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The Taliban have a new target: beer and bratwurst. In perhaps their most bizarre threat to date, Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have threatened to bomb the Oktoberfest festival in Munich, Germany, which attracts millions of visitors ever year, along with several landmark buildings and government officials. The threats, while perhaps farfetched, follow a series of warnings from the Taliban and Al Qaeda and underscores a concerted effort by the insurgents to weaken Germany’s resolve for the fight in Afghanistan. Germany has responded by banning all air flights over Munich for the rest of the 16-day festival, which ends Oct. 4....

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

Alliances: The U.S. has expressed a willingness to barter away missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Now the Polish foreign minister says he hopes his country doesn't regret trusting the United States.The Brussels Forum is a privately organized high-level meeting of the most influential North American and European political, corporate and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges currently facing both sides of the Atlantic. One of the pressing issues discussed at this year's conference was whether the U.S. is serious about bartering away plans for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for...

Munich - Plans for a new mosque to be built in Munich got the official go-ahead Wednesday, after years of political wrangling. The city council approved building plans for the 10-million-euro (13 million dollar) mosque to be built in the city centre, despite opposition from Bavaria's Christian Socialist Union (CSU) and another regional party. A broad political majority voted in favour of the project, including Social Democrats (SPD), Federal Democrats (FDP), Greens and the Left Party, according to a city spokesman. The Turkish-Islamic mosque organisation Ditim now has to obtain the funds to buy the land for the mosque by...

BOSTON — A flight from Munich, Germany to Washington has been diverted to Boston because a passenger complained of "flu-like symptoms." Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said United flight 903 was being diverted to Boston early Friday afternoon after a 53-year-old female passenger told flight attendants about her symptoms.

A Black September terrorist who served only about half his 30-year sentence for planting three car bombs in New York City in 1973 was released Thursday into the custody of immigration officials to be deported. Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, was released from the Supermax maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo... Al-Jawary has denied involvement in the 1973 New York City bomb plot; he claims his real name is Khaled Mohammed El-Jassem. The FBI to this day remains unsure of his true identity; his nom de guerre was Abu Walid al-Iraqi. Al-Jawary was a member of Black September, a terrorist group responsible for...

SNIPPET: "A Black September terrorist who served only about half his 30-year sentence for planting three car bombs in New York City in 1973 was released Thursday into the custody of immigration officials to be deported. Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, was released from the Supermax maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, said Carl Rusnok, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. Rusnok said a federal immigration judge had signed a deportation order for Al-Jawary."

US Vice President Joe Biden , left, meets with the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Ivanov for bilateral talks during the International Conference on Security Policy, Sicherheitskonferenz, at a hotel in Munich, southern Germany, on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009 US Vice-President Joe Biden waves as he leaves at the Bayerischer Hof hotel, the venue of the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, southern Germany on February 7, 2009. The US administration signaled a new spirit of international cooperation this weekend but called for its allies to do more and painted a bleak picture of the war in Afghanistan German Chancellor...

MUNICH (AP) — Russia welcomes President Barack Obama's determination to start a new era in diplomatic relations but that will take time, Russia's deputy prime minister said Sunday after meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. Minister Sergei Ivanov said Biden had "reaffirmed the strong intention of the U.S. to start anew," which was a "very positive" development for Russia-U.S. relations. "The U.S. administration sent a very strong signal, and the signal was heard — a signal that says they're ready to resume the Russian and U.S. dialogue frankly and openly," Ivanov told a news conference at the Munich Security Conference.

Eyes trained to watch the Hindu Kush must now turn askance toward Germany where the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy is scheduled to take place next weekend. Organizers of the annual event revealed on Thursday that among the 300 prominent figures from the international arena of foreign, security and defense policy will be a "very high-ranking personality" from Tehran. Other VIPs include US Vice President Joseph Biden, who is expected to make a major foreign and security policy speech. The big question is: Will the United States and Iran make contact at Munich?

In his first trip as Vice President, Joe “Stand up Chuck!” Biden is off to embarrass himself in front of the Germans…a challenge, but we know Joe is up to it. After issuing his first Vice Presidential apology for insulting the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot of apologies from this guy), Biden will board the Vice-Presidential short bus to attend a conference of like-minded Euro-trash. I’m sure he will be well received, especially among the “few” Germans who keep shrines to the era of National Socialism in their...

