Free Republic

WASHINGTON: The United States will begin formal talks with the Taliban, including the Haqqani network, in Doha, Qatar, in a couple of days, Obama administration officials said in a major announcement on Tuesday. The engagement, the first of its kind since the post 9/11 conflict, follows key concessions made by Washington, including dropping the pre-condition that Taliban immediately break ties with al-Qaida, in return for much broader, generic, self-serving commitments by the unyielding terrorist group. In a conference call from Northern Ireland where President Obama is attending the G8 summit, US officials said they expected Taliban to issue a statement...

June 18, 2013 Benghazi Whistleblower Lawyer Says Joint Chief’s Chairman Lied to Congress Fred Lucas (CNSNews.com) – An attorney whose firm represents two Benghazi whistleblowers said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lied to the Senate when he said there was never a “stand down” order during the Benghazi attack on Sept. 11, 2012. “What was fascinating is that he explained his lie to them,” Joe DiGenova, an attorney representing one of the whistleblowers, told CNSNews.com. “He actually said they were sent to Tripoli. They were needed in Benghazi,” said DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney, now...

Tehran Times reports....President Shimon Peres. Speaking exclusively to the Daily Telegraph in an interview published on Tuesday, adds Tehran Times, Peres said Israel has no natural antipathy towards Iran. Asked if Iran and Israel could ever have direct negotiations with each other, he replied, “Why not? The citizens of Iran are not our enemies.” President Peres is considered a global visionary of peace.

And, he’s quick to add, so should every other president of the past century. A fun clip for many reasons. One: Because Ayers is such a far-left caricature, you can bait him all day long knowing to a virtual certainty what his responses will be. The two RCP guys can’t suppress their smirks at how easy it is. There’s a 99 percent chance that he’s going to call O a war criminal and a one percent chance that he’s going to betray his anti-war ethos by defending O’s drone policy out of pure personal loyalty. Either way, it’s news. Two:...

(Reuters) - Rebels fought to halt an advance by President Bashar al-Assad's forces into northern Syria on Monday while U.S. President Barack Obama faced a showdown with Russia's Vladimir Putin over Obama's decision last week to arm the insurgents.New evidence emerged of escalating foreign support for the rebels, with a Gulf source telling Reuters that Saudi Arabia had equipped fighters for the first time with shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, their most urgent request. Rebels said Riyadh had also sent them anti-tank missiles.European nations backing the rebels would "pay the price" if they joined those sending weapons to Syria, President Bashar al-Assad...

Bomb plots targeting the New York Stock Exchange and the city's subway were among more than 50 worldwide thwarted by top-secret surveillance programs since the al Qaeda attacks on the United States, authorities said on Tuesday. Gen. Keith Alexander, National Security Agency director, FBI and other officials revealed startling details at a House Intelligence Committee hearing aimed at finding out more about the telephone and e-mail surveillance initiatives that came to light this month through leaks of classified information to newspapers. It was the most comprehensive and specific defense of those methods that have come under ferocious criticism from civil...

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the New York Police Department over its surveillance of Muslim communities, accusing the police of trampling on religious freedoms and constitutional guarantees of equality. The surveillance by the NYPD's intelligence division has extended beyond New York City's five boroughs into neighboring New Jersey and other nearby states. The police department says that surveillance of Muslims is legal under an earlier federal court order. The lawsuit is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle between the NYPD and civil liberties advocates over the department's aggressive policing tactics - including...

David Stockman is no stranger to what he calls the U.S. military-industrial-security complex. He tried to cut--not just trim--the defense budget during his tenure as director of the White House Budget Office under President Reagan but met stiff resistance from the White House as well as the defense establishment. Now, following revelations about the NSA’s expansive surveillance program of phone calls and emails, Stockman says the U.S. “military-industrial-security complex is a clear and present danger.” He tells Aaron Task in the accompanying video that Edward Snowden, the former CIA contractor who disclosed the NSA surveillance program, is “heroic” and “has...

The Taliban said they were opening an office in Qatar to start peace talks with the Afghan government and revive talks with the U.S., taking an important step toward ending a conflict that has dragged on for over a decade.

