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One of the most under-reported facts about the Iranian uprising this week is that the regime has been using foreign paramilitaries to attack pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets of Tehran. Many are apparently drawn from the Iranian-trained Hezb'allah in Lebanon. Buried in a Jerusalem Post article on President Obama's response to the crisis was the revelation that Hamas thugs are on the streets of Tehran as well: Another protester, who spoke as he carried a kitchen knife in one hand and a stone in the other, also cited the presence of Hamas in Teheran. On Monday, he said, "My brother...

PRESIDENT OBAMA went to the Middle East, he said, to speak frankly and forthrightly about the issues that bedevil America's relations with the Muslim world. "Part of being a good friend is being honest," he had said in an interview just before his trip. He warned his Cairo audience that he intended to be blunt. "We must say openly the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors," he declared, so he was going to "speak as clearly and plainly as I can." About some things, the president was indeed direct. He...

Another of our youngest presidents, Bill Clinton, was 46 when sworn in and became the first Democrat since FDR to serve two terms.Born in Arkansas, educated at Georgetown University and a graduate of Yale Law School, he was also a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He had weaknesses as well as strengths but was popular with the average man and woman, and especially with minorities. He was a smart politician and a great salesman whose way with words earned him the nickname of Slick Willie when he was governor of Arkansas. The economy was strong during Clinton's term, benefiting in no...

Yesterday Republicans around the nation cheered when their beleaguered minority House caucus seized the floor and refused to leave after Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the chamber without a debate on expanding domestic oil production. Pelosi ordered the lights and the cameras off, but Republicans extended their protest rally with the darkness a perfect allegory for Democratic inaction on energy. As the protest grew and media coverage expanded, Pelosi made a huge mistake in ordering Capitol Hill police to evict the Republicans from the building. And Mark Tapscott argues that the Republicans made a mistake in complying: Yes, the House GOPers...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — In his seventh of month of U.S. captivity, Osama bin Laden's driver told a pair of FBI agents that it was America's fault that the al Qaida leader was alive. The message was, ''You had these opportunities, America. You didn't do anything,'' FBI agent George Crouch Jr. testified Friday at Salim Hamdan's war crimes trial. The United States could have killed bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, before he moved to Afghanistan in 1996, Hamdan told his interrogators. They could have killed him after al Qaida's 1998 twin bombings at the U.S. Embassy bombings in...

This past weekend, Barack Obama passed up two key opportunities to stand up and be counted when it comes to making good on his campaign themes of bringing people together, healing, and fighting cynicism. But instead of action to realize his proclaimed goals, all we got was slippery evasion and bland talk. If you think Obama can be a leader, examine his brhavior this past weekend and draw your own conclusions. Background While many Christians, notably the evangelical community, are deeply supportive of Israel, the leaders of a few Christian church groups in America have issued anti-Israel resolutions over the last...

Hillary Clinton has a solu tion to her Tuzla problem - let's talk about Rev. Je remiah Wright some more. On the day after the CBS News aired video making a hash of Sen. Clinton's claim to have landed "under sniper fire" in Tuzla, Bosnia in 1996, she raised for the first time the issue of Barack Obama's relationship to Rev. Wright. In this, she followed a Clinton family pattern so well-established it's almost boring: Misrepresent the truth as convenient - then, when caught, go on the offensive.

Tim Rutten's column, "Obama's Lincoln moment" and The Times editorial, "Obama on race" both miss the mark. In my considered judgment as a race and civil rights specialist, I would say that Barack Obama's "momentous" speech on race settled on merely "explaining" so-called racial differences between blacks and whites -- and in so doing amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions. Instead of giving us a polarizing treatise on the "black experience," Obama should have reiterated the theme that has brought so many to his campaign: That race ain't what it used to be in America. I waited in vain for...

In my considered judgment as a race and civil rights specialist, I would say that Barack Obama's "momentous" speech on race settled on merely "explaining" so-called racial differences between blacks and whites -- and in so doing amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions. Instead of giving us a polarizing treatise on the "black experience," Obama should have reiterated the theme that has brought so many to his campaign: That race ain't what it used to be in America. [snip] In fact, I'd say that considering the nation's undivided attention to this all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to...

Aide: Clinton Unleashed bin Laden Chuck Noe Bill Clinton ignored repeated opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist allies and is responsible for the spread of terrorism, one of the ex-president’s own top aides charges. Mansoor Ijaz, who negotiated with Sudan on behalf of Clinton from 1996 to 1998, paints a portrait of a White House plagued by incompetence, focused on appearances rather than action, and heedless of profound threats to national security. Ijaz also claims Clinton passed on an opportunity to have Osama bin Laden arrested. Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, hoping to have terrorism sanctions ...