We are in danger of letting the strong strain of appeasement and pacifism now abroad in the land prevent us from taking early steps now that will prevent unspeakable calamities later. The classic case of history is the appeasement of Adolf Hitler leading up to World War II. The West finally woke up to the need to stop Hitler, but by then, instead of a relatively small police operation we had World War II that cost 72 million lives and untold other casualties, property damage, and international disruption. The issue now is whether we are displaying the same moral blindness...

Seventy years ago on September 29, 1938, the leaders of Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain concluded an agreement in Munich that has gone down in history as one of the West's greatest political debacles. According to it, Hitler was allowed to take over a region of the Czechoslovak Republic, known as the Sudetenland, which contained a large ethnic German population. He had been threatening to use force to achieve his ends, and the British and French appeased him hoping to avoid a new and devastating conflict. Of course the agreement did not foster peace: rather it paved the way...

Why Terror Thrives ...It was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, however, that trailblazed attacks on airliners with its September 7, 1970 hijacking of three planes "to call special attention to the Palestinian problem." Sure enough, the Palestinian cause has since became synonymous with anti-civilian warfare, from the Munich Olympics' massacre in September 1972 to the Arab fratricide inside Gaza this weekend. And the slaughter of innocents is now part of the Islamists' struggle against "infidels." What the Palestinians began in the early 1970s is now paying "dividends."http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331127098&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

NEW YORK -- Jim McKay, the veteran and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 86. McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes. "There are not many men who achieved what Jim McKay achieved both professionally and personally," said Sean McManus, McKay's son and the president of CBS News and Sports. "He had a flawless reputation...

How woefully ignorant is the Democratic front-runner on matters of national security, international relations and the intractable conflicts that have plagued the Middle East for decades? The recent foreign policy statements of the former community organizer have demonstrated such incorrigibly poor judgment and appalling naivete that three prominent Democrats have seen fit to distance themselves from Obama’s ludicrous position, which he somehow views as virtuous, of meeting unconditionally with the nations enemies. Senator Joe Biden tells us that Obama, “gave the wrong answer” in last July’s YouTube debate, but he assures us that Obama has, “learned a hell of a...

The militant is known as Abu Ubaida al Masri, and charting his path reveals his vulnerabilities and those of the terrorist group. COPENHAGEN -- If Al Qaeda strikes the West in the coming months, it's likely the mastermind will be a stocky Egyptian explosives expert with two missing fingers. His alias is Abu Ubaida al Masri. Hardly anyone has heard of him outside a select circle of anti-terrorism officials and Islamic militants. He has overseen the major plots that the network needs to stay viable, investigators say: the London transportation bombings in 2005, a foiled transatlantic "spectacular" aimed at U.S.-bound...

He asked them to stop smoking in Munich's subway station. They brutally beat up the 76- year-old pensioner. Last Thursday, the 20-year-old Turk Serkan A. and his Greek friend Spiridon L. admitted that they critically wounded the former schoolmaster Bruno N. and offended him by calling him: “Crap German.” When the victim was lying motionless on the floor, the two took the old man's rucksack and quickly fled. The victim suffered a triple fractured skull with dangerous brain bleeding. At first, his life was in jeopardy, but his physical condition is stable now. The motive: “Why was he so stupid...

The latest edition of the Egyptian magazine Al-Ahram Al-Arabi has confirmed what many in the West have suspected for a long time: that Yasser Arafat personally directed the Black September terrorist organization that claimed responsibility for the 1971 murder of Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi at-Tal, the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and other atrocities. The Cairo newspaper quotes a new book by PLO leader Marwan Kanafani, “Years of Hope,” to be published soon. There have also long been claims that Arafat’s longtime deputy Mahmoud Abbas, who is still widely known in the Middle East by his...