(audio transcript @ 1:15) Q: Isn't Barack Obama, as the sole authority for drone use, engaged in terrorist activity? Ayers: Absolutely! Absolutely! Q: So what's the response? Ayers: To oppose it...to stand up in noisy opposition. Q: Do you think Barack Obama should be put on trial for war crimes? Ayers: Absolutely. Every president in this century should be put on trial...every one of them. Q: For war crimes? Ayers: For war crimes! Absolutely! Q: In the Hague? Ayers: Absolutely. Every one of them goes into office, an office dripping with blood, and adds to it. And yes I think...

Up next: ‘USian’? Obama has a message for you if you are a ‘US person’ Posted at 9:50 am on June 18, 2013 by Twitchy Staff Heads up, AP. In an interview that aired Monday night, President Obama signaled his apparent desire for another Stylebook rewrite. Yep, another term sacrificed on the oh-so-inclusive altar of progressive Newspeak. So … what, pray tell, is a “U.S. person� anyway? It must mean something since President Citizen of the World said it more than once during the interview with Charlie Rose. What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S....

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has issued a stern warning to the ringleader of al-Qaeda against the terrorist group’s further intervention in Syria. Sadr said Monday that Ayman al-Zawahiri needs to stay away from Syria’s affairs and allow Sunnis and Alawites to live peacefully in Syria as they always did. He condemned al-Qaeda’s killing of Muslims and said the group and its extremist ways have no place in Islamic nations.

Al-Qaeda's north African branch confirmed that one of its top leaders, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, was killed in fighting in Mali, three months after France announced his death, according to a statement published Sunday. Algerian-born Abou Zeid, considered one of the most radical leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was killed "on the battlefield defending Umma (the Muslim community) and sharia law," according to a statement carried by the private Mauritanian news agency ANI. It gave no date for his death. Paris had announced in March that Abou Zeid was killed in fighting with its forces after France led...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said if he were president, he would have intervened in Syria much sooner than President Obama did to identify the “reasonable” rebels opposed to the regime of President Basher Assad. “It behooved us to kind of identify whether there was any elements there within Syria fighting against Assad that we could work with—reasonable people that wouldn’t carry out human rights violations and could be part of building a new Syria. We failed to do that,” Rubio told Jonathan Karl on ABC News’ “This Week.” … Obama announced this week that the Assad regime had crossed the...

The Mideast: The president opposed arming the Syrian rebels last year on the grounds the arms could find their way into Islamist hands. This year he's changed his mind — but the rebels haven't changed their Islamist spots. One would have thought that the decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war, a conflict in which the U.S. has no clear strategic interest, would have been announced by President Obama, sans golf garb, sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, and not by Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. One would also have...

The idea of a Palestinian state has run its course and Israel must seek another solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, Economics Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) said Monday, joining a growing number of coalition members who have recently expressed firm opposition to the two-state solution. “The idea of forming a Palestinian state in Israel has reached a dead end,” Bennett said at a meeting of the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of Jewish communities in the West Bank. Never in the history of the Jewish people has so much energy been invested in “something so pointless,” and “we...

If you’re like me, you’ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the constant mention of “the rebels” in reports about Syria, without much context about who they are. It reminds me of some 1980s action movie in which generic “rebels” serve as some sort of MacGuffin for the hero to blow stuff up. Now that President Obama has decided to arm the rebels, it’s even more imperative that Americans have a good idea of the different rebel groups in Syria, which unfortunately are dominated by Islamists. Today, the Wall Street Journal reports: The move is an about-face by Mr. Obama, who last...

President Barack Obama used a television interview set to air Monday night to defend his administration’s use of far-reaching surveillance programs as carefully supervised and controlled. Obama also appeared to reject comparisons between himself and Vice President Dick Cheney, who strongly backed similar surveillance efforts in the George W. Bush administration and has defended Obama’s continuation of national security-related programs similar in many respects to those pursued by the previous administration.

June 17, 2013 Obama assassination bid fears - aircraft carriers on standby off Irish coast during G8 summit @Press Eye Ltd Northern Ireland - 17th June 2013 - Mandatory Credit - Brian Little/ Presseye --- Culture Minister Carl N Chuiln and Minister for Education, John O'Dowd MLA waiting for US President Barack Obama during his visit to the Waterfront Hall, Belfast ahead of the G8 Summit in County Fermanagh. ..It is understood that a contingency plan is in place for the unlikely event that an attempt would be made on the President’s life. The Secret Service also have diplomatic immunity...

