Free Republic

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a military lawyer, is the first member of Congress to say the legislature needs to explore the possibility, however unlikely, of limiting some kinds of free speech - like Terry Jones' Quran burning - that help America's enemies. "I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war," he told CBS's Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation." "During World War II, we had limits on what you could do if it inspired the enemy," Graham said, adding that he wanted to do "anything we...

Terrorism: The administration says it was surprised and angry at the Lockerbie bomber's "compassionate" release. Now a letter reveals that it actually lobbied for it. Was this malicious intent or mere incompetence? Last week, at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama was asked what he thought about a possible Senate investigation into the "Lockerbie bomber stuff" — namely that British Petroleum, among its other sins, lobbied the British government to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in order to win oil contracts from the Libyan government. Obama replied: "I think all of us...

Border: A Hezbollah-like car bomb explodes in a border town as a congresswoman asks Homeland Security about links between the terrorist group and Mexican drug cartels. This is more than an immigration problem. Car bombs are a terrorist specialty and not a drug cartel modus operandi. The heavily armed cartels are more into shootings and kidnappings. So the car bomb that exploded Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, near a federal police headquarters, killing four, was either a change in tactics for the cartels or a sign of teaming up with a terrorist group, one of which could be Iran-linked Hezbollah. Officials...

Leadership: Our commander in chief was to miss the wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to go on vacation. Other presidents have missed it, but never at wartime. All presidents deserve a vacation, and no president is ever off the clock. But we are at war, and Memorial Day at Arlington has special significance even in peacetime. Those who defend President Obama's decision to take time off were not so understanding whenever President George W. Bush spent time at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. Obama was to be in his old Chicago-area stomping grounds, and those who attacked Bush for taking...

War On Terror: Attempts to punish the Haditha Marines and Navy SEALs for their courage and bravery under fire failed. Now some would reward timidity and cowardice with a medal for "courageous restraint" under fire. A nonsensical proposal circulating in the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Forces in Afghanistan would give a medal to soldiers in battle who show restraint in the use of deadly force in situations where civilian casualties might result. This will not protect civilians as much as it will endanger the lives of our troops. Our soldiers are already disciplined and trained not to wantonly...

<p>Military Justice: The first of three Navy SEALs charged with abusing a captured jihadist has been cleared. Why has this administration taken the word of terrorists and let American heroes twist in the wind?</p> <p>The acquittal of Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, 29, of Blue Island, Ill., by a six-member U.S. military jury in Baghdad on Thursday is good news and the correct verdict.</p>

Military: Two U.S. congressmen take the lead in proclaiming the obvious — that those who attack this country should be punished and not those who risk their lives to defend it. The Navy SEALs are a special breed of patriot and warrior. This highly trained and select group — the best of the best — is a daily participant in the long twilight struggle against the enemies of freedom that President Kennedy warned us about. Kennedy formally created the SEAL (sea, air, land) outfit as an elite force capable of combat operations in any environment. It was a team of...

Joe Lieberman is once again endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama – this time on a critical national security issue. Lieberman and McCain have introduced a bill that would deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and block them from the U.S. civil court system. The bill could interfere with the Obama administration’s efforts to cut a deal with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to develop a comprehensive system to deal with detainees—an effort that would include some role for federal courts. Graham, a military lawyer and currently serves a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves, has been negotiating with White...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed Monday he is working with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to break the logjam on closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bringing the prisoners to trial. The South Carolina senator said that in a series of meetings and phone calls over the last “several weeks,” he has pressed to establish a new national security court that would keep most Guantanamo detainees out of the federal courthouse. He expressed confidence that he could strike a deal to extend some measure of habeas corpus rights to prisoners detained on terrorism charges and...

Holder's decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber was bad enough. Telling the world he was talking again waseven worse Security: The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he's talking? In any war, it's vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it's important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy's plans it's important they don't know that you know. We were...

