CSP Decision Brief | Feb 11, 2008 Ironically, we all owe a debt of gratitude to Rowan Williams, who in his capacity of Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England. Our thanks are not due this cleric, however, for his appalling pronouncement last week that we had better get used to the imposition of Shariah law in Britain since it is now, in his words, "unavoidable." Rather, we should be appreciative because, by his declaration of capitulation to and appeasement of the Islamofascists – who agree with him on the inevitability of the triumph of the...

It is fitting that Condoleezza Rice chose the U.S. Naval Academy for the venue of tomorrow’s so-called Mideast peace conference. The reputation of that extraordinary institution in Annapolis has been sullied in recent years by a succession of rapes of young women. Despite official efforts to low-ball its significance, Ms. Rice’s conclave is shaping up to be a gang-rape of a nation on a scale not seen since Munich in 1938, when the British and French allowed Hitler and Mussolini to have their violent way with Czechoslovakia. This time, the intended victim is Israel. As with the effort to appease...

Irony of ironies: The principal champion of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is the United States Navy. Yet predictably few organizations would suffer more than America's naval forces from a supranational government of the oceans empowered by U.S. accession to that treaty. The absurdity of this situation was on display last week as the Navy's former senior officer, retired Chief of Naval Operations Vernon Clark, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Adm. Clark waxed on about LOST as "a Magna Carta for the oceans that guarantees navigation freedoms throughout the world's largest maneuver space." The committee's ranking...

In recent days, the people of the United States have received to messages from afar - both involving the front known euphemistically as the "War in Iraq." The two messages offer Americans starkly different visions of our future and should be considered with care. One is the report by Army General David Petraeus, our senior commander in Iraq. At this writing, its thrust is known from a letter sent to his troops by their commanding officer. The text of his report has not yet been made public. The second is the videotape released last week by Osama bin Laden, leader...

There is no more important front in the global conflict best described as the "War for the Free World" than the struggle to determine the nature and future course of Islam. If Islamists seeking to impose their intolerant, repressive strain of the faith — more a totalitarian political ideology (Islamofascism) than a religion — on the rest of us (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) are able to prevail, we are condemned to the clash of civilizations forecast by Osama bin Laden. If, on the other hand, Muslims who reject that ideology — the anti-Islamists — succeed in offering their co-religionists an...

Conservatives Fight Over Islam Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003 WASHINGTON – A fierce, nearly three-week running battle of accusations and counter-accusations between two conservative icons has brought to the front burner a long-festering debate among President Bush’s supporters on how far the White House should go in seeking Islamic support. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, has accused two White House officials – Ali Talbah and his predecessor Sukhail Khan – of putting President Bush in the company of “people who have made no...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the U.S. likely will be dragged into fights over water and other shortages, top retired military leaders warn in a new report. The report says that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism," the 35-page report predicts. "Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," former U.S. Army chief of staff...

HH: From Eastern University, I’m Hugh Hewitt. Thanks for listening to the Hugh Hewitt Show. I’m here joined by a wonderful crowd of Eastern University students, faculty and friends, as well as by two people whom I greatly admire, and I cannot imagine two better people to debate, since they come at it from very different perspectives, the role of America in the world. Please join me in welcoming Frank Gaffney from the Center For Security Policy and Eastern University’s own Tony Campolo. (applause) Now when we put this together, I knew Tony may be the most persuasive center-left Evangelical...

PBS vs. "Islam vs. Islamist"By Bill SteigerwaldFrontPageMagazine.com | April 17, 2007 Canadian novelist and veteran documentary filmmaker Martyn Burke is not someone you'd expect to get into an ugly ideological spitting match with the folks who run PBS. Burke, who lives and works in the heart of the Hollywood creative community, considers himself neither conservative nor liberal. But "Islam vs. Islamist," the documentary he made about how moderate Muslims are being silenced and intimidated by Islamist extremists, will not be part of "America at a Crossroads," PBS's new 11-part, six-night series about post-9/11 America that begins Sunday night at 9....

With Al Gore winning an Oscar for propagandizing about an admittedly somewhat hyped threat of global warming, the convergence of Hollywood with public policy is indisputable. It seems appropriate, therefore, to use an old Tinsel Town marketing line to herald the advent of a portentous strategic development: "They're Baaack!" Presumably, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meant to be reassuring when she responded to a pointed question on Fox News Sunday about Russian threats to nuke Poland and the Czech Republic if the latter cooperate with the United States on missile defense. She declared, somewhat dismissively, to host Chris Wallace, "I...