An al Qaeda video posted online in late May and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) shows masked Muslim teenage boys undergoing military training and indoctrination at an al Qaeda camp inside Syria. The video shows the teenagers shooting handguns at a large photo of Syrian leader Bashar al-Asad. It also shows them stating that their leader is Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (the head of al Qaeda in Iraq), and then singing joyfully of their desire to overthrow both Asad and his sister Bushra, of the valor of al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and of al...

Iran’s newly elected president showcased his reform-leaning image Monday by promising a “path of moderation” that includes greater openness on Tehran’s nuclear program and overtures to Washington. He also made clear where he draws the line: No halt to uranium enrichment and no direct U.S. dialogue without a pledge to stay out of Iranian affairs. Hasan Rowhani’s first post-victory news conference was a study in what may make his presidency tick. Rowhani may be hailed as a force for change, but he also appears to carry a deep and self-protective streak of pragmatism. He knows he can only push his...

Hassan Rohani, Iran's new President, is being termed a “moderate” in Western media, but it appears that his moderation stops when it comes to Israel. In his first speech as Iran's new leader, Rohani quickly launched into a diatribe against Israel, blaming the Jewish state for Iran's economic problems. Those problems largely have their roots in the sanctions imposed by the West on Iran, the result of the previous government's refusal to allow international inspectors into some of its nuclear facilities, and its insistence at enriching uranium at a level that would allow Tehran to build nuclear weapons. Western countries...

Battered by scandals surrounding security failures in Benghazi and allegations of criminal activity by diplomats, the State Department is taking over the sensitive process by which background checks are given to locals hired to work at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the largest and most expensive diplomatic post in the world. The process is presently handled by a private security company contracted to the Pentagon. But a recently circulated contract solicitation indicates that the firm conducting the vetting — and the budget for the process — is being shifted to the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. ... Despite more...

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld of the New York-based American Center for Democracy's Economic Warfare Institute warns that last July "al-Qaeda's English-language online magazine, Inspire, published an article called 'It Is of Your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb,' which featured instructions on how to build an incendiary bomb to light forests on fire. "A few months later, Russia's security (FSB) chief, Aleksandr Bortnikov warned, 'al-Qaeda was complicit in recent forest fires in Europe' as part of the terrorists' 'strategy of a thousand cuts.' Bortnikov spoke of 'extremist sites [that] contained detailed instructions of waging the forest jihad and stressed that such a...

Iran will deploy 4,000 Revolutionary Guards to Syria to bolster Damascus against a mostly Sunni-led insurgency, media reported. Meanwhile, US F-16s and Patriots will stay in Jordan – speculatively, to help establish a no-fly zone to aid Syrian rebels. The deployment of the first several-thousand strong military contingent was reported by The Independent on Sunday who quoted Iranian sources tied to the state’s security apparatus. The sources said the move signals Iran’s intention to drastically step up its efforts to preserve the government of President Bashar Assad. The Islamic Republic’s heightened military commitment could reportedly extend to the opening up...

The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister Rami Hamdallah on Sunday became the first PA premier to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, AFP reports. “Jerusalem is a symbol of the Palestinian question,” Hamdallah was quoted as having told the official WAFA news agency. “Our visit today shows how important Jerusalem is to the Palestinian government.” … The Al-Aqsa mosque is located on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Jerusalem which was left in the hands of the Waqf following Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967. Arabs continuously make false accusations that Israel is “Judaizing” the Temple Mount, sometimes...

Iran’s new president will find a partner in the United States if he comes clean on the Islamic Republic’s controversial nuclear program, a senior White House official said Sunday, according to the AFP news agency. Hassan Rowhani, who is considered a “moderate”, was elected as Iran’s new president Friday, ending eight years of a conservative grip on the office marked by tension with the West over Tehran’s atomic drive. “If he is interested in… mending Iran’s relations with the rest of the world, there's an opportunity to do that,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was quoted as having...

The Muslim world is keeping the centuries old “matzah blood libel” alive and well—even in Egypt, with which Israel has a peace treaty. The libel that Jews use the blood of non-Jews to make matzah for Passover originated in 1144 with the fabricated story of William of Norwich, England. The Arabs continue to use this libel, and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has translated and posted a television interview with an Egyptian lawmaker who chose to disseminate this false accusation. Khaled Al-Zaafrani, founder of the Egyptian Justice and Progress Party, made the comments in the interview which aired...

