Free Republic

John McCain and Barack Obama have both changed positions in this campaign. That's OK. Voters understand that politicians can and, sometimes, should change their views. After all, voters do. Witness the wide swings in their answers to opinion polls. But before accepting the changes, voters typically ask themselves three questions: Does the candidate admit he's shifting? What's the new information that altered his thinking? Does the change seem reasonable and not calculating?

Washington, D.C. - Here's a new reason for taxpayer dismay: There's increasing evidence that companies may be protesting government contract awards as a strategy to negotiate their way into contracts or to derail an award process already in place. ... In February, IBM protested the Federal Bureau of Investigation's award of a $1 billion contract to Lockheed Martin (nyse: LMT - news - people ). Big Blue dropped its dispute two months later when Lockheed announced it would use IBM as a subcontractor.

Which shows us all exactly what we need to do with regard to defeating him. Repeat it like a chant. Show it in every way possible. Barack Obama is just another politician. He is no different than a John Kerry or an Al Gore. He will manipulate. He will say what is needed to get elected. He will go negative and attack. He will buy the election if it is possible for him to do so. His past shows him to be nothing extraordinary and quite ordinary. Even if every single one of these points is made and lands in...

SACRAMENTO – California's top air-quality agency for the first time on Thursday will reveal a long-awaited strategy for how it expects business and the public to respond to the challenge of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars. By itself, the draft plan before the Air Resources Board will not impose specific regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Instead, the plan is widely expected to set the course for establishing state policies that will redefine energy use in California. No sector will be excused. The proposal will lay out blueprints for refineries,...

John McCain has set off a firestorm by suggesting that the timing of the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is "not too important." What is important, he said, are the casualties in Iraq, pointing to long-term US troop presence in Japan, South Korea, and Germany. He should be commended for his "straight talk" in articulating what he believes, despite its unpopularity. But Senator McCain has yet to give the American people clear answers to three fundamental questions: What, exactly, are the political objectives of keeping large numbers of American soldiers in Iraq for years to come? What plausible outcome...

Beyond the Unconventional. The Pentagon has decided on a name for the kind of war we have to be prepared to fight in decades to come. Unconventional? No. A couple of generations ago, the clash of national armies following the rules of the Hague and Geneva Conventions was called conventional war, as against a more terrifying unconventional war, which meant “nuclear” for a time; then that meaning changed to denote “special operations.” Any terminology now rooted in convention would be confusing. Asymmetrical? The meaning of that adjective is “unbalanced,” which carries the wrong connotation; besides, the term has been taken...

Hillary Clinton was for the war on terror including in Iraq, before she had to become against it to attract her Code Pink feminazi core for a White House bid. Barack Obama says he would have been against it from the start, had he been out of his political diapers at the time those tough decisions had to be made. Both are running on ideological hindsight and campaign rhetoric. But 300 million Americans expected President Bush alone to make certain that there would be no second 9/11. He has done just that, no matter how politically uncomfortable leftists have made...

An epochal shift in the immemorial cycle of war is under way, writes retired major general Robert H. Scales, the former commandant of the Army War College. The infantry is back. America’s enemies have learned that they can’t win blitzkrieg- age wars, so they no longer fight them. They have moved the battlefields to cities, jungles, and mountains, where the U.S. military’s techno log­ically superior ma chines are ineffective. “The enemy chooses to fight as infantry because he can win the infantry fight,” Scales says, and America’s experience in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that the nation has no choice but...

Back in 2006 (I believe) a video was posted (I though on Hot Air) that explained the whole Iraq war strategy in a single 4 or 5 minute clip. I featured jihadi's rushing to Iraq because they felt it was the central battle of the War on Terror. And a Map explaining how Iraq was in the key strategic position in the Middle east bordering 6 other strategically important Mid-East States. I just can't recall enough to find it and I need it for a presentation.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must have Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other cut-and-run liberal members of the U.S. Congress as his military advisors. What else explains his dismal performance in Basra, where he retreated from his raids against Shiite militants after anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr merely hinted retaliation if Iraqi security forces continued to arrest his many followers? Before his assault on the city, al-Maliki issued an “ultimatum” to Shiite militias to disarm. “Any gunman who does not do that will be an outlaw,” he said. Shortly after, he softened his rhetoric and offered money to militants who turned...

