Free Republic

Change: In authorizing limited strikes on Syria, Congress may inadvertently give its stamp of approval to an ideological revolution in the use of U.S. power. Our military can't and shouldn't be a global genocide watchdog. It struck many observers as strange that Barack Obama would suddenly act totally out of character and ask permission for something from a Congress with one house controlled by Republicans. After all, he's been imperially presidential on ObamaCare, gun ownership, recess appointments, immigration, Egypt, Libya and plenty of other issues. On Wednesday, Obama was, oddly, trying to put big pressure on Congress from that geopolitical...

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...

US Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Germany this week in an effort to strengthen trans-Atlantic ties. Global politics have come to a standstill in recent years, with the United States unwilling to show leadership and Europe and other major powers unable to fill the vacuum. … You would think it were high time for Obama to jump back into the saddle before he gets reduced to a lame-duck status. But no matter how many blinding smiles the notoriously perky Biden flashes in Berlin and Munich, this is probably too much to expect. Of course, this gives rise to the...

COMBAT OUTPOST HANSON, Afghanistan — A turkey trot it was not. The U.S. Marines’ top general, James Amos, sprinted up and down the Helmand River Valley in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, visiting frontline Marines at nine remote outposts to share Thanksgiving and applaud their gains against the Taliban in a region where al-Qaida hatched the 9/11 plot a decade ago. Traveling mostly in an MV-22 Osprey, the hybrid that flies like an airplane and takes off and lands like a helicopter, Amos began shortly after daylight and finished 14 hours later — and, improbably, managed to confront just one turkey...

Omar bin Laden, one of the late terrorist leader’s offspring called the U.S. operation that led to the slaying of his father “criminal” and promised to file suit against the United States at the World Court. “My father was a lonely old man,” Omar said. “Relentlessly hounded, he was forced to live in seclusion. His only comforts were planning future attacks on the enemies of Islam and his extensive library of pornography, which he was in the midst of enjoying when American assassins burst in and shot him.” It is Omar’s contention that “my father was denied due process. Granted,...

Five contractors this week secured another chunk of a $10 billion global law-enforcement project of the U.S. State Dept., which is deploying hired guns and consultants worldwide. Although the department yesterday (May 11) identified the companies to whom it awarded new contracts, it did not specify the destination or mission assigned to the respective vendors. Rather, it will pay the vendors on an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity, or IDIQ, basis. DynCorp International, Justice Services International, MPRI, PAE Government Services, and Civilian Police International will provide a variety of “civilian police” (CIVPOL), corrections, and advisement services to clients of the State...

President Obama’s Monday night speech on the “kinetic military activity” in Libya revealed that he has fully accepted the faddish “responsibility to protect” (R2P) rationale for military intervention abroad. Unfortunately, this action is not just a direct attack on Libya’s state sovereignty, but also on America’s. R2P - sounding a bit like a droid from Star Wars - is a school of thought that developed in response to the propensity of some regimes to commit crimes against their own people and the reticence of the international community to take decisive action. “Responsibility to protect,” however, lacks the firm legal basis...

I know Iraq was supposed to have compromised America’s standing as a formidable global power, but it sure doesn’t look that way: “If North Korea stages a provocation, we will respond resolutely,” the South Korean military said in a statement, reacting to the North’s threats. Citing a “strong” military alliance with the United States, it said, “We advise our people to trust our military’s solid readiness and feel safe.”

Anti-war presidential candidate Ron Paul says his campaign is about "restoring the vanishing American dream." And he is criticizing what he calls "the cartel controlling the banking and monetary system" in the United States. Fresh off his third-quarter fundraising surprise of $5 million, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the libertarian "revolution" he has started is growing across America. Paul told conservative activists at the "Defending the American Dream Summit" in Washington, DC, that the conference would be more aptly called the "Defending the Vanishing American Dream Summit." The Texas congressman said his Republican rivals often talk about a "flat...

George Washington Didn’t Say That Some of you who follow American History might have heard at one time or another that George Washington warned his countrymen of “entangling foreign alliances” in his farewell address given as he prepared to retire from his second presidential term. You may have heard that he issued a neo-isolationist concept about how the USA should treat its foreign policy ideas. Here is a relevant section of Washington’s farewell address: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection...

"The extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment recalibrating and reorganizing. And so are we," the Pentagon chief told members of the House Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony. Offering his argument for President Bush's request for $419 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2006, Rumsfeld said the plan sets an ambitious course to "continue prosecuting the war and to attack its ideological underpinnings."

PRAGUE - The North Korean embassy in Prague is calling for a ban on Team America: World Police in the Czech Republic. ...."Such behavior is not part of our country's political culture," the North Korean diplomat added. "Therefore, we want the film to be banned." However, the Czech Foreign Ministry said people would continue to be allowed to see the film, which had its Czech premiere on Feb. 3. "We told them it's an unrealistic wish," ministry spokesman Vit Kolar said. "Obviously, it's absurd to demand that in a democratic country."