Countries in Africa and the Middle East are a greater threat than old nuclear facilities in former Soviet republics as sources of material for a “dirty bomb,” US officials say. “In north Africa and the Middle East you have terrorist organizations, unstable governments, in some cases actual civil conflict and lack of control over sovereign territory. In the former Soviet Union we still have remaining challenges, but we are dealing with relatively stable governments with which we have a history of engagement,” Simon Limage, a non-proliferation specialist at the US state department, told EUobserver. His colleague in the US department...

British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering Monday for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms, and draw inspiration from the host country’s ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict. … Referring to Northern Ireland’s ability to leave behind a four-decade conflict that claimed 3,700 lives, he said leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations should be inspired by the setting—the lush lakelands of County Fermanagh—to deliver their own economic breakthrough. … Obama, seizing on that theme, was beginning his trip in the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast, where he’s...

So this is what democracy looks like in a theocratic dictatorship. Iran's presidential campaign season kicked off last month when an unelected body of 12 Islamic jurists disqualified more than 600 candidates. Women were automatically out; so were Iranian Christians, Jews and even Sunni Muslims. The rest, including a former president, were purged for possessing insufficient revolutionary zeal. Eight regime loyalists made it onto the ballots. One emerged victorious on Saturday. That man is Hassan Rohani, a 64-year-old cleric, former nuclear negotiator and security apparatchik. Western journalists quickly hailed the "moderate" and "reformist" Mr. Rohani. The New York Times's Tehran...

Video: interview - Part 1Video: interview - Part 2Article: Cheney defends NSA programs, says Snowden a 'traitor,' Obama 'lacks credibility'

House approach on Benghazi: Crazy — or plain stupid? By: Fred J. Eckert June 16, 2013 09:52 PM EDT Sometimes watching Speaker John Boehner and his House Republican “leadership” team in action calls to mind that scene from “Forrest Gump” in which Bubba’s mother looks incredulously at Forrest and asks: “Are you crazy — or just plain stupid?” More than six months ago, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) introduced a proposal to create a House Select Committee on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, a select committee being generally regarded as the best way to ensure an intelligent, well-coordinated, bipartisan investigation without...

There are many religious and political forums being held across America and around the world for the purpose of attempting to foster understanding, and create an environment of tolerance, between Christians, Jews and Muslims. I am definitely a proponent of the need to understand one another and I am particularly keen on the need to understand those who adhere to the Islamic faith. In order for Christians and Jews (and the West in general) to safely co-exist with Muslims, we must possess more than a surface, or media-generated, knowledge of Islamic culture and ideology. What I have observed coming from...

Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists. The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits. She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father.

Misfeasance: While the IRS was hassling any nonprofit group with the word "patriot" in its name, it was rubberstamping exemptions for "Islamic" groups, even organizations that violate disclosure laws. Worse, it was even finding favor with nonprofits tied to terrorism — namely, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which not coincidentally is yoked to the Democratic Party. Despite being blackballed by the FBI, which still suspects it's fronting for Hamas, and despite failing to file annual tax reports as required by federal law, CAIR apparently has found friends in high places at the nation's powerful taxing authority. Last year, in...

The United Nations has long been a cesspool of hostility towards the United States, Israel, and freedom more generally. It is dominated by those who promote and protect our enemies’ interests, while undermining ours. Worse yet, we pay much of the UN’s budget. Past presidents have responded to this travesty by sending ambassadors to the UN who unapologetically challenged that agenda. In particular, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and John Bolton were proud of our country and tirelessly championed its values. It is, therefore, a particularly repugnant irony that President Obama wants to entrust Dr. Kirkpatrick’s former post to Samantha...

Vid at link

Syria calls U.S. charge of chemical weapons use 'lies' The Syrian government Friday called White House allegations that it has used chemical weapons in the country's civil war "full of lies," according to state media reports. Syria's Foreign Ministry instead blamed such attacks on "terrorist" groups, the term it uses to refer to the opposition.

(CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned Sunday whether his country's supplying of arms to Syria's government was any worse than putting weapons in the hands of rebels who have mutilated bodies, referencing a widely circulated video that purports to show a rebel fighter eating what appears to be the heart of a dead Syrian soldier. Putin's comments signaled clear disapproval of a U.S. plan to increase military support to Syrian rebels, and they came just one day before he was to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama for talks at the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland, where...