BISMARCK – Sen. Hillary Clinton’s decision to speak in Grand Forks Friday, within hours of rival Sen. Barack Obama’s address to North Dakota Democrats, may lie with the party’s nonbinding Feb. 5 caucus results, some Democrats say. Or it could just be that she’s pleasing supporters who have been asking her to come here “for weeks and weeks and weeks,” another said. Or maybe it has more to do with Obama and Clinton both realizing they will reach thousands of Democrats in three states in a little more than 24 hours in a swing through the Dakotas and its western...

Her only hope of getting the key committee to vote out a “majority report” supporting her position rests on her ability to persuade an as-yet-undetermined number of the 25 members appointed to the committee by party Chairman Howard Dean to cast votes for her position. The DNC’s Credentials Committee consists of 144 pledged members (Florida and Michigan are not included) plus the 25 party leaders and elected officials appointed by Dean. The 25 Dean appointees include a mix of Dean loyalists, Obama supporters and at least several individuals who have endorsed Clinton. "If the formal process of seating a delegation...

Barack Obama says: “John McCain is determined to carry out four more years of George Bush’s failed policies.” Obama is a politician, so it’s normal that he’d choose to repeat the lines that some of his followers want to hear. But before people buy that argument, I’d ask them to read three speeches.--snip--...he signaled that the foreign policy debate of the coming months will be very different from the one of the past six years. Anybody who thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention.

On April 11, 2007, Arizona Senator John McCain gave a major speech on the Iraq War at the Virginia Military Institute. When he took the stage at VMI, the Iraq troop surge had yet to be fully implemented. Some questioned whether McCain's strong and early support for President Bush's surge policy – labeled by some the "McCain Surge" as result of the senator's early advocacy of the tactic – when the American people were becoming dissatisfied with the country's involvement in Iraq would doom his presidential campaign. During the speech, McCain addressed this criticism head on. "Will this nation's elected...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here is Bud in Burlington, Indiana. Bud, thanks for waiting, and welcome. CALLER: ... Indiana. Anyway Rush -- RUSH: Wait, what did I say? CALLER: I don't... I couldn't understand, but it was actually communist Bloomington Indiana. So... (silence) Are you still there? RUSH: Yeah, I'm here. CALLER: Anyway, I'd like to really quickly thank you for two things. First off, unlike the so-called moderates who called in yesterday complaining about your recommendation for Republicans voting in Democrat primaries -- RUSH: Yes? CALLER: -- I want to thank you, because I don't know if you're aware of...

The Washington Post reports that John McCain's unexpected rise from the politically dead has created a big problem for the Democrats. They saw an opportunity to win the presidency by turning the interior West into a blue zone, using the Hispanic vote to overwhelm the GOP in one of its traditional strongholds. McCain has thrown a wrench into those plans, and Barack Obama may also present a problem: For Democrats, 2008 was supposed to be the year of the Mountain West, when three years of relentless Republican attacks on undocumented immigrants would fuel a backlash among Hispanics that would change...

How Republicans Can Win Monday, January 7, 2008 9:29 AM By: John L. Perry Article Font Size Two possibilities for saving the Republican Party loom large in 2008: Pick a candidate who can realign both parties. Do it in a brokered convention. Sounds impossible? Not at all. In fact, there is a better likelihood of both things happening this year than in any presidential-election year since 1980, when Ronald Reagan sculpted his revolutionary coalition of social, economic, and national-security conservatives. He did it by showing enough independents and “Reagan Democrats” that their best interests lay in a political party led...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2008 – The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is sound and can work, but the challenge lies in executing that strategy and sustaining success over time, a Defense Department official told Congress today. James Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in response to two recent reports that contend the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan needs to be fundamentally changed. Shinn described the strategy in Afghanistan as one of clearing, holding and building. The coalition has done very well in the clearing aspect of the strategy, he said,...

Folks, there still may be a slim chance to force a deadlocked convention. I'm no election math wizard, but I believe it's still mathematically possible for McCain to NOT receive the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination. But it would require a great turnout of passionate conservative voters in the remaining primary states to accomplish. The trick would be for all remaining primary conservative voters to vote for their favorite candidate as if he were still in the race. Fred's name is still on the ballot. So is Hunter's and Romney's. Shoot, vote for Huckabee, Paul or even...

Memo to Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike Pence of Indiana, and John Thune of South Dakota, and perhaps to Butch Otter of Idaho, too: It's time for you gentlemen to run for president. Yes, of the United States. Yes, this year. Here's the situation: Mainstream conservatives are being routed in this year's presidential contests. And if John McCain or, less likely, Mike Huckabee goes into the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis with a first-ballot majority, the conservative movement will be completely shut out of a general election presidential campaign for the first time since 1976. For the movement that has...