LONDON — The NATO commander in Afghanistan said his troop surge could lead to a negotiated peace with the Taliban, in an interview published Monday ahead of a major conference this week on the war. US General Stanley McChrystal also told the Financial Times he hopes his allies will leave Thursday's meeting in London with a "renewed commitment" to the increasingly bloody conflict. By using the 30,000-strong surge in US troops to secure territory stretching from the Taliban's southern heartlands to Kabul, the general said he aims to weaken the insurgency so much its leaders would accept a political settlement....

Trijicon will remove abbreviated bible verse references from its Gunsights destined for the military. General David Petraeus has called the references "a serious concern" and "disturbing." Some soldiers and Marines have been concerned about being captured by the terrorist enemy with weapons bearing Christian bible verses such as JN8:12. The Marine Corps. was considering ending its contract with Trijicon. Here's Trijicon's statement. Trijicon, Inc. Offers to Voluntarily Remove Scripture References on all Products Destined for U.S. Military (Wixom, MI – Thursday, January 21, 2010) – Trijicon, Inc. today announced that effective yesterday, Wednesday, January 20, 2010, the company has offered...

Climate Change: We can't stop terrorists from boarding planes with explosive undies, but the CIA has assets sufficient to monitor Arctic ice and look for signs of global warming? Is al-Qaida recruiting polar bears? One wouldn't think that the increasing polar bear population and the increasing rate of recidivism of former Guantanamo detainees released into the wild were related, but they are. At the urging of Al Gore, the administration is signing on to a plan to task vital intelligence assets to protect not the people of the United States, but the environment. The program, shot down by President Bush,...

Security: Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the attempted destruction of Flight 253 were released from Guantanamo two years ago. The case for indefinite detention has been made once again, and not in Illinois. Sometimes America's chickens do come home to roost. In a statement released Monday, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which counts among its leadership two former Guantanamo detainees, claimed responsibility for the attempted destruction of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the crotch bomber, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of the group who provided...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday praised President Barack Obama for heeding his advice to bypass the naval brig in Charleston, S.C., and transfer terror suspects instead to an Illinois prison from the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he spoke with Obama recently and reiterated his strong opposition to moving the Guantanamo detainees to the medium-security brig at the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston. "I spoke to the president about Charleston a couple weeks ago," Graham told McClatchy. "He listened intently as I said I thought Charleston is not an appropriate...

With her brother home from deployment, Meghan McCain on the horrors soldiers face there and her frustration at the president should he—as expected—send less than the 40,000 troops General Stanley McChrystal has requested. The first time I watched my brother Jimmy deploy to Iraq, it was in a parking lot at Camp Pendleton. The whole experience was a lot quieter and more low-key than I had expected. It was literally a bunch of families waiting around, beginning at around five in the morning, for Greyhound buses to arrive. During most of that time, all anyone did was watch more soldiers...

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama was giving 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “his wish” by giving him a trial in federal civilian court instead of trying him before a military tribunal. McCain was asked on Nov. 19 whether the administration might have to produce Mohammed’s CIA interrogators if the terrorist’s defense lawyers call them as witnesses. McCain said the answer was not clear because Obama had opened the civilian justice system to enemy combatants, a move that raised myriad problems and gave Khalid Sheik Mohammed, or KSM, what he wanted.

Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senator John McCain (R AZ) issued the following statement on the Obama Administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and four other Al-Qaeda terrorists suspected of planning and executing the September 11th attacks in the United States Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York: “I am extremely disappointed with the Obama Administration’s decision to try in U.S. civilian courts the Al-Qaeda terrorists who planned, supported, and conducted the September 11th attacks. These terrorists are not common criminals. They are war criminals, who committed acts of war against our citizens and those of...

War On Terror: Charges against the mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole are dismissed. He will be retried, but not by a military commission that would have given him the death penalty he deserves.Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell announced on Thursday that Susan Crawford, the convening authority for military tribunals at Guantanamo, has made the decision to withdraw charges against Abd al-Rahim Hussain Mohammed al-Nashiri. This is the Saudi man believed to be the architect of the bombing of the guided missile destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 American sailors, as it sat in the Yemeni port of Aden. The...