Free Republic

I wonder if this guy is a Freeper? Anyhow, this caller "Burt" from Utah on a National Radio Talk Show, the Savage Nation really lays it out nicely about everything in the Middle East. You can doubt him if you want, but I believe "Burt" nailed it on the head. Starts at 1 hour and 24 minutes, goes through a break (don't worry there are no commercials), and the guy is still there. Just listen to it and let me know what you think.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, when asked if he believes the Middle East would be better today if Moammar Gadhafi of Libya and Saddam Hussein of Iraq were still in power, responded, "It's not even a contest." He related the situations in both of those countries with what is currently happening in Syria and seemed to endorse a stronger President Bashar Assad, even while admitting that he is "probably a bad guy." "You can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there — it's a mess — if you look at Saddam Hussein with...

It’s ba-aack. The Vacuum, that is. That’s the Beltway fairy tale about how Syria was teeming with secular-democratic Muslim moderates ready and willing not only to topple the barbarous Bashar al-Assad regime but simultaneously to rout al-Qaeda. They were not able to pull off these feats, we’re told, without the massive help that President Obama refused to give them. This default, combined with Obama’s unconscionable retreat from neighboring Iraq while jihadists were on the rise, created a leadership void — the Vacuum — into which the Islamic State (formerly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq...

VLADIMIR Putin is preparing to send 150,000 troops to Syria in a bid to wipe out the evil Islamic State once and for all. The Russian leader is reportedly mounting an enormous military mission to take control of the terror group's stronghold of Raqqa. The city is the self-declared capital of ISIS in Syria and is patrolled by as many as 5,000 jihadi members. Putin is set to mobilise 150,000 reservists who he conscripted into the military earlier this week. An insider revealed: "It is very clear that Russia wants to sweep up the west of the country, taking Raqqa...

Turkey opposes Russia's military intervention in Syria. Turkey scrambles fighter jets to intercept Russian warplanes that Ankara says violated its airspace. The Russians were allegedly making their way to Syria to carry out bombings to support Syria's Assad regime. Turkey opposes Russia's intervention in wartorn Syria and officials have warned that any further violations may be responded to more harshly.

The United States is losing power and influence under President Obama and Vladimir Putin’s Russia is picking it up to create a new world order. That was the take Saturday from Fox News’ Judge Jeanine Pirro, who used her “Opening Statement” on “Justice with Judge Jeanine” to explain that Putin is attempting to take the title of world’s superpower from the U.S. and Obama’s weakness is helping him. “With Barack Obama as commander in chief, the United States is recklessly and pathetically giving up as the world’s superpower,” she said. She also detailed how the weakness Obama showed in the...

Syrian president says coalition ‘must succeed’ to secure regional stability Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that his coalition with Russia, Iran and Iraq must succeed in Syria’s war, suggesting the alternative would be a region in chaos. The alliance “must succeed, otherwise we are facing the destruction of the entire region and not just one or two states,” Mr. Assad said in the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network interview. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that his coalition with Russia, Iran and Iraq must succeed in Syria’s war, suggesting the alternative would be a region in chaos. The...

. . .The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems. . . . . .So let’s be clear: this disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity. . . . . . I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information...

Over the last 48 hours, the Russian Air Force has targeted the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) with relentless airstrikes above the provincial capital of the Al-Raqqa Governorate and the terrorist group’s stronghold inside the Deir Hafer Plains in the Aleppo Governorate’s eastern countryside. On Sunday morning, the Russian Air Force struck ISIS again with a flurry of airstrikes above the Tabaqa Military Airport and the Tabaqa National Hospital, destroying another weapons depot belonging to the terrorist located inside the storage facility that is situated to the north of the military barracks. Meanwhile, to the east of the...

Adele Benita, one of the surviving victims of Saturday's terror attack in Jerusalem's Old City, gave a chilling account of how the stabbing attack, that killed her husband and another man who came to the family's help, unfolded and how her cries for help were ignored as she herself was stabbed repeatedly. “I yelled ‘please help me!’ and they just spat at me,” Benita told the Israeli Ynet news site of the surrounding Palestinian store owners, whom she said stood by as the Palestinian terrorist, 19-year-old Muhanad Halabi, stabbed her husband to death in an alleyway near Lion’s Gate in...

