Free Republic

A few years ago, a friend of mine was sent to Kiev by the British government to teach Ukrainians about the Western democratic system. His pupils were young reformers from western Ukraine, affiliated to the Conservative party. When they produced a manifesto containing 15 pages of impenetrable waffle, he gently suggested boiling their electoral message down to one salient point. What was it, he wondered? A moment of furrowed brows produced the lapidary and nonchalant reply, 'To expel all Jews from our country.' It is in the west of Ukraine that support is strongest for the man who is being...

How an Americanist devoted to destroying international alliances became the US envoy to the UNIn the heat of the battle over the Florida vote after the 2000 US presidential election, a burly, mustachioed man burst into the room where the ballots for Miami-Dade County were being tabulated, like John Wayne barging into a saloon for a shoot-out. "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count," drawled John Bolton. And those ballots from Miami-Dade were not counted.Now that same John Bolton has been named by President Bush as the US ambassador to the UN. "If I were...

WASHINGTON, September 19, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The White House has once again denied the controversial United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) financial backing – for the fourth year running, despite assurances from the UNFPA that it is not involved in coercive abortion in China. The UNFPA would normally receive $34 million; instead, $25 million will be redirected to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). US law prohibits the country from contributing to any organization that participates in coercive abortion – a practice widely acknowledged in Communist-ruled China. Despite alleging that they have no participation in this practice – as a...

In March 2013, when Edward Snowden sought a job with Booz Allen Hamilton at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, he signed the requisite classified-information agreements and would have been made well aware of the law regarding communications intelligence. Section 798 of the United States Code makes it a federal crime if a person "knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States" any classified information concerning communication intelligence. [snip] Before taking the job in Hawaii, Mr....

The man who oils India's wheels By Ramtanu Maitra No US ambassador since John Kenneth Galbraith massaged the Indian ego more efficiently than Robert D Blackwill. The former envoy to India (2001-2003) is now reportedly cultivating his Indian friends to win a lobbying contract for his firm, Washington-based Barbour, Griffith and Rogers International (BG&R). [1] Blackwill's timing is right. India has terminated its relationship with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Field as a result of its failure to stop US government consideration of the sale of F-16s to Pakistan. Blackwill resigned suddenly last November from his position as number two...

Clinton Judge Emasculates Law Enforcement Agencies as Communist and Anarchist groups Plan Disruptions of Inaugural; Colombian Terrorists Target Bush for Death By Special Reports | January 18, 2005 Rulings by a Clinton-appointed federal judge, Gladys Kessler, have given unprecedented access to protesters to the inaugural parade route so that their "civil rights" may be protected. While the Washington Post and other Bush-bashing media are focusing on the cost of the January 20 Inauguration, a much more serious issue has emerged. Communist and anarchist groups may be planning to disrupt the inaugural and possibly commit violence. One organization sympathetic to a...

The next feud between America's freedom and democracy hawks and old United Nations diplomats will likely develop this week with the release of a much-anticipated report. Ordered by Secretary-General Annan, it was prepared by a panel of 16 former world movers and shakers now in their 70s, who will undoubtedly be hailed at Turtle Bay as wise men, and derided elsewhere as has-beens. Men who held previous posts like Russian foreign minister and Saddam champion Yevgeny Primakov, British U.N. envoy David Hannay, or current Arab League chief Amr Moussa, are not going to excite anyone looking for fresh insights into...

KIEV, Ukraine — Liberal Viktor Yushchenko scored a symbolic victory in Ukraine's presidential election, coming out narrowly on top in the first round ahead of the establishment's candidate he will face in a runoff. Official results announced yesterday — after 10 days of counting — put the reform-minded Yushchenko about 150,000 votes ahead, with 39.87 percent. Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, backed by Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma and powerful neighbor Russia, won 39.32 percent in the tense opening round. The vote is seen as a key test of democracy in the nation of 48 million people and as an indicator of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Laura Poitras' travel nightmare began more than a decade ago when the award-winning filmmaker started getting detained at airports every time she tried to set foot back in the United States. She was stopped without explanation more than 50 times on foreign travel, and dozens more times on domestic trips, before the extra searches suddenly stopped in 2012. Only now is Poitras beginning to unravel the mystery, which goes back to a bloody day in Baghdad in 2004. Time after time, airport authorities searched her baggage, rummaged through her electronics and quizzed her for hours about her...