An American Secretary of State should be in Baghdad brokering a reconciliation between Iraqi factions and locking down a victory for which nearly 4,000 Americans gave their lives. Iraq is the central front in the holy war against the West being waged by al-Qaeda and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and an American defeat in Iraq would lead to an escalation of that war to proportions that would make the current conflict in Iraq seem tame by comparison. Instead, Condoleeza Rice has been shuttling between capitals in the Middle East in an attempt to feed a piece of Jewish meat...

Germany has come up with the funds to launch its first magnetic levitation - or maglev - rail service. The state of Bavaria is to build the high-speed railway line from Munich city centre to its airport, making it Europe's first commercial track.

MUNICH, Germany - Munich's mayor joyously hammered a tap into Oktoberfest's first barrel of beer, opening the annual drinking spree Saturday with the traditional cry of "It's tapped!" Thousands of visitors crowded into the sprawling Theresienwiese festival grounds as Mayor Christian Ude launched the 174th Oktoberfest and passed the first beer to Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber. A 12-gun salute signaled that it was time to start serving the public. The festival's tents offer seating for some 100,000 people. The Oktoberfest runs through Oct. 7. Last year, the festival attracted more than 6 million visitors, who downed about 12.9 million pints...

February 16, 2007, 0:00 a.m. Munich MemoriesHas anything been learned over the past 69 years? By Clifford D. May “Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich.� That was Hitler’s appraisal of the leaders of Britain and France he hosted in the Bavarian capital in 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had requested the meeting “to find a peaceful solution� to growing tension over Nazi Germany’s grievances and demands. The outcome: an attempt to appease Hitler through the betrayal of Czechoslovakia. “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor,� Winston Churchill remarked at the time....

How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed "Peking" to "Beijing"? These word changes are a fortiori evidence that liberals are part of a conspiracy. On what date did "horrible" and "actress" vanish from the English language to be replaced with "horrific" and "actor"? Who decided that? (Meanwhile, I'm still writing "Puff Daddy" in my nightly dream journal when everybody else has started calling him "Diddy.") When did "B.C." (before Christ) and "A.D." (anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") get replaced with "BCE" (before...

Our source must remain covert, but we have gained access to a series of e-mails between James A. Baker III and Lee A. Hamilton, co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group. (Actually, the ISG designates them as "co-chairs," but even a cursory look shows neither of them to be furniture.) The messages' content sheds an interesting light on the ISG's 79 recommendations. We submit these messages below, without comment: Dear Jim: I've looked at the draft of the ISG recommendations. Do you think anybody will notice there aren't really 79, and that a bunch of them repeat or extend other recommendations?...

How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed "Peking" to "Beijing"? These word changes are a fortiori evidence that liberals are part of a conspiracy. On what date did "horrible" and "actress" vanish from the English language to be replaced with "horrific" and "actor"? Who decided that? (Meanwhile, I'm still writing "Puff Daddy" in my nightly dream journal when everybody else has started calling him "Diddy.") When did "B.C." (before Christ) and "A.D." (anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") get replaced with "BCE" (before...

President Bush says the Iraq Study Group report “did a good job of showing what is possible.” Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said, “It offers a strong way forward.” The New York Post called it the work of “surrender monkeys.” There is no shortage of opinions. Here are a dozen worth considering.

Steady condemnation from conservatives for the Iraq Study Group report may be providing some cover to the Bush administration as it completes its own review of strategy in Iraq, apparently with little enthusiasm for the panel's prescription of U.S. troop withdrawal and dialogue with Syria and Iran. The criticism of the panel, co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), has burst forth from the leading institutions of the right: the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Weekly Standard; conservative talk radio; and scholars at some of...

Top Democrats in Congress left a White House meeting with President Bush on Friday frustrated over what they perceived as his reluctance to embrace major recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. "I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically," Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, D-Nev., said following the Oval Office meeting. "He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes." Bush has been cool...

Column One: Jews Wake Up! Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 8, 2006 When the history of our times is written, this week will be remembered as the week that Washington decided to let the Islamic Republic of Iran go nuclear. Hopefully it will also be remembered as the moment the Jews arose and refused to allow Iran to go nuclear. With the publication of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group chaired by former US secretary of state James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the debate about the war in Iraq changed. From a war for victory...