(Washington, D.C.): Urban legend has it that populations of wild rodents known as lemmings periodically commit mass suicide by throwing themselves off cliffs. In fact, these critters do no such thing. It remains to be seen, however, whether American voters will this Fall do the functional equivalent of the lemming leap: Electing politicians who seductively promise retreat from a strategy of forward defense, thus imperiling large numbers of our countrymen abroad and possibly at home. The Defeatists No longer are such politicians found only on the far left of the Democratic Party. To be sure, MoveOn.org and its champions in...

The facts are sufficiently clear that we must begin to question the judgment, if not the motivations, of those at home who persist in trying to obscure the central threat we face from the totalitarian political ideology known as Islamofascism. In recent days, it has become harder than ever to deny the true nature of the conflict in which we find ourselves. As President Bush put it recently, "We are at war with Islamic fascists." To be sure, the mounting evidence does not preclude some from denying this reality. The facts are sufficiently clear, however, that we must begin to...

Dangerous ideologues cannot be appeased. They must be destroyed. Unfortunately, at virtually the same moment that Mr. Bush was helpfully clarifying what we are up against, his subordinates were busily handing Islamic fascists their greatest victory since they drove the United States out of Somalia in March 1994: an artificial and unsustainable ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Last week, the Bush Administration sent profoundly mixed signals about its attitude towards the War for the Free World and the enemies who threaten us and other freedom-loving peoples. On the one hand, there was the President's commendable reaction to the murderous plot...

Experts debate space-based BMD assets [More Usual Suspects] By JESSICA TAYLOR UPI, July 25, 2006 WASHINGTON, July 21 (UPI) -- A new report claims U.S. anti-ballistic missile defenses must be deployed in space to be effective, but critics disagree. Several analysts say the study is based on false pretenses and the deployment of defense mechanisms into space is not in national security interests. The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank, has issued a study saying the implementation of plans for space missile defense is critical for U.S. national security and an effective system against at least some...

One war By Frank Gaffney, July 31, 2006 (Washington, D.C.): On September 11, 2001, a freedom-loving nation was attacked by a terrorist organization operating from the territory of a sovereign state with the acquiescence, if not the active complicity, of the latter's government. The United States retaliated with what can only be called a "disproportionate response." How We Fight Terrorists America launched air and ground assaults on Afghanistan, aimed at destroying not only the al Qaeda safe havens but toppling the Taliban regime. We damaged or destroyed critical Afghan infrastructure so as to deny its use to the enemy. Civilian...

Washington, D.C.): One of the most important public policy fights in years is taking place within the U.S. government. The debate is over how to deal with the growing danger posed by Islamofascist Iran. A House Divided In one corner are those who believe, against all historical experience, that appeasement of despots will work this time. Hence, their support of efforts by the so-called "EU-3" - Britain, France and Germany - to present a sufficiently attractive package of concessions to the Iranian mullahocracy to induce it to give up at least some of its program for developing nuclear weapons. The...

Now we know. The Sunday morning CNN program hosted by Wolf Blitzer provided an explanation for at least some of the bizarre behavior in evidence lately in Washington. In response to a video clip of Senator Jon Kyl (Republican of Arizona) making the sensible point that it is "nuts" in a time of war to be disclosing our intelligence sources and methods, former Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski declared that "we are not at war." While he acknowledged that there are serious threats, he suggested that it was fear-mongering to talk about being in a war, a practice used...

Our Man Rumsfeld Frank Gaffney | April 17, 2006 Suddenly, a hardy perennial of the Washington political hothouse is once again in full bloom. The usual suspects are clamoring for the sacking of Donald Rumsfeld, a goal some had sought from shortly after he was first chosen to serve as Secretary of Defense by then-President-elect Bush. Unfortunately, the chorus has lately been joined by a handful of retired senior military officers -- affording fresh material to a hostile press corps and political cover to elected officials. To his credit, President Bush has made it clear that he is as unwilling...

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...

