Free Republic

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iraqi architect on Tuesday said he was forced to change his t-shirt before boarding a flight in New York because the shirt had "We will not be silent" written on it in Arabic and English. ADVERTISEMENT Raed Jarrar wrote on his Internet blog (http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com) that he was required to change out of the shirt prior to boarding a JetBlue flight from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to California this month because officials told him people were offended by the shirt. In an interview with New York Public Radio on Tuesday, Jarrar said, "I grew...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

One of the things that protestors in South Korea know is that the local riot police have ample experience with demonstrators. While a viable democracy, South Korea has seen out-of-control street riots in its turbulent past. Now authorities across the political spectrum are unwilling to allow anyone to go too far. Peaceful demonstrations? Sure, but don’t press your luck. While American demonstrators – including the most violent – are accustomed to being treated with kid gloves; in South Korea the gloves are off. This is something that career protestors Cindy “Peace Mom” Sheehan and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin might want...

MEXICO CITY - Demonstrators stormed a Wal-Mart on the outskirts of Mexico City on Tuesday, accusing the U.S.-based retailer of selling low-cost goods at the expense of workers, farmers and public markets. About 250 protesters chanted "Out! Out!" in front of Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters before entering the adjacent store, where they blocked aisles for about 30 minutes before leaving. There were no immediate reports of arrests, injuries or damage. Ruben Garcia, a Mexican citizen who works with San Francisco-based activist group Global Exchange, said the discount chain's low prices take business away from the country's traditional public markets and depress...

In Venezuela, publishing this report would be a crime carrying a 40-month prison sentence. Autocrats and Activists Warning! Do not discuss, debate, or distribute this report in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This report contains statements critical of President Hugo Chávez, a criminal offense punishable by fine and imprisonment there. The Law on the Social Responsibility of Radio and Television went into effect in Venezuela in November 2004, followed by amendments to Venezuela’s Criminal Code that went into force in March 2005. These measures make it a criminal offense to insult or show disrespect for the president and other government...

was always amazed at how composed Marla remained amid the violence and confusion of Iraq. One of my favorite memories of her was when I was sitting in the middle of the Palestine Hotel lobby in Baghdad, surrounded by a confusing swirl of soldiers, officials, and reporters. Fear swept over me. What was I doing here? I had come as a freelancer, with no experience covering a war. Just as I was quietly freaking out, Marla appeared in the dusty, harried scene. She was the picture of calm in a perfect French braid and long blue dress. She was like...

Mar del Plata, Argentina, Nov 4 (EFE).- A Nobel laureate and a leftist Bolivian presidential candidate - but not, as had been promised, an Argentine soccer icon - led a march of thousands of anti-U.S. protesters through the streets of this seaside resort city Friday, hours before the inauguration of the Summit of the Americas. Retired athlete Diego Maradona, who had vowed to lead the demonstration to "repudiate" the presence of U.S. President George W. Bush, was in town but did not join the vanguard of the marchers. The explanation provided was that the former captain of the national soccer...

Here is the detailed lists of protests from the moonbats...... --------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON, DC 11 AM at Lafayette Park near the White House dc@worldcantwait.org RESIST OR DIE! NO SCHOOL NOV 2! Organize your campus. Get in touch: youth_students@worldcantwait.org LOCAL EVENTS ARIZONA TUCSON: 12 PM, Intersection of Church and Congress (downtown, by the Convention Center) twcwtucson@hotmail.com CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY: Berkeley@worldcantwait.org LOS ANGELES: 12 PM, Actions along Wilshire Blvd from Downtown to Santa Monica; 5:00 PM, rally at the Westwood Federal Building (Wilshire & Westwood Blvds.) worldcantwait_la@yahoo.com, 213-926-5717 SACRAMENTO: 5 PM, Cesar Chavez Park (Downtown) carofkings@hotmail.com SAN DIEGO: sandiego@worldcantwait.org, 619-868-0819 SAN...

The throngs of "anti-war" marchers heading to DC to attend the September 24th rally don't know that they are being used. CodePINK and United For Peace and Justice are both prodigy of Global Exchage, the 501(3)c non-profit formed by Global's Medea Benjamin. It's the "Benjamins For Benjamin Weekend"!. Using the attraction of a Hate America event to lure attendees, Code Pink's Medea Benjamin's cash cow, Global Exchange, has scheduled one of it's "Green Festivals" for the same weekend and is running it in competition with the anti-war events scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. How convenient? How many people will...