Former White House advisers to George H.W. Bush are keenly disappointed and concerned about the current President Bush's initial reaction to the report by the Iraq Study Group. They consider him rather dismissive of the group's conclusions, issued yesterday, which include the view that current Iraq policy is failing. The group recommends a variety of important changes, such as assigning U.S. troops to play more of an advisory and training role and less of a combat role. The ISG also recommends that the United States withdraw most of its combat brigades by early 2008 and that the administration increase diplomatic...

Isn’t the main problem with the Iraq Study Group that it’s just majorly lame? Almost anybody could crank out this kind of generalized boilerplate (“We were told by a general/a translator/my taxi driver/my Ukrainian hooker…”), and most of us could do it without a budget of gazillions of dollars and an Annie Leibovitz photo session. Of course, Syria “should” do this and Iran “should” do that and, if they were Sandra Day O’Connor, I’m sure they would. But they’re not. And the only specific strategic proposal is a linkage between Iraq and a “renewed and sustained commitment” to a “comprehensive...

The "bipartisan" Iraq panel has recommended that Iran and Syria can help stabilize Iraq. You know, the way Germany and Russia helped stabilize Poland in '39. Now that Democrats have won the House, they can concentrate on losing the war. Despite all the phony conservative Democrats who got elected as gun-totin' hawks, the Democrats will uniformly vote to dismantle every aspect of the war on terrorism. They've started a runaway train and can't stop it now. The Democratic base is at a fever pitch with visions of storm troopers listening to their phone calls and ruthlessly torturing innocent accountants at...

RUSH: We will start with the Iraq surrender group, big press conference today chaired by Lee Hamilton and James Baker. I think one of the best ways to share with you my thoughts on this is to read to you an e-mail I got from an Air Force friend of mine, a veteran in Iraq watching this this morning. "Hey, Rush, I'm climbing out of my skin here, watching the Iraq surrender group unfold on TV, but they're missing the point. Iraq is not the problem. The hatred our enemy has for us, that's the problem. Iraq is only a...

A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy experts. The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the chaos in Iraq. "This report is worrisome for Israel particularly because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior...

Nearly four years after U.S. military forces toppled the Saddam Hussein regime, the United States faces a “grave and deteriorating” situation in Iraq and the Middle East, according to the bipartisan commission headed by the commission’s co-chairmen, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton. The report painted a grim picture of the situation in Iraq and delivered 79 recommended actions. “There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved,” the report says. The commissioners warn that if the situation continues to deteriorate, there is a risk of a “slide...

The White House has been examining a proposal by James Baker to launch a Middle East peace effort without Israel. The peace effort would begin with a U.S.-organized conference, dubbed Madrid-2, and contain such U.S. adversaries as Iran and Syria. Officials said Madrid-2 would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq's future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war. They said Israel would not be invited to the conference. “As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without...

German president opens synagogue MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - President Horst Koehler said on Thursday anti-Semitism was still alive in Germany as he attended the consecration of a new synagogue in Munich, nearly 70 years after a notorious Nazi pogrom against the Jews. "Still today our dream of a normal Jewish life in Germany clashes with the reality that there is open and latent anti-Semitism and the number of violent acts motivated by right-wing extremism is rising," Koehler said in a speech prepared for the occasion. "It is the duty of all of us to get involved and act to prevent...

OK, we just turned on EWTN. There's the Pope visiting his homeland in Munich. The choir was singing "Fairest Lord Jesus" aka The Crusader's Hymn. If I know that, I'll bet that the Pope is aware of that too. Very interesting ....

Munich - Pope Benedict XVI, 79, arrived in his Bavarian homeland Saturday, entering the city of Munich to begin a six-day programme of preaching and prayer, combined with an emotionally- charged tour of well-remembered places from his earlier life. Police kept a watchful eye on the crowd that packed the city's central Marienplatz square for a welcome home and prayers at the foot of the Pillar of Mary, a 368-year-old monument to the Virgin Mary. Until he left in 1982 to become the Vatican's top doctrine official, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich, and he was to stay the...