“If we [every man and woman living in America today] don’t understand the enemy we are fighting and the actual nature of this conflict, we have little likelihood of surviving this war, let alone prevailing in it,” he writes. But Gaffney and his contributors don’t just make sweeping if-then statements. They boil down the complexities of our enemy in a fashion that can be quickly and easily digested by all of us who need to know.

PRESIDENT BUSH is a book reader. Last year, he read three books on George Washington and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave him a book on the peace talks after World War I entitled Paris 1919. This year, he's delved into the new biography of Mao Zedong with simple title Mao. Presumptuous though it is, I have a recommendation of another book for him to read. It's War Footing, edited and partly written by Frank Gaffney Jr., the president of the Center for Security Policy. True, Bush is already on war footing. But this book is filled with fresh ideas...

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 : Where are conservatives headed? That’s the question that three well-known conservatives—John Engler, Tony Perkins and Frank Gaffney—will each attempt to answer in 10-minute presentations on the direction of the movement after President Bush leaves office in 2009. Engler, a former governor of Michigan, has been president of the National Association of Manufacturers since...

Suddenly, the Iranian nuclear program is all the buzz. It appears to be nearing the point at which weapons-grade material, if not actual atomic or nuclear weapons, will be in the hands of one of the world's most dangerous regimes. Given the magnitude of the danger thus posed, it is astounding that the world's response to date seems confined to rhetorical hand-wringing and diplomatic maneuvering. To be sure, President Bush and his newly installed German counterpart spent much of their recent summit on the subject. Their entente on the matter evidently will clear the way for referring it to the...

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.

Call it the Week that Was. In four days, official Washington was wracked by congressional initiatives that threaten immeasurable harm to the war effort, precipitating bitter personal attacks across the aisle and across Capitol Hill. Divisions in Congress and elsewhere have intensified greatly. Senior Bush administration officials have responded increasingly with hollow-sounding calls to "stay the course."

Since it seems the only news fit to print (or air) these days has to do with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, finding a related angle to call needed public and leadership attention to something else requires a little ingenuity. But since the stakes associated with another, largely unremarked story -- involving a drama that will reach its denouement at United Nations headquarters this week -- may be nothing less than the future sovereignty and character of the United States, a way must be found. As it happens, the answer lies in the toxic liquid now being pumped out of...

If Osama bin Laden—or the dictators of North Korea or Iran—could destroy America as a twenty-first century society and superpower, would they be tempted to try? Given their track records and stated hostility to the United States, we have to operate on the assumption that they would. That assumption would be especially frightening if this destruction could be accomplished with a single attack involving just one relatively small-yield nuclear weapon—and if the nature of the attack would mean that its perpetrator might not be immediately or easily identified. Unfortunately, such a scenario is not far-fetched. According to a report issued...

The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), has been brought forward again to seek ratification after being rejected by President Reagan in 1982. If enacted, this will be one of the most critical agreements of this century. It would give control to an organization, currently under several investigations for corruption, the power to regulate seven-tenths of the world’s surface area and the power to levy international taxes. This is a treaty you should really know about: Gabrielle Reilly: Frank, has much changed in the Law of the Sea Treaty since President Ronald Reagan refused to ratify it in 1982? Frank...

That's politics! By Peter Roff, UPI Senior Political Analyst WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Keep your friends close ... The Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney seems to make a habit of picking big fights with even bigger people. His latest punching bag is said to be U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, whom President George W. Bush has asked to become the State Department's new No. 2 to work with Secretary-designate Condoleezza Rice. Gaffney, says a source who has spoken with him on the subject, believes the selection of the highly regarded Zoellick, who served in senior posts in both...

The Top 100 Rules of the New American Way of War By Dr. Thomas P. M. Barnett and Dr. Henry H. Gaffney Jr. THE PATHS TO WAR The United States Stands Ready for Any Type of War 1. The U.S. military stays ready because it understands that while the world is full of ongoing situations in which it remains involved, it must be prepared for any acts of war against the United States that come "out of the blue." 2. U.S. forces believe in constant training, both to facilitate their command of their complex war- making system and to deal...

Now that Kerik and Lieberman are out, who would be a good choice to head the Department of Homeland Security? How about Frank Gaffney? He's well informed on foreign and domestic security issues, and is well connected in Washington. Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.President & CEO, The Center for Security Policy In April 1987, Mr. Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving nuclear forces, arms control and U.S.-European defense relations. He acted in that capacity for seven months during...