Director of National Intelligence Says U.S. Didn't Connect Available Information

One year after the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1994, Bill Clinton hushed up a federal report that warned of possible terrorist strikes, including how hijackers could use airliners to hit landmarks such as the Pentagon or White House. The Clinton administration never released "Terror 2000" to the public, purportedly because of concerns in the State Department it would cause panic. The Sept. 17, 2001 story by UPI Pentagon correspondent Pam Hess said the report, not only outlined the changing face of terrorism but also seemed to predict the scope and timing of the attacks carried out against the...

CIA Officials Reveal What Went Wrong – Clinton to Blame Report: Clinton Nixed Hit on Bin Laden Cheney: U.S. Will Drop Clinton-Era CIA Restrictions Clinton Blames CIA for Implementing His Own Spy Restrictions Bill Clinton, the Appeaser, Still Off-Limits Judicial Watch: Clinton IRS Turned Blind Eye to Terrorists Clinton Blew Chance to Arrest bin Laden Gingrich, Morris Slam Clinton for bin Laden Failure CIA Leak to NewsMax: More Bad News Bill Clinton's 80-hour Gap Trulock: Security Lapses Are Clinton's Fault Clinton Pities Poor, 'Good' Terrorist Zillionaires Clinton in No Rush to Probe Past Intelligence Failures Olson Book's Chilling Warning: Clinton's ...

Bill Clinton’s appearance on Wednesday’s "Larry King Live" gave new life to the old nickname for CNN as the "Clinton News Network." Host Larry King fawned over Clinton during the 40-minute interview, asking the impeached former president questions on wide range of topics. King asked Clinton if Osama bin Laden was ever going to caught. After Clinton gave the standard Democrat line that not enough resources are being sent to Afghanistan in the hunt for the al Qaeda leader, King added, "You almost got him." Clinton answered affirmatively, and added that he "never had a chance to deploy large numbers...

WASHINGTON - It took an act of Congress to force the CIA to lift the veil on its watchdog's internal investigation that lays out the agency's many failures in the months and years before Sept. 11, 2001. Three CIA directors disparaged the document. Multiple requests under the Freedom of Information Act collected dust. Finally, on Tuesday, with the clock ticking on Congress' 30-day deadline to release the report, CIA Director Michael Hayden reluctantly caved in. Completed in June 2005, the report lays out in greater detail what has long been known: The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20381551/site/newsweek/ In September 2006, during a famous encounter with Fox News anchor Wallace, Clinton erupted in anger and waived his finger when asked about whether his administration had done enough to get bin Laden. “What did I do? What did I do?” Clinton said at one point. “I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since.” Clinton appeared to have been referring to a December 1999 Memorandum of Notification (MON) he signed that...

Shocka of the Day: Did Clinton Lie about Targeting Bin Laden? Rick Moran If there is one thing that the Inspector General's report on CIA accountability regarding 9/11 has highlighted, it is the utter failure of the Clinton Administration to come up with a strategic plan to deal with Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Despite all the testimony from Richard Clarke and others - including the President himself - that they agressively went after Bin Laden and the terrorists, it turns out that the IG at the CIA didn't think very much of their efforts. In fact, the report seems...

Intelligence: A highly critical CIA report details the spy agency's failings during the 1990s in preventing the 9/11 attacks. But as the report makes clear, the Clinton administration also deserves a big piece of the blame. The scathing look into the CIA's many failures before 9/11 makes for some depressing reading. The CIA at various times knew information that it didn't pass along to others, or ignored things it should have paid closer attention to. The headlines tell it all. "CIA missed chances to tackle al-Qaida." "Head of CIA 'failed to stop' al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks on America." "C.I.A. Lays Out...

WASHINGTON - The CIA's top leaders failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to Sept. 11, the agency's own watchdog concluded in a bruising report released Tuesday. Completed in June 2005 and kept classified until now, the 19-page executive summary finds extensive fault with the actions of senior CIA leaders and others beneath them. "The agency and its officers did not discharge their responsibilities in a satisfactory manner," the CIA inspector general found. "They did not always work effectively and cooperatively," the...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — A report released Tuesday by the Central Intelligence Agency includes new details of the agency’s missteps before the Sept. 11 attacks, outlining what the report says were failures to grasp the role being played by the terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and to fully assess the threats streaming into the C.I.A. in the summer of 2001. The 19-page report, prepared by the agency’s inspector general, also says that 50 to 60 C.I.A. officers knew of intelligence reports in 2000 that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, may have been in the...