Sean Penn’s account of his recent trip to postwar Iraq – written in two articles published in the San Francisco Chronicle – reveals the deep changes that have taken place in liberated Iraq, and the shallow man who observed them. A more generous soul might have considered apologizing for the unkind words directed at President Bush and his counselors who are responsible for the freedoms that Penn now acknowledges are burgeoning in Iraq, yet Penn cannot bring himself to praise the Americans who brought this about, acknowledge his role in opposing Operation Iraqi Liberation, or, indeed, rise above the pettiest concerns...

Anti-war activists are asking San Francisco radio station KMEL-FM to remove the U.S. Navy as a sponsor of the annual Summer Jam concert in Mountain View, saying the station is "using hip-hop to promote the military to young people of color." The high-profile event, set for Aug. 21, usually sells out the 20,000- capacity Shoreline Amphitheatre. San Francisco's Global Exchange, the group Code Pink: Women for Peace and two dozen other organizations are leading a protest at noon today in front of the San Francisco offices of Clear Channel, which owns KMEL and nine other Bay Area stations. SNIP The...

WASHINGTON — Pentagon police on Wednesday turned away family members of troops killed in Iraq who wanted to confront Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the reasons for the war in Iraq. The group of about 20 was stopped before entering Pentagon property by about a dozen officers, who told the protesters they did not have the proper permission to enter the building. Organizers said they have been petitioning for the meeting for weeks, but department officials are ignoring their requests. “The man who was too busy to personally sign the Killed in Action letters these families received is apparently...

A California woman who staged a protest inside the Republican National Convention last September while President Bush was speaking went on trial Tuesday on charges of kicking and injuring a security official. June Brashares, 40, of San Francisco, is on trial in Manhattan's Criminal Court charged with misdemeanor assault, attempted assault, disorderly conduct and harassment in connection with the incident on Sept. 2, 2004. Assistant District Attorney Jessica Troy said Brashares kicked and opened a wound on Sean Flanagan's leg as he and another RNC floor official took her out of Madison Square Garden's main hall during Bush's speech. Troy...

MEXICO CITY – The father of a Mexican-born U.S. Marine slain in Iraq came back to his native Mexico on Tuesday to convince young Mexicans not to immigrate to the United States or allow themselves to be recruited into the U.S. armed services. Fears abound here that Mexican youths may see service as a fast-track to citizenship, although the U.S. military does not recruit in Mexico. A minor violation of that recruitment rule occurred in 2003, when a U.S. Army recruiter went to the border city of Tijuana looking for two youths he had first contacted in the United States....

Code PinkoBy Jean PearceFrontPageMagazine.com | March 26, 2003 Like any other group, Communists come in a lot of shapes, sizes and colors. This time they’re wearing pink, they’re on the nightly news, and more than anything, they want the mothers and grandmothers of America to identify with them. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the leaders of the women’s anti-war group Code Pink got lost on their way to the carpool line. Since October, these hot pink-clad "marching moms" have been spinning the same tale to reporters from coast to coast, the one about how concern for their...

Like any other group, Communists come in a lot of shapes, sizes and colors. This time they’re wearing pink, they’re on the nightly news, and more than anything, they want the mothers and grandmothers of America to identify with them. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the leaders of the women’s anti-war group Code Pink got lost on their way to the carpool line. Since October, these hot pink-clad "marching moms" have been spinning the same tale to reporters from coast to coast, the one about how concern for their families moved them to trade their oven mitts...

When The New York Times, “Nightline,” and CNN nominate a young blonde for sainthood ahead of the Pope, it’s time for a reality check. Especially when that blonde, Marla Ruzicka’s sole purpose is to legitimize our enemies, cause problems for U.S. troops already in harms way, and morally equivocate dead terrorists with victims of 9/11. Jane Fonda lite—but unfortunately without having been spat upon by right-thinking veterans. The recent death of Ruzicka, an American “activist” in Iraq, elicited an orgy of gush—everywhere from Time Magazine to The Guardian of London to Al-Jazeera. A 28-year-old San Franciscan, Ruzicka was in Iraq...

