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UNITED NATIONS -- Somalia's U.N. Mission said Friday that pirates hijacked a yacht carrying four U.S. citizens in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast.

The insider-account of the damaging divisions between the White House and the State Department comes as diplomats around the world wait to see if John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, can persuade Mr Obama to greater engagement on Syria, Egypt and the wider Middle East. Vali Nasr, a university professor who was seconded in 2009 to work with Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, records his profound disillusion at how a "Berlin Wall" of domestic-focused advisers was erected to protect Mr Obama. "The president had a truly disturbing habit of funnelling major foreign policy...

As more information comes to the light about the Obama administration's Benghazi cover-up, a former Navy SEAL officer who once took a military detachment to Libya suggests President Barack Obama was either AWOL -- essentially an "empty chair" -- or deliberately denied Americans under siege in Benghazi the aid they needed by not authorizing "cross-border authority," without which rescue operations could have taken place. Matt Bracken, the former SEAL, writes "only the president can give the order for our military to cross a nation’s border without that nation’s permission." He notes that Obama granted "cross-border authority" for Americans to enter...

Our ambassador to Libya was killed in our own consulate in Benghazi on the night of September 11. For the next six weeks, President Obama repeated the same talking point: The morning after the attack, he ordered increased security in our embassies in the region. Suddenly, on the campaign trail in Denver on October 26, he changed his story. “The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive,” he said, “to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military...

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's because few Americans know how deadly the organization is. For that we can thank those at Foggy Bottom who are wedded to the naive hope of a near-term "diplomatic breakthrough" in Afghanistan. Couple that misguided belief with the Obama administration's self-deception that the radical Islamic jihad against the West ended with the demise of Osama bin Laden and it's understandable why the Haqqani network...

Hey! Who replaced the dithering guy who lives in the White House with somebody who acts like he wants to be President? On the heels of the large jobs plan announced earlier this month, President Obama has announced his own plan to reduce the deficit by up to $3 trillion. (Details, .. $1.5 trillion in higher revenues, through limiting deductions, shutting loopholes and letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and $1.5 trillion in spending savings from tinkering with entitlement programs and counting savings from winding down operations in Iraq and Afghanistan). Like the jobs plan, this deficit reduction plan doesn't...

The bus tour has come and gone. Now, so has the movie premiere. A flattering “documentary” (from the looks of these clips, it appears more like an infomercial) about Sarah Palin, the former Alaskan governor and one-time vice presidential nominee, had its first showing in the tiny town of Pella, Iowa on Tuesday. But despite plenty of speculation that it could “serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin's prospective presidential campaign,” the event went off with little fanfare. Palin attended a post-premiere barbeque and had lunch at a Panera Bread restaurant with a GOP fundraiser, where politics reportedly wasn’t on...

Having seen unreleased photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, US Senator Scott Brown does not believe pictures of the dead terrorist leader should be made public, the Massachusetts Republican said in an interview on NECN. “Let me assure you that he is dead, that bin Laden is dead — I have seen the photos,” said Brown. Asked directly if the pictures, which have been described as bloody and gruesome, should be made available for everyone, Brown responded: “If it’s to sell newspapers or just have a news cycle story, no, I don’t think they should be released. We’re still dealing...

Will there be a big reveal? The nation’s news organizations are dithering over whether to publish or broadcast images of Osama bin Laden after he was shot, when the White House inevitably releases them. Are the photos “newsworthy” the press asks, or too “grisly” for the American public? Will the images spark a retaliation from al Qaeda or offer definitive proof that the terrorist leader is dead?

President Obama isn’t quite in hibernation. But he’s saying less, proposing less, appearing in public less, doing less, interacting with Congress less, plugging his health care plan less, and singling out a Republican demon less. It took two years and the harsh rejection of a midterm election for Obama to figure out what shouldn’t have been a secret: The magic of the presidency declines with overindulgence. Now several days go by at the White House with the president listed as having “no public schedule.” Or his calendar will feature only a string of Oval Office meetings described as “closed press.”...

After a full three months of damaging dither, Obama has finally announced his strategy for Afghanistan. It is nothing less than surrender dressed up in deepest, blood-boltered hypocrisy. The media have reported the headline announcement of an extra 30,000 troops as if he has finally junked his anti-war persona and turned into George W Bush reborn. Even some hawks who should know better are purring that he has finally done the right thing in committing America more fully to fighting and winning the war in Afghanistan. Are they all nuts? This is nothing of the kind. Obama’s speech amounted to...

The most-played sound bite from Barack Obama’s speech on Afghanistan will be the following: “I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home." It sounds odd because it is: we’re coming in heavy, but then we’re off. “If you put in a timeline you encourage the enemy to outwait you, to regard the strategy as not enduring,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US envoy to Afghanistan. "When I was ambassador the Taliban sent me a message saying ‘you have...

This Thanksgiving weekend, the First Family did the same thing many Americans families did – catch a game. For the Obamas, the game of choice was basketball. The Beavers of Oregon State, where Michelle Obama’s brother Craig Robinson is the head coach, were in town to play the George Washington University Colonials last night. The game was a family affair with Barack, Michelle, Sasha and Malia Obama as well as grandmother Miriam Robinson, arriving at the Smith Center shortly before the game began. Fans were required to go through airport-like security before entering the arena. While there was no official...

Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan. Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban. A “period of hiatus” in Washington - and a lack of clear direction - had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said. Senior British Government sources have become increasingly...

November 23: Dick Cheney Exclusive Interview

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will meet with his war cabinet Monday for "possibly" the last time before deciding whether to dispatch tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, an official said. The meeting comes as Obama weighs a request from his top commander in Afghanistan for up to 40,000 more US troops to support the war effort there. Among the top administration officials expected to attend the meeting at 8:00 pm local time (0100 GMT) are Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The meeting will be the ninth...

Chris Matthews ‘Flips’ – Claims Obama Gives Him a ‘Chill’ Up His Leg. Video at link.

I was a supporter of both the Afghanistan invasion and the Iraq war. I believed then, following the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was a matter of national security to hand Islamic terrorists stunning defeats in their own backyards. Even a year ago, I would have said bringing the troops home prematurely would be tantamount to surrender to an enemy determined to do us in. But that was then. This is now. Things have changed and changed dramatically. The biggest change is one in America's leadership. I do not believe Barack Obama is capable of achieving anything remotely resembling victory...

NASA, at age 50, is having a midlife crisis. What should it do after it retires the shuttle? Can it, should it, recreate the glories of its youth? Or should it mature into a wise enabler of technological and institutional leadership? The 2003 Space Shuttle disaster, underfunding of President George W. Bush’s call to go to the “Moon, Mars and Beyond” and the advent of a new presidential administration have caused NASA to re-evaluate its mission at a truly fundamental level. The President’s Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, was...

President Barack Obama will be forced into yet another "war council" on troops for Afghanistan as rifts deepen between his top political, security and military advisers. Mr Obama, who has faced withering criticism for "dithering" over his strategy review, is now expected to make the decision on extra troops within a week of arriving back in Washington from Asia. He will make the announcement that will shape his administration's foreign policy in a major televised speech. Mr Obama will insist that any increase is "not an open-ended commitment" in an attempt to allay fears that Afghanistan is turning into a...