Free Republic

MOSCOW -- The past week's events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all. The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia's separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. This turned out to be a time bomb for Georgia's territorial integrity. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force -- both in South...

The weekly Wprost, (..), shows a politburo document, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, which appears to warrant a KGB contract killing on John Paul II. So claims Polish journalist John O. Kohler in a book, also released tomorrow, Chodzi o papie¿a. Szpiedzy w watykanie - (About the Pope: Spies in the Vatican). The politburo document says: "Use all available possibilities to prevent a new political trend, initiated by the Polish pope." The document, which dates back to November 1979, - one year after Karol Wojtyla became pope - is signed by eight top Party officials including Konstantin Rusakov, who coordinated action...

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi. Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb. His arrival in Assisi was described as "spiritual perestroika" by La Stampa, the Italian newspaper. "St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, the other Christ," said Mr Gorbachev. "His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life," he added. Mr Gorbachev's surprise...

The leader of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, has founded a new political movement in Russia. Mr Gorbachev told the founding congress of the Union of Social-Democrats that its mission was to fight against "negative tendencies" and corruption. He said it supported President Vladimir Putin's efforts to reform Russia. The new movement will not take part in general elections in December, which are expected to be won by the United Russia party, backed by Mr Putin. "We are fighting for power, but only for power over people's minds," Mr Gorbachev told the 200 delegates gathered in Moscow. Among the...

One of the great scenes in history took place at Ronald Reagan's funeral in Washington, D.C.. Speaker after speaker praised Reagan's leadership in bringing about the end of both the Cold War and the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union. What made it really memorial was the presence in the audience of the leader of that very failed Evil Empire, Mikhail Gorbachev. What must he have been thinking at the time? Most likely he must have gone away from that funeral with a lot of resentment over the fact that he ended up the LOSER in the global conflict....

Soviet General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev is the Left's darling. For years, those loath to credit Ronald Reagan with ending the Cold War have labeled Gorbachev the ultimate reformer. In 1988, Time magazine made him its Man of the Year. In 1990, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize. Radical leftist and former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, architect of the disastrous Oslo Peace Accords, states, "The revolution Gorbachev initiated and headed is, in my opinion, one of the three greatest revolutions of the XX century." Former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali pants, "The name Mikhail Gorbachev...

Ronald Reagan Statue in Poland — What About Gorby? September 19, 2006 Vox Populi, Doug Powers It’s commonly said, especially among the intellectualoids, that the downfall of communism in Europe was due mainly to Mikhail Gorbachev. The Polish people aren’t buying it — at least not a group of them. From Newsmax: "Polish admirers of Ronald Reagan plan to raise a statue of the former U.S president in Warsaw, where he is revered for his role in the downfall of communism in Europe. The 3.5-metre (3.8-yard) stone-and-bronze statue will stand across from the U.S. Embassy, the head of the group...

My Enemy's Enemy: The Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History -- the Arming of the Mujahideen by the CIA In the early summer of 1980, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson walked off the floor of the House of Representatives into the Speaker's Lobby, a rich, wood- paneled room that stretches along the full length of the House floor. A Teletype at one end spewed out stories from AP, UPI and Reuters. Wilson was a news junkie, and he reached down and began reading a story datelined from Kabul. The article described hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Afghanistan as...

The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was a historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed. The morning of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear station on April 26, 1986, the Politburo met to discuss the situation, and then organized a government commission to deal with the consequences. The commission was to control the situation, and to ensure...

Day after day in New York City, a small and strange procession can be seen moving along the pavement. While taxicabs whiz by and passersby move out of the way on Big Apple sidewalks, a handful of acolytes transport a large, hand painted box crafted from the wood of a sycamore tree. Make that "a sustainably harvested in Germany" sycamore tree. Dressed not in long flowing robes, but in average business apparel, the acolytes are garden-variety United Nations employees. There’s no need to hire Brink’s for protection and nothing but propaganda and hype worth robbing. The precious cargo of the...