Treasonatrix Barbie: Meet the Real Marla Ruzicka April 21, 2005 By Debbie Schlussel When The New York Times, “Nightline,” and CNN nominate a young blonde for sainthood ahead of the Pope, it’s time for a reality check. Especially when that blonde, Marla Ruzicka’s sole purpose is to legitimize our enemies, cause problems for U.S. troops already in harms way, and morally equivocate dead terrorists with victims of 9/11. Jane Fonda lite—but unfortunately without having been spat upon by right-thinking veterans. The recent death of Ruzicka, an American “activist” in Iraq, elicited an orgy of gush—everywhere from Time Magazine to The...

SAN FRANCISCO - A woman who founded a humanitarian group to aid civilian casualties in Iraq has died in a car bombing in Baghdad, officials said Sunday. Marla Ruzicka, founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, died Saturday in the blast, which also killed an Iraqi and another foreigner, officials said. She had been in Iraq conducting door-to-door surveys trying to determine the number of civilian casualties in the country. Ruzicka, 28, founded CIVIC in 2003 to "mitigate the impact of the conflict and its aftermath on the people of Iraq by ensuring that timely and effective life-saving assistance...

For the past three years, an annual conference called the World Social Forum has been the biggest international gathering of radicals on earth, attended by all the leaders of the world left. Labor unions, Communist parties, non-governmental organizations, anti-globalization activists, anti-American 'peace' groups, multiple heads of state, and the representatives of armed guerilla insurgencies all gather yearly at Porto Alegre, Brazil, to make new connections and plan for the future. While the organizers of the World Social Forum claim the event is a "open meeting place" for those interested in building "a planetary society centered on the human person,"...

When you think of a government information office, do you think of much more than dusty information pamphlets and glossy tourist brochures full of pleasant platitudes, putting the best face forward on a particular nation? Such is perfectly natural for friendly, and even some not-so-friendly nations, because that's what government information offices normally do. But Venezuela's Marxist government has an entirely different idea. The innocuously named Venezuela Information Office in Washington, D.C. is an aggressive Cuba-style PsyOps and disinformation operation sponsored by the Venezuelan government. Its operatives not only seek to get the Venezuelan government's castroite message out to the...

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (California) is reported to have given a letter to antiwar activists to facilitate their delivery of aid to the 'other side' in Fallujah, Iraq.The leftist online publication Peace and Resistance, in an article published January 1, said that Rep. Waxman had written a letter addressed to the American ambassador in Amman, Jordan to help ease transit through Customs of $600,000 worth of medical supplies and cash collected by the anti-American groups Code Pink and Global Exchange. According to the groups' leader, Medea Benjamin, the aid is destined for the "other side" in Fallujah.The letter was being...

London 28.12.04 | Eva Golinger’s name appears as the registrar of a DOMESTIC NOT-FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION by the name of VENEZUELA SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE IN NEW YORK INC. registered in the said city of New York. Golinger seems to be the acting director of said NGO [1]. Golinger is featured prominently in a website entitled VENEZUELAFOIA.INFO, which has been registered according to WHOIS by BIGWOOD, JEREMY E. [2]. In the said website one can read the following information: This site is funded by the Venezuela Solidarity Committee/National Venezuela Solidarity Network ("VSC"), a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing accurate information about...

When staffers at the National Endowment for Democracy opened a letter asking about their programs in Venezuela last year, they never expected their response to trigger the persecution of democratic activists in that troubled country. Yet that's exactly what has happened, as Latin America's most ambitious strongman, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, has joined forces with American leftists to crack down on grassroots organizations that merely seek to promote free elections. The story begins with Jeremy Bigwood, a self-described journalist with a history of left-wing activism in Central America. He wanted to take a look at just about every scrap of...

As television and radio reel from new censorship laws in Venezuela, there are also signs of intimidation appearing against Venezuela's bloggers. We've recently reported that "media" like VHeadline* aligned with Venezuela's dictatorship have targeted the fearless Aleks Boyd, whose blog VCrisis.vom is a thorn in the side of the Chavez regime. They've now taken aim at essayist Gustavo Coronel, a retired Venezuelan oil executive who writes graceful, informative essays on VenezuelaToday. Coronel's deep well of knowledge has drawn the invective of chavistas in the past, but his latest work, directed at Global Exchange and at the Sandalista political tourists who...

