Free Republic

With United States warships and air force planes at the ready, and over 1 million of Myanmar's citizens left bedraggled, homeless and susceptible to water-borne diseases by Cyclone Nagris, the natural disaster presents an opportunity in crisis for the US. A unilateral - and potentially United Nations-approved - US military intervention in the name of humanitarianism could easily turn the tide against the impoverished country's unpopular military leaders, and simultaneously rehabilitate the legacy of lame-duck US President George W Bush's controversial pre-emptive military policies. Myanmar's ruling junta has responded woefully to the cyclone disaster, costing more human lives than would...

Can Barack Obama, who campaigns as an icon of peace, actually be more bellicose than Bush? Yes, he can. President Obama would be a warmonger. He would be a wide-eyed, zealous interventionist who would not think twice about using America’s “military muscle” (his words) to overthrow “rogue states” and to suppress America’s enemies, real and imagined. He would go farther even than President Bush in transforming the globe into America’s backyard and staffing it with spies and soldiers. He would relish the “American mission” to police the world and topple tyrannical regimes. Iraq is the Obamabots’ favorite faultline in the...

PHOENIX (AP) — A woman who died in police custody during an airport layover was intoxicated on a potent mix of alcohol and antidepressants and accidentally strangled herself on her shackles, an autopsy released Friday concludes.

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday a negotiated settlement with Iran over its nuclear program should be sought, and he warned that military intervention would be "unwise and disastrous." Annan, who steps down as U.N. chief Dec. 31, issued the warning as the Security Council debated a resolution that would impose sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. The United States is considering sending a second aircraft carrier to Persian Gulf as a show of force against Iran. He addressed concerns about a possible military operation in Iran at a farewell news conference in response...

The North Korean regime is starving its own people and sending them to concentration camps, and no one gives a damn. Folks, I've just watched a recurrent documentary in the Discovery Times Channel (DTC) entitled Children of the Secret State. The DTC broadcasts this documentary regularly but this is the first time I was able to watch the whole thing. I found it disturbing. What's happening in North Korea is another Holocaust, where hundreds of thousands of peoples, often entire families, are left to die of hunger, mostly for imaginary political crimes. Those who resist are carted into concentration camps...

The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the mountains of Alaska for some sight-seeing. He was cruising along the campground in the Pope mobile when there was a frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods. A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a "Save the Whales" hat, and a "Bush Lied - People Died" T-shirt, was screaming while struggling frantically, thrashing around trying to free himself from the grasp of a 10 foot grizzly. As the Pope watched, horrified, a group of Republican loggers came racing up. One quickly fired a .44 magnum into the bear's...

BBAGHDAD--"How was Afghanistan?" asks an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. "Dusty," I reply, pointing at my shoes, which show every evidence of having been in Kandahar hours earlier. "And remarkably stable," I add: The press corps following Donald Rumsfeld drove from Kabul airport to the U.S. Embassy compound with no significant security, a sharp contrast to the helicopter ride that prudence dictated we take into Baghdad's Green Zone. "We'd sure like to have that kind of situation," my interlocutor says. So why does he think the U.S. mission here has been so much harder? Maybe, he says, because the...

One look at you tells me all I need to know about you. I am so tired of liberals that think they are so brilliant. You are such a stupid jackass. You are so stupid you probably believe that the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks on 9/11. Every time you go on the internet, every time you make a bank transaction, or pay a bill, every time you try to email a congressman or senator they are getting so much information off of you. Of course it is all a conspiracy by the Bush administration. I have screwed around by...

The Committee of 100 survey that I have mentioned here in the past asked the question of the American general public and American opinion leaders - Should the US take a more active role in Cross Strait relations? Interestingly enough, the American general public and the American Opinion Leaders were about equal, with 44% saying the US should be more active. Just over half (52%) of the opinion leaders said, "no!", and just under half (47%) of the general public said, "no!" The majority opinion is for the US to mind its own business. One in ten persons in the...

A dear woman at our church, first in line to pray for everyone else, is suddenly ill. Please pray for Louanne Bartholomew, a fine Southern bell and prayer warrior. Her blood pressure spiked high for no apparent reason after church on Sunday. They have done a MRI, EKG and all sorts of alphabet soup tests, but have not found the cause yet. She's a dear and a praying woman, and we could not bear to lose her so soon. Please drop her in your prayers!