As the polls suggest John Kerry is losing ground against President Bush, he and his new campaign handlers (most of whom are re-treads from the Clinton presidency) have reportedly decided on a novel strategy: Staking out just one position on the war in Iraq. After months of embracing every position from damn-the-torpedoes and no-price-too-high-for-victory to parroting Howard Dean's wrong-war, wrong-place, wrong-time formulation, the emerging party line is, as senior Kerry advisor Richard Holbrooke's put it, "Iraq is worse than Vietnam." In other words, the Democratic candidate has evidently decided to run against the conflict in Iraq by arguing it is...

What do the Clinton State Department, Republican activist Grover Norquist, Bush FBI director William Mueller, Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Washington Post, and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops have in common? They all fell, in one way or another, for Abdurahman Alamoudi, a Muslim-American leader who turns out, according to a federal indictment, to have been in league with the terrorists. Call him the fifth-columnist who duped the Beltway establishment. Alamoudi was an invited guest at a 1998 State Department religious freedom event. He gave $10,000 in 1999 to an Islamic free-market institute on whose board Norquist sat. Mueller spoke...

WHAT SAY YOU NOW, GROVER NORQUIST? By Michelle Malkin   ·   July 30, 2004 08:46 AM The Washington Post reports that Abdurahman Alamoudi, once embraced as a "mainstream" and "moderate" Muslim activist who courted both the Clinton and Bush administrations, will plead guilty today to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Libya in violation of U.S. law and attempting to hide it from the government: Abdurahman Alamoudi has agreed to admit guilt to three counts, including one related to the mysterious movement of $340,000 he allegedly received in a London hotel room from a charity funded by the Libyan government,...

Why is an associate of groups sympathetic to radical Islamists a policy director at the Department for Homeland Security? Readers of this e-zine may recall a troubling warning issued on these pages last November by David Horowitz and me (an editorial entitled “Why We Are Publishing This Article” that accompanied a long essay entitled “A Troubling Influence”). What made the warning so troubling was not just that its subject -- a political influence operation being mounted during wartime by Islamist organizations against the Bush Administration and U.S. government. Of particular concern was the help it documented that such entities have...

(Washington, D.C.): For over two years, the Center for Security Policy has been warning that organizations and individuals sympathetic to or otherwise supportive of the radical, intolerant and jihadist subset of the Muslim faith known as "Islamists" have mounted a sophisticated political influence operation against the Bush Administration. Today’s Washington Times contains a column by Center President Frank Gaffney entitled "Dubious Company</a href>" that describes a meeting Secretary of State Colin Powell held with representatives of four such groups just last Thursday. Unfortunately, it now seems clear that this influence operation has succeeded in getting more than meetings with senior...

The passing of our most beloved and revered of recent presidents, Ronald W. Reagan, is timely, coming as his incumbent successor reprised one of the Gipper's most memorable moments: honoring the anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy. There are the obvious similarities evoked by the trips Messrs. Reagan and Bush took 40 and 60 years, respectively, after American and Allied forces died by the thousands liberating occupied France — the speeches, the ceremonies, the wreaths laid at movingly picturesque cemeteries. What makes the parallel particularly noteworthy, however, is that President Bush today confronts in Europe much the same...

In the wake of international terrorism's most-successful strategic attack since September 11, 2001, the differences between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush about how the war on terror should be waged have become as clear as, well, the differences between the outgoing Spanish premier and his successor. To be sure, even before last Thursday's murderous explosions in Madrid, Senator Kerry and his surrogates were denouncing the war in Iraq on the grounds that President Bush failed to get the U.N.'s permission for it — and then was unable to turn the governance of the country post-Saddam over to the so-called...

History will likely record December 13, 2003 as the tipping point in the liberation of Iraq. Of course, much of importance preceded that moment - the U.S.-led invasion of the country, the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime and the beginnings of an expensive and time-consuming reconstruction. Still, there is reason to believe that, when American forces dug the former Iraqi dictator out of his rathole in Tikrit on Saturday night, the beginning of the end of the nightmare he inflicted on so many for so long had arrived. To be sure, as with the turning points of most military...