Judging from his campaign schedule and media reports, it appears the Romney campaign has decided to cut paid media, dial back any last-minute campaigning in South Carolina, and try to survive a likely third-place finish there by winning Saturday's Nevada caucus. It's an understandable move, but a risky one that may prove to be a big strategic mistake in the overall race. First, it means Romney must now win Nevada. He is favored there - he's well organized and southern Nevada has a large LDS population - but you never know for sure in a caucus. Second, by pulling back...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2008 – President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq, announced one year ago today during a televised speech to the nation, is accomplishing many of its goals and laying important groundwork for initiatives yet to be fulfilled, military and defense officials agree. Bush unveiled the strategy amid growing sectarian violence that he acknowledged had overwhelmed Iraqis’ political gains and created an “unacceptable” situation in Iraq. The plan called for more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops on the ground in Baghdad and Anbar province, increased responsibility for the Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces, and more diplomatic and...

Hillary Clinton stands behind no Democratic presidential candidate in her scorn for George W. Bush – but that isn’t stopping her from implementing Mr. Bush’s 2000 primary strategy. In one notable consequence of the front-loaded 2008 political calendar, she implemented it before the New Hampshire primary, not after. Recall that in 2000, John McCain smashed Mr. Bush in New Hampshire by dominating the votes of independents. But Mr. Bush wore down Mr. McCain in subsequent contests with a two-pronged strategy. He co-opted the Arizona senator’s “reform” mantra by calling himself the reformer who would actually produce results, and sharply criticized...

This is a story about success and failure. It is a story about Iraq, and of something much bigger than Iraq. It is, perhaps, a small look into what makes victory, and defeat. It is a tale of infantrymen, of brave soldiers in dusty alleys a world away. It is a story of generals and strategies, too. But to understand our newfound success there, to know perhaps a little of how we achieved it and most importantly, how to keep it, we need to move away from that Mesopotamian desert and those boots on the ground, and back to a...

A New Direction in Homeland Security? by: Bethany Stotts, October 16, 2007 At the inception of the Department of Homeland Security, the DHS was presented with what national security specialist and Vice President of the Center for National Policy (CNP) Scott Bates termed a “herculean task,” the duty to synthesize a “pandemic of plans” into a cohesive, comprehensive national security strategy. The Bush Administration has issued two such strategies. However, some national security experts question whether the newest strategy publication marks a real change in national policy. “I think to call [National Strategy for Homeland Security] a strategy is really...

If ever there was a clearer example of selective reporting and bias by the media, here is the best example to date. The left is translating and selectively quoting LTG (Ret) Ricardo Sanchez' comments during the October 12 Military Reporters and Editors Luncheon in Washington D.C. "Former top general rips Bush’s Iraq policy" is not exactly what happened here, yet if you were to accept their editorializing, that's what many are going to come away with. See a pattern? So what did General Sanchez say, and what did he mean by it? Let me take a stab at it...

New Maritime Strategy by: Nirmala Punnusami, October 09, 2007 A two-day conference entitled, “A New Maritime Strategy” at The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on September 26, 2007, organized by The Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, hosted a multiplicity of panelists, many in uniform, who spoke about several crucial issues, ranging from rationale for a new maritime strategy to the need for developing critical skills for naval personnel to meet 21st century challenges. The Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Plans and Strategy from the United States Navy, Vice Admiral John C. Morgan Jr. set the...

President Bush has endorsed General David Petraeus's recommendation to begin withdrawing 30,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer. Yet the drawdown would only restore troop levels to where they were before the surge began in January 2007. In the final months of 2006, debate in Washington centered on how fast a reduction from pre-surge levels could occur. The Iraq Study Group recommended that approximately half of the 130,000 troops then in Iraq be withdrawn by early 2008. In marked contrast to that and similar proposals, President Bush is now endorsing a step that would mean a return to the...

...In recent speeches, Thompson has also indicated a distaste for traditional position papers and policy stances. "To me there are a lot of issues," he said dismissively to the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference on Saturday in Indianapolis. "Goodness knows we are not deprived of issues or solutions that people have." Instead, he has called for a focus on what he terms "first principles." His speeches have identified three: a tough stance on national security, the will to control federal spending, and a limited role for the federal government. As he tested the waters in recent months, Thompson largely avoided sustained...