The Askariya Mosque Bombing- An Inside Job ? I have read some informal estimates –full of caveats – suggesting the bombing of the Askariya Mosque – said to be one of the holiest places in the Shi’ite Muslim world – may have been an “inside job” ; and that it may well have been carried out by pro-Iranian followers of a radical Iraqi Shi’ite: Muqtada al-Sadr. - The mosque, which is located in a predominantly Sunni area of Samarra,seems unlikely to have been accessible to anyone but known Shi’ites. - The explosive charges were probably laid in a walkway, about...

Page 221: "From 1965 to 1969, China's aid to Vietnam took three main forms: the dispatch of Chinese engineering troops for the construction and maintenance of defense works, airfields, roads, and railways in North Vietnam, the use of Chinese antiaircraft artillery troops for he defense of important strategic areas and targets in the northern part of North Vietnam; and the supply of large amounts of military equipment and other military and civilian materials." "On 17 April 1965, the North Vietnamese General Staff cabled the Chinese General Staff, requesting that Chinese engineering troops be sent, etc. Page 223: "Beginning in early...

To All the Kids Who Survived the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.Riding...

For too many years, the California Legislature has been treating the public treasury with about as much consideration as a shopaholic treats a Visa card with no credit limit. Like all addicts, state lawmakers protest that they can stop spending any time they want. Really. But it's clear they can't. Otherwise, their bad habits wouldn't have continued when state revenue was shrinking. And why should they? There were virtually no consequences to their irresponsible actions other than getting re-elected. Proposition 76, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Live Within Our Means" act, is the addiction intervention the state desperately needs before it bottoms...

On 11 occasions over the past nine months, the U.S. and allies cooperating in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) have successfully prevented the spread of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or related items. At least two of those incidents involved Iran, two involved North Korea and another involved an unidentified third country, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed. Tuesday marked the second anniversary of the PSI, a project launched by President Bush during a 2003 visit to Krakow, Poland. With a focus on stopping and searching ships, planes, trains or trucks, the PSI aims to prevent terrorists and rogue states...

A new opinion poll by Zogby International indicates Americans are hardly pleased with the Bush administration on the subject of illegal immigration. The poll, cited on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" program yesterday, noted a huge majority – 81 percent – believes local and state police should help federal authorities enforce laws against illegal immigration. Only 14 percent disagreed. Voters were also asked, "Do you support or oppose the Bush administration's proposal to give millions of illegal aliens guest worker status and the opportunity to become citizens?" Only 35 percent gave their support, and 56 percent said no. "A majority opposed...

And the crabs are crazy, they scuttle back and forth, The sand is burning And the fish take flight and scatter from the sight, their courses turning As the seagulls rest on the cold cannon nest the sea is churning. The marines have landed on the shores of Santo Domingo.-- Phil Ochs (1965) The sages of the Torah say that one does not really understand an experience until after 40 years. That would make today opportune time for reviewing the April 28, 1965 airlift of 400 U.S. Marines into the riot-torn capital of the Dominican Republic. If the "before" era...

It may have already happened to you. A friend or family member invites you over for a drink and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by the uptightest of your loved ones, trapped in an emotional ambush, pinned down with accusations that you, yes you, dear drunkard, are a monstrously diseased person. A person with a problem so horrifically out of control they are forced, yes forced, to confront you and make you change. Now, there are those who secretly welcome interventions, either out of a selfish craving for attention or a repressed desire to stop drinking. If you are reading...

With a united Republican Legislature amassed behind him, Gov. Jeb Bush pledged Tuesday to make his last two years in office as focused on conservative change as his first six. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush delivers his State of the State address to members of the Florida Legislature on Tuesday in Tallahassee. AP Photo/Phil Coale "This is not a time for timid tweaks to the status quo. This is the time for bold, brave ideas in Florida that will shape our future and define us as dreamers, builders and problem solvers,"... Among Republicans, there appeared to be sentiment that Bush faces...

The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez. In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted...