Free Republic

Obama’s policy is a lose/lose proposition that will please neither side Last month, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest a rigged presidential election. Our president was extremely cautious in his initial criticism of the Iranian government’s fierce crackdown against the protestors. At first, President Obama said that the United States — given our history in Iran — should not be “meddling” in the country’s internal affairs. Obama suggested that the leading opposition candidate, the reformer Mir-Hossein Mousavi, might not be that different from the entrenched theocracy’s choice, the incumbent (and declared winner of the...

One of the most under-reported facts about the Iranian uprising this week is that the regime has been using foreign paramilitaries to attack pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets of Tehran. Many are apparently drawn from the Iranian-trained Hezb'allah in Lebanon. Buried in a Jerusalem Post article on President Obama's response to the crisis was the revelation that Hamas thugs are on the streets of Tehran as well: Another protester, who spoke as he carried a kitchen knife in one hand and a stone in the other, also cited the presence of Hamas in Teheran. On Monday, he said, "My brother...

PRESIDENT OBAMA went to the Middle East, he said, to speak frankly and forthrightly about the issues that bedevil America's relations with the Muslim world. "Part of being a good friend is being honest," he had said in an interview just before his trip. He warned his Cairo audience that he intended to be blunt. "We must say openly the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors," he declared, so he was going to "speak as clearly and plainly as I can." About some things, the president was indeed direct. He...

Another of our youngest presidents, Bill Clinton, was 46 when sworn in and became the first Democrat since FDR to serve two terms.Born in Arkansas, educated at Georgetown University and a graduate of Yale Law School, he was also a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He had weaknesses as well as strengths but was popular with the average man and woman, and especially with minorities. He was a smart politician and a great salesman whose way with words earned him the nickname of Slick Willie when he was governor of Arkansas. The economy was strong during Clinton's term, benefiting in no...

Yesterday Republicans around the nation cheered when their beleaguered minority House caucus seized the floor and refused to leave after Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the chamber without a debate on expanding domestic oil production. Pelosi ordered the lights and the cameras off, but Republicans extended their protest rally with the darkness a perfect allegory for Democratic inaction on energy. As the protest grew and media coverage expanded, Pelosi made a huge mistake in ordering Capitol Hill police to evict the Republicans from the building. And Mark Tapscott argues that the Republicans made a mistake in complying: Yes, the House GOPers...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — In his seventh of month of U.S. captivity, Osama bin Laden's driver told a pair of FBI agents that it was America's fault that the al Qaida leader was alive. The message was, ''You had these opportunities, America. You didn't do anything,'' FBI agent George Crouch Jr. testified Friday at Salim Hamdan's war crimes trial. The United States could have killed bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, before he moved to Afghanistan in 1996, Hamdan told his interrogators. They could have killed him after al Qaida's 1998 twin bombings at the U.S. Embassy bombings in...

This past weekend, Barack Obama passed up two key opportunities to stand up and be counted when it comes to making good on his campaign themes of bringing people together, healing, and fighting cynicism. But instead of action to realize his proclaimed goals, all we got was slippery evasion and bland talk. If you think Obama can be a leader, examine his brhavior this past weekend and draw your own conclusions. Background While many Christians, notably the evangelical community, are deeply supportive of Israel, the leaders of a few Christian church groups in America have issued anti-Israel resolutions over the last...

Hillary Clinton has a solu tion to her Tuzla problem - let's talk about Rev. Je remiah Wright some more. On the day after the CBS News aired video making a hash of Sen. Clinton's claim to have landed "under sniper fire" in Tuzla, Bosnia in 1996, she raised for the first time the issue of Barack Obama's relationship to Rev. Wright. In this, she followed a Clinton family pattern so well-established it's almost boring: Misrepresent the truth as convenient - then, when caught, go on the offensive.

Tim Rutten's column, "Obama's Lincoln moment" and The Times editorial, "Obama on race" both miss the mark. In my considered judgment as a race and civil rights specialist, I would say that Barack Obama's "momentous" speech on race settled on merely "explaining" so-called racial differences between blacks and whites -- and in so doing amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions. Instead of giving us a polarizing treatise on the "black experience," Obama should have reiterated the theme that has brought so many to his campaign: That race ain't what it used to be in America. I waited in vain for...

In my considered judgment as a race and civil rights specialist, I would say that Barack Obama's "momentous" speech on race settled on merely "explaining" so-called racial differences between blacks and whites -- and in so doing amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions. Instead of giving us a polarizing treatise on the "black experience," Obama should have reiterated the theme that has brought so many to his campaign: That race ain't what it used to be in America. [snip] In fact, I'd say that considering the nation's undivided attention to this all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to...

Aide: Clinton Unleashed bin Laden Chuck Noe Bill Clinton ignored repeated opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist allies and is responsible for the spread of terrorism, one of the ex-president’s own top aides charges. Mansoor Ijaz, who negotiated with Sudan on behalf of Clinton from 1996 to 1998, paints a portrait of a White House plagued by incompetence, focused on appearances rather than action, and heedless of profound threats to national security. Ijaz also claims Clinton passed on an opportunity to have Osama bin Laden arrested. Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, hoping to have terrorism sanctions ...

Director of National Intelligence Says U.S. Didn't Connect Available Information

One year after the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1994, Bill Clinton hushed up a federal report that warned of possible terrorist strikes, including how hijackers could use airliners to hit landmarks such as the Pentagon or White House. The Clinton administration never released "Terror 2000" to the public, purportedly because of concerns in the State Department it would cause panic. The Sept. 17, 2001 story by UPI Pentagon correspondent Pam Hess said the report, not only outlined the changing face of terrorism but also seemed to predict the scope and timing of the attacks carried out against the...

CIA Officials Reveal What Went Wrong – Clinton to Blame Report: Clinton Nixed Hit on Bin Laden Cheney: U.S. Will Drop Clinton-Era CIA Restrictions Clinton Blames CIA for Implementing His Own Spy Restrictions Bill Clinton, the Appeaser, Still Off-Limits Judicial Watch: Clinton IRS Turned Blind Eye to Terrorists Clinton Blew Chance to Arrest bin Laden Gingrich, Morris Slam Clinton for bin Laden Failure CIA Leak to NewsMax: More Bad News Bill Clinton's 80-hour Gap Trulock: Security Lapses Are Clinton's Fault Clinton Pities Poor, 'Good' Terrorist Zillionaires Clinton in No Rush to Probe Past Intelligence Failures Olson Book's Chilling Warning: Clinton's ...

Bill Clinton’s appearance on Wednesday’s "Larry King Live" gave new life to the old nickname for CNN as the "Clinton News Network." Host Larry King fawned over Clinton during the 40-minute interview, asking the impeached former president questions on wide range of topics. King asked Clinton if Osama bin Laden was ever going to caught. After Clinton gave the standard Democrat line that not enough resources are being sent to Afghanistan in the hunt for the al Qaeda leader, King added, "You almost got him." Clinton answered affirmatively, and added that he "never had a chance to deploy large numbers...

WASHINGTON - It took an act of Congress to force the CIA to lift the veil on its watchdog's internal investigation that lays out the agency's many failures in the months and years before Sept. 11, 2001. Three CIA directors disparaged the document. Multiple requests under the Freedom of Information Act collected dust. Finally, on Tuesday, with the clock ticking on Congress' 30-day deadline to release the report, CIA Director Michael Hayden reluctantly caved in. Completed in June 2005, the report lays out in greater detail what has long been known: The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20381551/site/newsweek/ In September 2006, during a famous encounter with Fox News anchor Wallace, Clinton erupted in anger and waived his finger when asked about whether his administration had done enough to get bin Laden. “What did I do? What did I do?” Clinton said at one point. “I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since.” Clinton appeared to have been referring to a December 1999 Memorandum of Notification (MON) he signed that...

Shocka of the Day: Did Clinton Lie about Targeting Bin Laden? Rick Moran If there is one thing that the Inspector General's report on CIA accountability regarding 9/11 has highlighted, it is the utter failure of the Clinton Administration to come up with a strategic plan to deal with Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Despite all the testimony from Richard Clarke and others - including the President himself - that they agressively went after Bin Laden and the terrorists, it turns out that the IG at the CIA didn't think very much of their efforts. In fact, the report seems...