Will Israel suffer Poland's fate? By Jonah Goldberg Watch how the 'world' is responding In fall 2001, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon delivered an impassioned and, some believed, ill-considered speech aimed at America. "In 1938, enlightened Europe sacrificed Czechoslovakia for the sake of a temporary, convenient solution," Sharon said. "Don't try to appease the Arabs at our expense. ... Israel will not be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terrorism." At the time, President Bush was attempting to rally Middle Eastern support for the "war on terror," and Sharon was apparently worried that Israel would get thrown over the side. The Bush...

Imagine it's 1939 all over again. Imagine we haven't learned the tragic lessons of appeasement. Imagine there are still people in the world – in powerful and influential positions – who believe that you can build lasting peace with evil forces upon foundations of paper. You don't have to imagine such a world. It's here. You can see it in the U.S. State Department's eagerness for a cease-fire in Lebanon. You can hear it in the cries for same from the four corners of the world. And you can read it for yourself in yesterday's editorial in the New York...

The shrill, thin whistle of the train; the rattling wooden boxcars filled with moaning, miserable people; the tracks leading from the West and ending in a single track entering into the horror of Birkenau are memories emblazoned into the collective memory of the civilized world. I was one of the lucky ones to have escaped all that, and now I was retracing a train voyage in the opposite direction: from Krakow through Silesia to Wroclaw (long known by its German name, Breslau), through what was East Germany, into Berlin and Potsdam, ending in Munich. The journey of a group of...

We got Kerry anyway! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: June 9, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com When it appeared I would not and could not endorse President Bush for re-election in 2004, many of my friends – even my own wife – suggested to me that, if I refused to vote as I had in 2000, I would share some personal responsibility for John Kerry becoming our next commander in chief. I must say, it was a compelling argument. I found Kerry to be one of the most detestable human beings ever to walk planet Earth. He was a liar, he...

BERLIN (AFP)--- Germany’s growing Jewish community on Wednesday elected its first female leader, Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and outspoken critic of the extreme right. She pledged to heal divisions between native Germans and newcomers from the former Soviet bloc. The executive board of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said the 73-year-old Knobloch, who has led the Jewish community in the southern city of Munich since 1985, had won its vote unanimously. Knobloch succeeds Paul Spiegel, a well-liked and respected figure who died in late April at the age of 68 after a long illness. The Council is...

'UNITED 93' vs. 'MUNICH'Paul Greengrass--thank the stars--is no Steven Spielberg by Mia T, 5.09.06   hereas both 'United 93' and 'Munich' derive their initial tension not from uncertainty but from what we already know, one movie remains scrupulously true to the facts--art in the service of history--while the other quickly devolves into a verisimilitudinous contrivance in the service of a director's political agenda. Paradoxically--poetic justice in its purest form, some would say--the honest movie is the one that ultimately delivers the powerful political message. Spoken by its heros--our heros--as they prepare to rush the cockpit, shortly before the plane...

Friday's lead story in America's largest newspaper must have made for sober reading at AEI and the Council on Foreign Relations, the twin dorms that house the Wilsonian wings of our national parties. Americans, it appears, have had a bellyful of interventionism and globaloney. Reporters Susan Page and David Jackson merit quoting at length: "In a USA Today/Gallup Poll, nearly half of those surveyed said the United States 'should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own.' ... "The leave-us-alone mood is apparent not only in the proportion of Americans,...

Maybe it's foolish to go over the topic of freedom of expression again, after the insulting cartoons of the noble Prophet were published … and after the tide of Western democracy has washed over the Arab and Muslim world, leaving in its wake traces of corpses, body parts, coffins and tombs. But what's happening with Israeli influence in the United States raises even more questions. There are now two films in Hollywood, one by the American-Jewish director Steven Spielberg, about the Munich incident, in which Israeli athletes were killed - mostly by the bullets of German police, and not by...

September 5, 10:35 P.M. Haig reports to Nixon that all the hostages have been killed. "The Israelis are going to react," he says. Nixon: "Who are they going to hit though?" Haig: "Lebanon, though they will find out where based [sic]." Nixon: "They are capable of it. They have got to hit somebody, don't you think?" Ten minutes later, Nixon says to Haig: "Hell, what do we care about Lebanon. Think we have to be awfully tough. I want you to run that by a couple of people. Any nation that harbors or gives sanctuary to these international outlaws -...