0n March 27, 1962, the U.S. Communist newspaper The Worker exuberantly reported the following story: Attorney General Robert E Kennedy admitted, in effect, in a press conference in Los Angeles on Saturday, that the persecution of the Communist Party reflects a monstrous hoax perpetrated on the American people. He declared at the press conference that the Communist Party of the U.S. is no danger to the security of the U.S . For the CPUSA, such a statement from the then-highest official of the U.S. Justice Department (as well as the brother of the U.S. President) was astonishing and unexpected. Especially...

WASHINGTON - The singer formerly known as Cat Stevens is still barred from entering the United States because of terror intelligence that identifies him as a security threat. "The intelligence is the same. The reasons we rejected him several months ago still exist in my mind," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday of Yusuf Islam, the "Peace Train" singer who largely gave up music after converting to Islam in the late 1970s. Yusuf Islam was removed from a London-to-Washington flight in September because of suspected links to terrorists — a claim he has strongly denied. In November, he was...

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign.

Funded-by-Americans, former Soviet Union Leader Mikhail Gorbachev thumbs his nose at American authority. On Wednesday, Gorbachev will award a prize, through the international foundation he founded and operates, to a man expelled from the United States only last September. The singer once known as Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, was nabbed and expelled from the U.S. after authorities diverted his London-to-Washington flight to Maine to remove him, on suspicion of ties to terrorism. On Wednesday, Islam, who converted to Islam in the 1970s, will be handed the Man for Peace award in Rome, where he’ll be feted by Gorbachev and...

Looking back to the revolutions that shook Europe and the world 15 years ago this month, we should rejoice in what has been gained — freedom, democracy, and transcendence of Europe’s 40-year division. But we should also take stock of missed opportunities in the wake of the Cold War’s peaceful end. Ultimately, the end of the Cold War came because of the revolution underway in the Soviet Union. But the pro-democratic policies of glasnost and perestroika that I unveiled in the mid-1980s did not appear out of thin air. They arose from Nikita Khrushchev’s reforms of the 1950s and 1960s,...

NBC's Tom Brokaw turned to Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he hailed as "the man who changed the course of Russian history," for an assessment of Bush's Iraq policy. Monday's NBC Nightly News showcased the denunciation of the war, by the media's favorite dictator, as "a mistake" which represented "a blow struck to international law" and the United Nations. The former leader of the expansionist Soviet Union also denounced Bush's "unilateral action." Brokaw generously explained how "Gorbachev is in this country as part of his twice annual speaking tour here. His main cause is the environment, getting more international cooperation on clean...

Former president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev called for a new “glasnost” - openness – on the environment today. Mr Gorbachev also said during his appearance at Holland Park School in Kensington in England that the Russian people were still feeling the effects of the quick fix from poverty promised by Boris Yeltsin. Speaking through a translator, Mr Gorbachev, aged 73, said: “The US, with 5% of the world’s population, consumes 25% of the world’s energy. If this is implemented globally, where do we get the energy? “We need to change the paradigm of our development, we have to look...

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has paid tribute to former US President Ronald Reagan, who died today aged 93. "I feel deep regret," said the last Soviet leader, who met Mr Reagan on the sidelines of a meeting in Geneva in 1985 before the two held a historic summit in Reykjavik the following year as Mr Reagan launched a series of meetings that led to an easing of tensions, and eventually to the Soviet Union's collapse. "For me, Ronald Reagan is a great president," Mr Gorbachev told Moscow Echo radio. He said that Mr Reagan appeared at the right place...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev came to the defense of Cuba on Thursday, saying it was a Third World nation that fell victim to confrontations between the two super powers during the Cold War. "Now that we have ended the Cold War, it's time to lift the embargo," he said during a forum at the University of North Florida. Gorbachev is also to meet with government officials in Miami late Saturday concerning U.S. trade sanctions that were imposed against the Communist nation more than 40 years ago. "If you look at all the pluses and minuses, you will...

Anyone who has submitted themselves to the agony of watching the US Security Council debate has surely concluded the UN is not only incapable of fulfilling its primary mission to avert wars, but is criminally negligent. UN supporters have accused their opponents of over-stating the case about the threat it poses to national sovereignty, the right of ours and other nations to self-governance. They dismiss documents like the Charter for Global Democracy as merely a "wish list" of private organizations that do not reflect the true UN agenda. If, however, one accepts UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as the official...