Intelligence: A highly critical CIA report details the spy agency's failings during the 1990s in preventing the 9/11 attacks. But as the report makes clear, the Clinton administration also deserves a big piece of the blame. The scathing look into the CIA's many failures before 9/11 makes for some depressing reading. The CIA at various times knew information that it didn't pass along to others, or ignored things it should have paid closer attention to. The headlines tell it all. "CIA missed chances to tackle al-Qaida." "Head of CIA 'failed to stop' al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks on America." "C.I.A. Lays Out...

WASHINGTON - The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found. "They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — A report released Tuesday by the Central Intelligence Agency includes new details of the agency’s missteps before the Sept. 11 attacks, outlining what the report says were failures to grasp the role being played by the terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and to fully assess the threats streaming into the C.I.A. in the summer of 2001. The 19-page report, prepared by the agency’s inspector general, also says that 50 to 60 C.I.A. officers knew of intelligence reports in 2000 that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, may have been in the...

The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency did not always work effectively and cooperatively." The executive summary says U.S. spy agencies, which were overseen by Tenet, lacked a comprehensive strategic plan to counter Osama bin...

Bill Clinton denies it now, but he once admitted he passed up an opportunity to extradite Osama bin Laden.And NewsMax has the former President making the claim on audiotape. [You can listen to the tape yourself -- Click HereClinton's comments and his actions relating to American efforts to capture bin Laden have taken on renewed interest because of claims made in a new ABC movie, the "Path to 9/11," that suggests Clinton dropped the ball during his presidency. Clinton has also angrily denied claims the Monica Lewinsky scandal drew his attention away from dealing with national security matters like...

It’s understandable the Clintonistas and President Clinton are upset about the two-part ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11” to be broadcast Sunday, concluding on the fifth anniversary of the al-Qaida attack on America on Monday. Based on the 9-11 commission report and ABC News correspondent John Miller’s book, “The Cell,” the film strips away the conventional wisdom that somehow the fledgling Bush White House was responsible for 9-11 through neglect or indifference. The film strips bare the Democratic talking points, exposing them for the fraud they are, accurately depicting the chances the Clinton White House missed to kill or capture...

On Sept. 11, 2006, America marks the anniversary of the most devastating attack on our homeland since the Civil War. NewsMax.com presents a special series of articles to commemorate this event, to remember the innocent and to honor the brave heroes of that fateful day. Read our complete coverage Click Here Now. WASHINGTON -- The authors of the 9/11 Commission magnanimously reported: "We write with the benefit and handicap of hindsight. We are mindful of the danger of being unjust to men and women who made choices in conditions of uncertainty and in circumstances over which they often had little...

Last night I attended a screening of the first half of The Path to 9/11 a film that will be broadcast by ABC in two three-hour segments on September 10 and 11. Two and one-half hours is a long time to sit still watching a film, but this one was gripping and tension-filled and visually dazzling. ... One gripping scene shows Massoud's forces--and CIA agents surrounding bin Laden's encampments and then being called back when National Security Adviser Sandy Berger refuses to give a go-ahead for the operation. That scene, according to 9/11 commission Chairman Thomas Kean, an adviser to...

Israel's Lost Moment Israel's leaders do not seem to understand how ruinous its disappointing performance in Lebanon has been to its relationship with America. At critical moments in the past, Israel has indeed shown its value. In 1970 Israel saved King Hussein and the monarchy of Jordan. In 1982 they shot down 86 MiGs in one week without a single loss, revealing Soviet technological backwardnesss. Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on July 12 gave them our green light to defend themselves; an act of clear self-interest, because America needed a decisive Hezbollah defeat. Hezbollah is a wholly owned Iranian subsidiary, making Islam...

Jack Thomas's freedom is a victory for our enemies THAT Jack Thomas has had his terrorism conviction quashed by a court will please those who wish to see the law used as a weapon in the service of their ideological objections to the national defence effort in the war on terror. But it is a defeat for common sense and Australia's national security. And al-Qa'ida and its allies will interpret it as showing that Australia is intellectually enervated and incapable of understanding how serious the terror threat is. It is easy to argue that the quashing of Mr Thomas's conviction...

"It is a shame that the venerable Mike Wallace was so determined to secure this interview that he failed to recognize that he and CBS would inevitably be used skillfully by the Iranian leader," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Known as a tough interviewer, Wallace this time around proved inexplicably passive, perhaps hypnotized by his own unexpected fascination with the Iranian leader. As a result, he failed, among other things, to press President Ahmedinejad on his long trail of damning quotes on Jews and Israel, as well as to challenge the Iranian leader on his support of Hezbollah and...

