Free Republic

BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) -- A congressman skeptical of the need for U.S. military action against Iraq says he is flying to Baghdad, hoping to answer questions about a possible invasion and seeking a meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said he wants to reassure Iraqi citizens that Americans are ``not out to wage war for war's sake.'' ``I'm not going as a secretary of state,'' Rahall said Tuesday. ``I'm not going as a weapons inspector. And I'm not calling upon this administration to do one thing or another. I just have a lot of questions.'' Rahall,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even as prosecutors build a case against the Army private suspected of passing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, the State Department is promoting a documentary film that celebrates Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Amid its struggle to contain damage from the WikiLeaks revelations, the State Department announced Saturday that "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers" has been selected as one of 18 films that will tour the world this year as part of its "American Documentary Showcase" program. Ellsberg, whom the film portrays as a whistleblower of conscience,...

Rocky Anderson, it turns out, is not stepping aside quietly. Joining a list of liberal luminaries, including Noam Chomsky and George McGovern, Salt Lake City's outgoing mayor submitted a letter Friday that calls on the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the Bush administration for abuses of power. The letter, signed by 18 political and cultural figures, asks House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., to hold hearings on alleged violations of the law under President Bush that include kidnapping and torture, warrantless wiretapping, a war of aggression against Iraq and disseminating false propaganda to deceive the American people. It came...

Oh the shame of it all. Last month, 1,300 pro-Palestinian activists from the US and Europe came to the region in the name of peace and social justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Led by the self-declared feminist, antiwar group Code Pink, the demonstrators' plan was to enter Gaza from the Egyptian border at Rafah and deliver "humanitarian aid" to the Hamas terrorist organization. But it was not to be. Led by Code Pink founder and California Democratic fund-raiser Jodie Evans, the demonstrators were not welcomed by Egyptian authorities. Many were surrounded by riot police and...

Reuters, in its headline for a story reporting the death of Philip Agee, a former CIA agent turned traitor, labeled Agee a "CIA whistle-blower" ("CIA whistle-blower Philip Agee dies in Cuba [1]"). As the blog Little Green Footballs put it [2], Agee was "the traitor who exposed fellow CIA agents to violence and murder by revealing their names" in his 1975 book "Inside the Company: A CIA Diary." Agee, who had worked for the CIA for 12 years both in the United States and in Latin America, resigned from the Agency in 1968 after expressing "disagreement with U.S. support for...

It's known that Julian Assange, the Wikileaks chief, has Guantanamo files, however this sounds fairly explosive. Reuters (via The Nation): WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, jailed in Britain this week, has told media contacts he has a large cache of U.S. government reports about inmates at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, known as GITMO, the last of four major tranches of U.S. government documents which WikiLeaks had acquired and at some point would make public. "He's got the personal files of every prisoner in GITMO," said one person who was in contact with Assange earlier this year.

Who recently said: "These Jews started 19 Crusades. The 19th was World War (1). Why? Only to build Israel." Some holdover Nazi? Hardly. It was former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of Turkey, a NATO ally. He went on to claim that the Jews -- whom he refers to as "bacteria" -- controlled China, India and Japan, and ran the United States. Who alleged: "The Arabs who were involved in 9/11 cooperated with the Zionists, actually. It was a cooperation. They gave them the perfect excuse to denounce all Arabs." A conspiracy nut? Actually, it was former Democratic U.S. Sen. James...

Washington, DC | July 24, 2006 | Today, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld failed to fulfill their constitutional and professional obligations and protect US citizens in a crisis or time of war.

WASHINGTON — A leading Arab-American advocacy group has sued the U.S. government, claiming that it failed to protect American citizens from the fighting in Lebanon. The lawsuit, filed Monday on behalf of about 30 American citizens by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, alleges that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not take all possible steps to secure the safety and well being of U.S. citizens when fighting erupted between Israel and Hezbollah guerillas. The committee is asking the U.S. District Court in Detroit to order the U.S. government to request a cease fire and to...

To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Connie Julian, 917-449-9064, Janet Yip 212-941-8086 or commission@nion.us News Advisory: From: International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration WHEN: January 10, 2006 at 1:30 p.m. WHERE: The White House, Walk-in Gate, across from Lafayette Park WEBSITE: http://www.bushcommission.org An unprecedented series of indictments alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, in five separate areas, on moral, political, and legal grounds, will be delivered by a citizens' tribunal to President Bush at the front gate of the White House this Tuesday, January 10th. Named in the indictments are: President of...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- In 1996, Jim Jordan, campaign manager for Democrat presidential contender Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), was press secretary for Tim Johnson during his challenge to then-incumbent Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD). The long, negative campaign resulted in the end of the South Dakota Republican's 22 years in Congress. During the campaign, Pressler was dogged by questions about his health, since his father suffered with Alzheimer's disease. But the most damaging attack was delivered by James Abourezk, the man Pressler replaced in the Senate in 1978. Abourezk brought Alexander Cockburn, author of "Washington Babylon" to speak to a Sioux...