When Edward Snowden decided he wanted to release details about the NSA's intelligence operations to the public, he reached out to Laura Poitras, a 49-year-old film maker and political activist opposed to the war on terror. As the Washington Post noted on Monday, Poitras had "the odd distinction of sharing a byline in The Washington Post and in London’s Guardian newspaper last week on two blockbuster stories." snip But perhaps it isn't such a mystery why the U.S. government might want to question Poitras if you simply crack open John R. Bruning's 2006 book, The Devil's Sandbox: With the 2nd...

Gary Webb's Final Days Tue Jan 25, 6:34 PM ET NEW YORK As with nearly every suicide, there is far more to the death of Gary Webb than meets the eye. Although his downward spiral following his departure from the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News provides a pat story line, the devil is really in the details -- and extends to a wide range of family and health issues, as well as a stolen motorcycle. In fact, after spending several years away from full-time journalism, Webb was beginning to stage a comeback in late 2004. But then a series of...

Soros Shadow Party Stalks DeLayBy Richard PoeFrontPageMagazine.com | April 12, 2005 On the day that Terri Schiavo died — victim of a court order condemning the brain-damaged woman to death by thirst and starvation — Representative Tom DeLay of Texas did what few politicians have the courage to do these days. He spoke his mind."This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most," DeLay told Fox News on March 31. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." DeLay’s strong language worried some Republicans. They pointed...

Twenty-five years after its revolution of 1979, Iran has yet again become too big of a problem for Washington to play politics with. Fortunately, commencing his second-term, President George W. Bush is in a unique position of strength. On the one hand, he is less vulnerable to special interests in Washington seeking confrontation with Iran. On the other hand, his strong record on national security grants him enough political maneuverability to solve America's Persian puzzle once and for all by easing the increasingly costly and unsustainable policy of isolating Iran in return for an end to Iran's objectionable policies. President...

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."  U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, CubaFOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11 Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or...

The United States has concluded that Syria helped finance the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Officials said the regime of President Bashar Assad used the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria to relay hundreds of millions of dollars to Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq. They said the money has been deployed to finance the insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition primarily in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. The Commercial Bank of Syria held more than $1 billion in Saddam regime accounts on the eve of the U.S.-led war in Iraq in March 2003, officials said. Most of that money stemmed from Iraqi arms and...

The supposed “responsibility to protect” has taken America into a war on the side of the ultimate killers of innocents. (See also "Rebel Libya: ‘Brothers who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, now is the time to defend your land!" on the Tatler.) In the absence of any evident national interest justification for bombing Libya, the Obama administration is said to have been motivated by the so-called responsibility to protect — or “R2P” per the wonkish English acronym. In American discussions, “R2P” has quickly come to be associated with Obama advisor Samantha Power. But “R2P” did not emerge full-grown from the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo. The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning...

SAN`A, Yemen — Yemeni authorities have released 113 militants belonging to the Al Qaeda network — including at least five once accused of involvement in the deadly bombing of the USS Cole — after they recanted their extremist views, security officials said Thursday. The militants once accused in the USS Cole bombing were later cleared. The 15 Yemeni militants convicted in August of involvement in the 2000 bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, were not released. The 113 men were released during the past two weeks after signing pledges not to carry out terror acts or criminal activities. LoL!!! Full...

A recently released propaganda video by the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite revealing. Not only does the video demonstrate the group’s growing effort to package arguments in a manner designed to appeal to Westerners on the political left, but it also serves as a barometer of radical Muslim groups’ broader shift in rhetorical strategy. The video, “Iraq: Past and Present Colonialism,” appears for the first twenty-seven minutes to be a standard leftist critique of the Iraq war, indistinguishable from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The slickly-produced video begins with the history of past colonialism in Iraq—including the Mongol conquest...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Officials are investigating the theft of about 30 propane tanks from a local hardware store, NBC 4's Nancy Burton reported. The propane tanks were stolen at about 10 p.m. Monday from the Sears Hardware store in the Northwest Center at Henderson and Reed roads. The tanks were being stored outside in locked cages, Burton reported. Police said thieves broke the locks on the last two cages and stole about 30 tanks. Burton said a witness called the store as the theft occurred. The manager on duty then called police, but the suspects left the scene before police...