NOTE: I have never told the Hillary campaign that I am not a Democrat. I am on their email list and received the invitation you see below. So, I went. It is good to see what the enemy is doing. Here is their playbook for training people called "Hillstars" in California. They are going to use it across the country. The book is not copyrighted. I never signed a non-disclosure document. HERE IS A SCAN OF THEIR PLAYBOOK. It is a brilliant strategy. I have been warning you that her organization is like nothing ever before seen. These cockroaches have...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton Thursday warned that a US withdrawal from Iraq must not duplicate the "arrogance and incompetence" she said marred the 2003 invasion. Senator Clinton was joined by defeated 2004 Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry to introduce a bill requiring the Pentagon to keep Congress informed about contingency planning to safely withdraw 160,000 US troops. "We must not redeploy out of Iraq with the same combination of arrogance and incompetence with which the Bush administration exhibited deploying into Iraq," Clinton told reporters. "We did not have a smart plan to go in, but we...

WASHINGTON - The White House is rethinking its diplomatic options in Iraq, but won't reconsider its military strategy before an assessment from war commanders is presented in September, U.S. officials said Tuesday. President Bush's top war advisers, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute and Stephen Hadley, went to Capitol Hill to assure Republican supporters that a precipitate pullout of troops won't happen. Sens. Trent Lott of Mississippi, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona, Jon Kyl of Arizona and others met with the two advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office off the Senate floor. Graham said members were told...

There is a lot we don't know about Iran. "Neo-Cons to plot Iran strategy amid Caribbean luxury." Thus did an Internet sleuth describe a conference convened late last month in the Bahamas by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies--a think tank so sinisterly right-wing that its board of advisers includes Donna Brazile and Chuck Schumer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush unveiled a long-term strategy on climate change on Thursday, with plans to gather the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases and set a global emissions goal. Bush would also cut tariff barriers to sharing environmental technology as part of a strategy announced as he prepared to attend a Group of Eight summit in Germany next weekly likely to be dominated by addressing global climate change. The U.S. strategy calls for consensus on long-term goals for reducing the greenhouse gases that spur global warming, but not before the end of 2008, White House...

"But what we still don't - and won't - have is a constant presence in the streets." Wrong. What we don't have is someone who understands political and military strategy. We are in the third phase of this war. 1. Calculations were correct at the start of the war. 2. War was won in three weeks. 3. US must now pressure militarily the nations that support terror.

Monday's events brought that impact home starkly. On the one hand, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad came as the US wages a seemingly last-ditch attempt to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. On the other hand, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's performance at the Natanz nuclear installation where he said, "With great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," indicated that he for one, does not believe he has anything to worry about from America.

Baghdad, 7 May (AKI) - Al Qaeda in Iraq is involved in developping new arms and using new techniques to carry out its terrorist attacks, according to sources within the Iraqi insurgency, quoted by the Egyptian Islamic press agency al-Naba. According to the agency's internet site, after creating new missiles able to strike US combat helicopters with greater precision, the al-Qaeda network is seeking new methods, different from the characteristic suicide attacks or car bombs. Last week a cell of al-Qaeda active in Kurdistan reportedly tried for the first time to use a remote-controlled aircraft to carry out an attack,...

Here is a video summarize of the conclusions of US Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, commander of the entire US army in 1898, about his researchs on the legendary Battle of the Little Big Horn. On June 25 1876, General Custer divided his forces (647 men) in three batallions to confront 1'500 Indian warriors. One was completely destroyed, it was Custer's. Two survived with 10% of casulaties, it was Major Reno's and Captain Benteen's batallions. No Inquiry was asked after the disaster and, 131 years after the battle, there are still doubts about who was guilty, and who made mistakes....

<p>THE SENATE and the House have both passed bills for ending the Iraq War, or at least liquidating the American involvement in it. The resolutions, approved by the barest majorities, were underpinned by one unmistakable theme: wrong war, wrong place, distracting us from the real war that is elsewhere.</p>

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2007 – An arbitrary U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would tell al Qaeda’s leaders they’ve been right all along and would embolden the terror organization to launch more audacious attacks against the United States, Vice President Richard B. Cheney said last night. In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition Leadership in Manalapan, Fla., Cheney said some people believe pulling out of Iraq before the country can fend for itself would strengthen the hand of the United States in the war on terror. “This myth is dangerous because it represents a complete validation of the al Qaeda...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15, 2007 – Success against terrorism in Afghanistan is important to U.S. security, and the administration has key areas it will be working on to improve the situation there, President Bush said here today. In an address to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Bush said action in Afghanistan will include strengthening NATO forces and bolstering local governments. The president identified five areas the United States will focus on in Afghanistan: increasing the size and capability of the Afghan security forces; strengthening NATO forces; improving provincial governance and the economy; reversing the increase in poppy...