An organization called Global Exchange, based in San Francisco, promotes political tourism to Venezuela, defined in its brochure as a country where "winds of change are blowing." The introduction to the sales pitch is full of praise for the strongman Hugo Chávez, while all references and links recommended to those who might be interested are those known to be shameless propaganda appendices of the Venezuelan regime: Venezuelanalysis.com, VHeadline.com and such. Chávez's agenda, reads the brochure: "includes fighting corruption, redistributing national wealth and opposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas." My laughing aloud gave way to indignation when the brochure...

Rest easy, Boone County voters, the Canadians are here to save the day. It’s a relief, eh? Canada’s former minister of communication, David MacDonald, sat in the Boone County Public Library yesterday to let us know that he and others are watching our election today to make sure there is no repeat of the 2000 fiasco marked by Florida’s hanging chads and a presidency decided in the U.S. Supreme Court. "It’s important that Americans from coast to coast … believe it was fair," MacDonald says of today’s vote. To that end, MacDonald and South Africa’s Norman du Plessis will be...

WASHINGTON -- It may come as a surprise to American voters, but two international groups will be observing the fairness of our Nov. 2 elections. Does this have anything to do with the 2000 election fiasco? You bet. Global Exchange, an international human rights organization based in San Francisco, has gathered civic leaders, parliamentarians, diplomats and journalists from 15 countries to monitor elections in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Missouri. Jason Mark, Global Exchange's communications director, said the organization has observed elections in several countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. It is financed by private donations. Mark said the...

Excerpt from FR thread on the Global Exchange (see comment): In what is believed to be the first mission of its kind, Global Exchange- an international human-rights organization in San Francisco that sponsors independent election monitoring overseas - has invited 20 of these "skilled election observers" to America to investigate "red-flag issues" in our electoral processes.

They have lobbied in the halls of Congress wearing pig costumes and wandered the streets of Manhattan dressed in evening wear and rags. But the three founders of the women's antiwar group Codepink are seasoned advocates who may have pulled off the protest coup of the convention: While thousands of demonstrators chanted on the streets, drawing only glancing attention from the Republicans, their members were inside Madison Square Garden night after night, unfurling banners and baring slogans, forcing even the president to take notice. ''We don't want just to be outside on the street talking to ourselves,'' said Medea Benjamin,...

I never thought I’d be saying this, but Dr. Phil is my new hero. Although I’m not a talk show fan, on a personal level, I’ve always appreciated his frankness and down-to-earth manners, but up until now, I was unaware of his political views. Well, after Friday’s (4/4) show, I think it’s safe to say that Dr. Phil is on the right side of the fence. I was dreading another depressing panel discussion on Washington Week in Review, so I flipped the channel and just happened to run across a preview for the Dr. Phil show. U.S. military uniforms caught...

<p>LOS ANGELES — Clad in white peace bibs, an American watchdog group called Global Exchange (search) tours schools and hospitals in Baghdad, chronicling what they claim is a U.S.-led occupation and arguing for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.</p> <p>But thousands of miles away, mothers like Barbie Aston offer a different perspective. They are part of a congressionally chartered, non-profit military support group called Blue Star Mothers (search). Aston, whose son Matt recently earned a two-week leave from Tikrit, said Global Exchange offers "leftists tours" of Iraq.</p>

<p>Sean Penn went to Iraq a year ago not as an actor, but as a father, a husband and an American. He made the visit, from Dec. 13 to 15, 2002, to learn about the American-Iraqi conflict from the people who were living through it. A year later, the week before Saddam Hussein was captured, Penn returned to Iraq to find out how life had changed after the American invasion. What follows is his account of what he saw. .</p>

Tonight at 9:30 p.m., C-SPAN2 presents a press conference by some military families who went on a tour of Iraq last week that was orchestrated by Medea Benjamin.I attended the press conference today. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl. I did.