When Hesham fled Syria in early August with his pregnant wife and baby, he was sure all would be well once he got to Germany. Instead the hope has turned to despair after weeks of waiting to be registered at an overcrowded reception center in Berlin. The 26-year-old former chef is one of the hundreds of migrants who crowd around a small screen at the registration office every day, desperately waiting for their number to come up so they can go inside and get a certificate that is the first step in the asylum process. Some climb on top of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is accusing White House hopefuls of concocting "half-baked" ideas for solving the crisis in Syria, appearing to even dismiss his former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for a no-fly zone before later clarifying his view of the Democratic front-runner. The idea of a no-fly zone — a region of Syria that the United States would protect from bombing to create a safe corridor for refugees — has emerged as a favorite option for Democratic and Republican candidates. It's a plan that allows them to stake out a more aggressive military posture than...

Donald Trump does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he is supportive of one thing Putin is doing on the world stage. During an interview with "Meet The Press" Sunday, Trump told moderator Chuck Todd that he supports Putin going out and "bombing the hell" out of the Islamic State in Syria, despite that they are doing so to support Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. "I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS, and it's going to be ISIS. I'll tell you why — Putin has to get rid of ISIS because Putin doesn't want ISIS coming...

GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson said on Friday that he opposes admitting Syrian refugees inside America’s borders. “To bring into this country groups infiltrated with jihadists makes no sense,” he told listeners in Des Moines, according to ABC News. “At some point you have to use common sense and judgment,” Carson said. "If you are part of the global jihadist movement, and you see large numbers of people from your area moving into the United States, wouldn’t you want to infiltrate them?” “They would be fools not to [try],” the retired neurosurgeon added of extremists. "Why would we do something...

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is going after an influential U.S. Islamic group, arguing it violated the federal tax code after its executive director recently called on Carson to withdraw from the race following his controversial remarks about Muslims. The retired neurosurgeon started a petition on Thursday asking supporters to encourage the Internal Revenue Service to take away the Council on Islamic-American Relations’ tax exempt status.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he unsure how Russia's recent military intervention in Syria will affect the situation there, but insisted that Jerusalem and Moscow were on good terms. "We don't want to go back to the days when, you know, Russia and Israel were in an adversarial position," said Netanyahu in an interview recorded for broadcast on Sunday on "CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. "I think we've changed the relationship. And it's, on the whole, good." Russia bombed the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold Saturday and vowed to press its aerial campaign despite criticism from Washington and...

Islamic State militants have blown up the Arch of Triumph, a major monument in the 2,000-year-old Roman city of Palmyra, Syria's antiquities chief said on Sunday, after they destroyed two ancient temples at the central Syrian site in recent months. Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters that sources in Palmyra had confirmed that the Arch of Triumph, a jewel in the exquisite collection of ruins in the oasis city, had been blown up.Islamic State militants have blown up temples at the Roman-era UNESCO World Heritage site, which it has controlled since capturing Palmyra from Syrian government forces in May and mined other...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said Saturday that he supports the U.S.'s continued arming and funding of so-called moderate rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but contrasted himself with front-runner Hillary Clinton by opposing the establishment of a unilateral American no-fly zone in the country. -snip- No-fly zones have also been proposed recently by Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Friday the United States should establish no-fly zones and sanctuaries along Syria's border with Jordan and Turkey, and warn aggressors, specifically Russian President Vladimir Putin, that they violate those buffers at their own risk. Campaigning in New Hampshire, the Republican presidential hopeful said the U.S. must send a message that military retaliation is a guarantee, not an idle threat, if conditions are not met. "You enter that no-fly zone, you enter at your own peril," Kasich said. "No more red lines, no more looking the other way. If any hostile aircraft should enter that, there...

That Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had her fingers in multiple financial pots — even while still high up in the State Department — is no secret. But the full extent of Abedin’s blurring of roles is coming to light. This summer, The Washington Post revealed that, at one point, Abedin — unusually granted “special government employee” status — was getting paid four different ways: from the taxpayers for her State work, from the Clinton Foundation, as political adviser to Hillary and by the Clinton-allied firm Teneo Holdings. The Washington Times reported last week how Huma’s hats came together in...