BAGHDAD — Basing Iraqi Army and U.S. troops at an outpost in central Ghazaliya is a first in the Iraqi capital. Combat Outpost (COP) “Casino” has been operating for the past two weeks with Soldiers from Company C, Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment. Being based in Ghazaliya has seen its share of success stories. Just days after moving in, Cpl. Peter Callahan, a medic, saved the life of a 4-year-old girl who was brought in by her family with a pulse below 40 beats per minute. After checking her wounds and giving her initial aid, Soldiers evacuated the girl and her...

The coalition of the enemies of freedom has growing power around the world. Its leaders are increasingly bold in hostility to the United States. America is faced with two hard paths in Iraq. We can accept defeat and try to rebuild our position in the region while accommodating these enemies of freedom in Iraq -- sadistic inflictors of atrocities will have defeated both millions of Iraqis who voted self government and the American people who supported them. (or)we can insist on defeating our enemies and the enemies of the Iraqi people by developing strategies and implementing mechanisms necessary to force...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1, 2007 – President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq can work and set the conditions for the Iraqi government to deal with sectarian and ethnic divisions that are hurting the country’s fledgling democracy, the top U.S. general in Iraq said here today. The new strategy is really an enhancement of the previous policy and retains a strong focus on transferring responsibility to Iraqi security forces, which is the key to success, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of Multinational Force Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing to become Army chief of...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - After this week's deadly violence in Lebanon, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah finds itself in a corner. It remains determined to unseat the U.S.-backed government, but if it pushes too hard, it could be blamed for throwing the country into civil war. It now faces the question of whether to reconsider its strategy of street protests that have sparked the violence. A senior Hezbollah official said Friday the Shiite movement was studying what steps to take next. "Things have taken a dangerous turn," said Mahmoud Komati, who blamed "government militias" for the violence, saying they were using guns in...

Antoine Henri De Jomini:The Art of War eBook The art of war, independently of its political and moral relations, consists of five principal parts, viz.: Strategy, Grand Tactics, Logistics, Tactics of the different arms, and the Art of the Engineer. We will treat of the first three branches, and begin by defining them. Written by: Antoine Henri De Jomini, Horace E. Cocroft (Commentary), G. H. Mendell (Translator), W. P. Craighill (Translator) Book Description "In 1991, General Norman Schwarzkopf drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait using several specific strategies. Schwarzkopf established a temporary supply base in the Saudi Arabian desert to...

U.S. Military Adjustments for “Long War” Lagging Reality; Further Adjustments Needed By John E. Carey January 12, 2007Just less than a year ago, of February 3, 2006, then U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world.He said he had come to refer to this struggle as “the long war.”“Compelled by a militant ideology that celebrates murder and suicide...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2007 – Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee today he believes President Bush’s new Iraq strategy will succeed. “I am of conviction that this military plan – properly part of the new political emphasis and new economic plus-up – can provide the success we are looking for,” Pace told the representatives. The chairman joined Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in detailing to the committee the military aspects of the plan President Bush unveiled last night. Pace said the plan, which calls for more than...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2007 – President Bush visited Fort Benning, Ga., today to share thoughts on his new strategy for the war in Iraq with the soldiers there, but not before offering them his praise. “Everywhere the warriors from this base serve, you leave your mark, and I believe it will be a legacy of hope and of freedom and peace,” he said. Fort Benning is home to the U.S. Army Infantry School. Bush acknowledged the situation in Iraq is difficult and much different than he’d anticipated it would be at this point. Failure, however, is not an option,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2007 – President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq will hinge on the Iraqi government and security forces stepping up and making decisions they have avoided, a senior White House official said today. White House communications director Dan Bartlett, speaking on Fox News Channel this morning, said Iraqi leaders have pledged to make these decisions. The new strategy, which the president will outline during a televised address tonight, will require a short-term increase in U.S. troops and support to the Iraqi government. “But ultimately, the new strategy President Bush is going to talk about tonight is going...