If Howard Dean is the increasingly the voice of Democrats in America today, activist Jodie Evans is the face of the Democrats' future. A radical activist and Democratic fund-raiser, she mirrors the Party's core on its three most important issues: hating President Bush, denouncing the war and engineering the L.A. Times' last-minute sexual harassment accusations against Arnold Schwarzenegger during the California recall election. Evans rose to prominence via her role in Code Pink for Peace, a self-described “grassroots peace and social justice movement” formed just one year ago to organize public protests against America’s impending war in Iraq. Though its...

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - A peace activist accused the U.S. military on Friday of depriving her of the chance to visit her soldier daughter, telling her that the truck driver was on a mission. But Lieutenant Colonel William MacDonald, spokesman for the U.S. Fourth Infantry Division in Tikrit, said he was trying to organize a meeting for Saturday. Anabel Valencia said she had informed U.S. military officials that she would be at the gates of the base at noon to see 24-year-old Giselle. She arrived only to discover that her daughter had been sent on a mission to Baghdad. "I...

------------------------------------------------------------------------  Saturday, 29 November 2003 Tucson mom heads to Iraq Anabelle Valencia, whose son, Chuveny, and daughter, Giselle, are serving in Iraq, will join nine others who have come to oppose the U.S. presence there. Group taking friendship, doubts By Bob Purvis ARIZONA DAILY STAR Tucson parents Anabelle and Jesús Valencia sat next to each other in the living room of their South Side home Friday afternoon, quietly sifting through the cards and letters sent to them by a son and daughter stationed in Iraq. Until now the Valencias have depended on the letters - along with increasingly grim media...

Pentagon warned families not to go ESCONDIDO, CA – An Escondido man who lost his only son during the invasion of Iraq is leading a delegation of U.S. military families there this weekend despite warnings from the Pentagon not to go because of escalating violence. Fernando Suarez del Solar said yesterday that nothing would stop him from going to Iraq and spreading his message of peace. If any of the 10 delegates traveling to Iraq are hurt, Suarez del Solar said, he will hold the Bush administration and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, accountable....

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Relatives of US troops based in Iraq and a number of ex-combattants will travel to Iraq this weekend to express concerns at US operations there, the organization arranging the visit announced. "I know it is very risky to go to Iraq right now, but I feel compelled to go there," said Annabelle Valencia of Tucson, Arizona, a mother selected by organizers Global Exchange to take part in the delegation. "I want to see my son and daughter and talk to the other troops. I want to talk to the Iraqi people, especially the women. And I want...

<p>WASHINGTON - As we prepare to watch President George Bush give his State of the Union address on Tuesday, we think back to Jan. 18 when Saddam's surrogates were in town protesting any use of force against Iraq.</p> <p>In scenes reminiscent of the anti-draft, peace-at-any-price days of Vietnam, some 70,000 demonstrators rallied, marched and orated in Washington and as many again were doing the same in San Francisco. There were smaller efforts in other American cities, along with shows of even greater anti-American enthusiasm surging in some foreign capitals.</p>

Churches help rebuild Afghan mosque By Art Moore © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com American churches are raising funds to help rebuild a mosque damaged by U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. Bishop Mark Sisk of the Episcopal diocese of New York initiated the idea as part of a "Ground Zero to Ground Zero" relationship "of innocents caught in the storm of international war," according to his newsletter. The Qarabagh District Mosque, located in the village of Estalif, 40 miles north of Kabul, was hit last fall after the Taliban occupied it for use as a military base, according to local residents. The villagers said...

KABUL -- Victims of the ongoing U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul Wednesday to demand compensation for their losses. Among the victims were 21-year-old Aziz Ullah, whose left leg was sliced off by a piece of flying shrapnel, and 34-year-old Abdul Bashir, who lost "my beautiful daughter" when a bomb exploded near where she was playing in the street in October. Orfa Abdulahmad, meanwhile, tearfully told reporters how she had lost eight members of her family when her home was hit by a wayward bomb soon after the air raids began on October 7, ...

KABUL, Afghanistan — The American air campaign in Afghanistan, based on a high-tech, out-of-harm's-way strategy, has produced a pattern of mistakes that have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians. On-site reviews of 11 locations where airstrikes killed as many as 400 civilians suggest that American commanders have sometimes relied on mistaken information from local Afghans. Also, the Americans' preference for airstrikes instead of riskier ground operations has cut off a way of checking the accuracy of the intelligence.