CNN is reporting that steps could have been taken to stop the suicide hijackers of 9/11 if Zacarias Moussaoui had told investigators about his al Qaeda ties. Robert J. Cammaroto of the Transportation Security Administration said the Federal Aviation Administration could have banned short-blade knives if they had known terrorists were planning to use them to overtake flight crews.Cammaroto's three-hour appearance in the death penalty proceeding was meant to bolster prosecutors' arguments that airlines could have sufficiently tightened aviation security if Moussaoui, after he was arrested in August 2001, had told authorities about al Qaeda's plan to hijack and crash...

Bin Laden's phone There's been a lot of press this month about the U.S. missing a chance to catch Osama bin Laden because he stopped using a satellite phone in August 1998. While some Clintonites and President Bush blamed the press for writing that he used such a phone, we thought there was another plausible reason: August 1998 was when the U.S. tried to kill bin Laden in an air strike. Such events would likely make the terrorist leader change his methods. Anyway, we came across a speech, delivered in April 2002, that reveals the U.S. continued to gain valuable...

Time did well in selecting Bono plus Bill and Melinda Gates as its charitable Persons of the Year, but I wish it had also put a non-celebrity -- maybe a volunteer Katrina relief worker -- on its cover. It would have been good to honor one of the 9,000 Southern Baptists from 41 states who volunteered 120,000 days during the two months after the hurricane hit. During that time, they served 10 million meals and pushed forward cleanup and recovery efforts. Or how about someone from the Salvation Army: Those folks served nearly 5 million hot meals and over 6.5...

9/11 Commission Blew Their Chance By Debra Saunders It's truly a shame that the panelists on the 9-11 commission were such self-important windbags -- their 41 recommendations, they never fail to remind, were (all bow) "unanimous and bipartisan" -- that they blew their chance to make this country safer. Don't' get me wrong. Washington has been unconscionably slow in doing the practical things needed -- such as providing a radio spectrum for emergency first-responders -- to make America more secure. The panel also was right to criticize the Senate for larding a homeland security spending bill with pork. That said,...

The Republican Party has had over ten years to get it's act together, after taking control of the House and the Senate of the United States.  For around five years, Congress had to combat what some people might term 'a mafiosa type individual' serving as Commander in Chief.  Whether you or others agree with that, the fact is that the Congress had it's hands full countering the incumbent president.  Still, come victories were won. Investigations came and investigations went.  At least some of them were so poorly run, that people on the street knew more about the facts of the...

"The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole," Bush noted, after getting an update on the war on terror at the Pentagon. "The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves and so they attacked us," the president added, in quotes picked up by United Press International.

Wrangles stopped arming of plane PREVIOUSLY unseen footage of Osama Bin Laden taken by a CIA spy drone reveals how close the Americans came to killing the Al-Qaeda leader two years before the September 11 attacks. The pictures were filmed by a Predator unmanned aircraft and show Bin Laden, in white robes, with a small group of followers at a training camp near Khost in eastern Afghanistan at the end of 1999. The drone was one of the first to be used in Afghanistan by the CIA, but because of bureaucratic wrangles it was unarmed. The pictures, thought to be...

August 18, 2005 -- A veteran Army intelligence officer said yesterday the elite military intelligence unit known as Able Danger might have been able to prevent the 9/11 attacks — if it had been allowed to alert the FBI that Mohamed Atta was living in the country. "My first reaction was, 'We had him.' It was a sinking feeling in my stomach," Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer told The Post in an interview yesterday, describing how he felt after learning that Atta was one of the hijackers. Shaffer said that before the attacks, in 2000, Able Danger used complex computer analysis...

(CBS) In the Persian Gulf, in late July 1996, American warships, a full complement of military hardware, and nearly 4,000 Marines, sailors and SEALs, were praying they could pull off the mission of their lives. They had been assigned to grab the man, who before September 11th, had killed more Americans than any other terrorist. His name is Imad Mugniyah, and U.S. intelligence believed they had tracked him to the waters of the Persian Gulf, aboard a merchant ship, the Ibn Tufail. Marine commander John Garrett helped plan this top-secret mission to take down the ship, and take Mugniyah into...

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation...is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks...