CAIRO (AP) -- Under Hosni Mubarak's rule, Egypt's authorities took a tough line on Egyptians coming home after waging "jihad" in places like Afghanistan, Chechnya or the Balkans, fearing they would bring back extremist ideology, combat experience and a thirst for regime change. In most cases, they were imprisoned and tortured. But after Mubarak's overthrow and his replacement by an elected Islamist president, jihad has gained a degree of legitimacy in Egypt, and the country has become a source of fighters heading to the war in Syria. Egyptian militants are known to have been travelling to Syria to fight alongside...

As Britain readies to host the G8 summit, the documents uncovered by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed that back in 2009 US spies intercepted top-secret communication of then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, during his visit to London. The shocking news has been broken by The Guardian which has seen the documents. It also revealed that a UK intelligence agency, GCHQ, monitored foreign politicians and intercepted their emails during the 2009 G20 summit held in the British capital. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by UK intelligence agencies to read their email traffic....

The Syrian rebels are “cannibals” and should not be given arms, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. "I think you will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines, in front of the public and cameras," Putin said at a joint press conference in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron. Putin was referring to video footage posted on the Internet last month of a rebel fighter eating the heart of a government soldier. "Is it them who you want to...

Ankara, Turkey (CNN) -- A funeral procession for a slain protester turned into chaos Sunday in Ankara as Turkish riot police used water cannons and tear gas to try to disperse rock-throwing demonstrators. In Istanbul, the sound of residents banging pots and pans together echoed down the streets as another face-off between police and anti-government protesters played out. The sound came from the buildings around Taksim Square and the adjacent Gezi Park, which authorities had cleared by force on Saturday. Thousands of demonstrators calling for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's resignation attempted to return to the square and park Sunday,...

That buildup has been going on for some time. For the past two years, the government opposition in Syria has been getting aid from the U.S., which has smuggled surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weaponry into Syria through Turkey. Along with arms, the U.S. has supplied fighters for the conflict, drawing mainly from al-Qaida-linked militias in Libya and elsewhere. This operation was at the root of the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the ambassador and three other Americans. The Obama Administration has been working to cover up the facts about Benghazi not just because of the glaring incompetence of...

American taxpayers are funding a war against Christianity, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said Thursday during an address made at a popular Washington, DC conservative conference. Appealing to a crowd at this week’s Faith and Freedom Conference in the nation’s capital, Sen. Paul said changes need to be made with regards to the expansive foreign aid being spent by the United States to fund countries he claims are critical of the most popular religion in the US. "There is a war on Christianity," Paul said. "Not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide. And your government, or more correctly,...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that world leaders should neither be fooled by the results of Friday’s election in Iran nor be encouraged to let up pressure regarding the country’s nuclear program. Iranian President-elect Hasan Rowhani is being widely described as a “moderate,” a description Netanyahu took issue with in his first public reaction to the election. Netanyahu Warns Let Us Not Delude Ourselves About the Moderate New Iranian Leader Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the weekly cabinet meeting on June 16, 2013 in Jerusalem. Netanyahu said the world should keep up pressure on Iran to...

The White House on Sunday defended its approach to the Syrian conflict as Republicans launched fresh accusations that the Obama administration is doing too little and has moved too slowly to aid rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad. “We have to be very discerning about what's in our interest and what outcome is best for us, and the prices that we're willing to pay to get to that place,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “We've rushed to war in this region in the past. We're not going to do it here,”...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama does not believe the recently disclosed top-secret National Security Agency surveillance of phone records and Internet data has violated Americans' privacy rights, his chief of staff said on Sunday. The administration has said the top-secret collection of massive amounts of "metadata" from phone calls - raw information that does not identify individual telephone subscribers, was legal and authorized by Congress in the interests of thwarting militant attacks. It has said the agencies did not monitor calls. Asked whether Obama feels he has violated the privacy of Americans, McDonough said, "He does not."

The surprising victory of a reformist candidate in Iran’s presidential election has put Israel in a difficult position as it tries to halt the Iranian nuclear program: With Hasan Rowhani likely to enjoy an international honeymoon, Israel could have a hard time rallying support for new sanctions—or possible military action—against its arch-foe, even as it says the clock is ticking on Tehran’s march toward nuclear weapons. The uncertainty facing Israel was evident Sunday in the reactions among its leaders, who welcomed the signs of change in Iran while also warning the world should not be fooled. “Let us not delude...