More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohamed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of an al-Qaida cell operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress. snip In the summer of 2000, the intelligence team, known as "Able Danger," prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the FBI, Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania and the former intelligence official said...

My colleagues in the news media are dutifully reporting a breakdown in the FBI that led directly to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist hijacking disaster. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of the FBI. And I have no doubts incompetence, bad judgment and bureaucratic snafus plagued the FBI leading up to the al-Qaida attack that killed 3,000 Americans. But neither the Justice Department inspector general's report, nor the press coverage of it, are connecting some very obvious dots that point the finger directly at political decisions by political appointees in the Clinton White House. Here are the facts...

Saturday, June 11, 2005 9:32 a.m. EDT Hillary Appointee Tied to 9/11 Blunder Press reports on Friday about a government report that offers new evidence on how the CIA failed to warn the FBI when two of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. made no mention of the role played in the disastrous bungle by Hillary Clinton's Justice Department protege Jamie Gorelick. Typical was coverage in the Los Angeles Times, which chronicled the efforts of a frustrated CIA agent who desperately tried to warn the FBI that Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar had migrated to San Diego after attending an...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - In the weeks and months before Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI had some clues, but didn't see them. It had a lead from one of its own agents, but didn't follow it. A sobering inside look at pre-Sept. 11 intelligence operations by the Justice Department's inspector general chronicles - in some instances in hour-to-hour detail - how the FBI missed at least five opportunities to uncover vital information that might have led agents to the hijackers. "The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able...

In the years leading up to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FBI fumbled several opportunities to capture Clinton-era Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, according to a new study by the Justice Department's Inspector General. The report also details how the FBI missed five chances to uncover vital information about two of the 9/11 hijackers. Ms. Gorelick is best known for creating 'The Wall', a procedural barrier between criminal investigations and intelligence gathering which hindered the FBI's ability to learn more about Al Qaeda from prosecutors working the 1993 WTC bombing case, and...

The FBI missed several opportunities to uncover vital information regarding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that could have led agents to two of the hijackers, a Justice Department report says. "The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks," Inspector General Glenn Fine reported.

IF ACADEMY AWARDS were given for the greatest lost opportunity, Million Dollar Baby would have won them, too. (snip) Nor is this a story line of recent vintage. Indeed, in the past movies were made as explicit propaganda to promote the legalization and legitimacy of active euthanasia. The most notorious of these is the 1939 German movie, I Accuse (Ich Klage An), a film that, with Goebbles's blessing, both promoted voluntary euthanasia as well as the propriety of killing disabled infants--to blockbuster success at the box office. (snip Secondly, while it is true that many people who become quadriplegic later...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Thursday offered condolences to Palestinians after the death of Yasser Arafat but said their leader had missed the opportunity to create lasting Middle East peace in 2000. Clinton, who helped broker a Middle East peace plan with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin in 1993, will not attend either his memorial service or his funeral, the former president's office said. Clinton, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin made history on Sept. 13, 1993, when the three men shook hands on the White House lawn and signed interim...

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday rejected Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's charge that the Bush administration had bungled a chance to catch Osama bin Laden in late 2001. Powell was responding to Kerry's accusation in Thursday's presidential campaign debate with President Bush that U.S. military commanders had let the al Qaeda leader escape from the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan. Kerry said Bush had "outsourced" the mission to Afghan warlords who were former allies of the Taliban regime. "I think it's a stretch to say that they knew he (bin Laden) was there and...

On December 20 1999, CIA chiefs and military brass were gathered in Washington to give the green light for an operation in Afghanistan with the aim of killing Osama bin Laden. "Mike", the CIA man in charge of the operation, offered the conferees a final report in which he revealed that the place where the terrorist leader had been located was close to a mosque. The revelation caused a commotion and led to the cancellation of the operation. Five years later, testifying to the 9/11 Commission, "Mike" recalled that the committee had been concerned that "shrapnel might hit the mosque...

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday about claims that the Bush administration missed a chance to kill Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks, asking him to explain the failure to 9/11 victim families. Rumsfeld was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee about revising the military force structure when committee-member Clinton switched gears, asking him about the 9/11 Commission report. Citing a commission finding calling the Bush administration's failure to arm Predator drones a "missed opportunity" in the hunt for bin Laden, Clinton asked Rumsfeld to respond to questions from 9/11 victim families....