Free Republic

Half as many Americans view Iran as the United States’ greatest enemy today as did two years ago. As a result, China now edges out Iran and North Korea atop the list. After the top three countries, 9% of Americans mention Russia, 7% name Iraq, 5% Afghanistan, and 3% Syria. Gallup first asked this open-ended question in 2001, and opinions have shifted over that time. In the 2001 survey—10 years after the Persian Gulf War but before the 2003 Iraq war began—Americans named Iraq as the greatest U.S. enemy by a large margin. …

SNIPPET: "Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg is among four people who have been arrested on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences, police have said. Mr Begg, 45, who was held by the US authorities for almost three years, was arrested earlier with two other men and a woman in the West Midlands. He was detained on suspicion of attending a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas." SNIPPET: "Mr Begg was arrested in Hall Green in Birmingham. The other people arrested - a 36-year-old man from Shirley, a 44-year-old woman and her son, 20, both from Sparkhill - are being...

President Barack Obama has warned his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai that the US may pull all of its troops out of his country by the year's end. Mr Obama conveyed the message in a phone call to Mr Karzai, who has refused to sign a security agreement.

The Pakistani government is on the verge of launching a major military offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region following a series of brutal Taliban attacks in recent weeks and the apparent failure of peace talks with the militants, according to a senior Pakistani official. “It could be any day,” said the official, who added that military plans have been shared with top U.S. officials who have long urged an offensive. Planning for the operation comes amid a Pakistan-requested pause in U.S. drone strikes now entering its third month — the longest period without an attack in more than two...

As Luke Skywalker said when he got his first look at the Death Star, “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.” AFP reports on plans to take the U.S. Army back to pre-World War II levels – which, as you may recall, turned out to be a problem when World War II rolled around. The Pentagon plans to scale back the US Army by more than an eighth to its lowest level since before World War II, signaling a shift after more than a decade of ground wars. Saying it was time to “reset” for a new era, Defense...

Trading American lives in exchange for amnesty for illegal aliens in the United States. That is the reality that exists according to the information contained in this video report. The southern border is a sieve which is leaking not only illegals from Mexico, but “Other Than Mexicans” (OTMs) as well. That information is not new, but this video indicates that the severity of the problem is much worse than what has previously been acknowledged by the authorities charged with our protection. Individuals from terrorist nations are called SIAs, Special Interest Aliens and many are known to be in the United...

The recent upraising in Syria may have claimed a new victim–al Qaeda. Since the death of Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda have been without a strong leader to keep the terrorist organization unified. Documents obtained from the raid that killed Osama revealed earlier divisions. Divisions One of the main causes of division within the terrorist factions involves a central leadership which calls for moderation, believing that worldwide uncontrolled terrorism is giving the organization a distorted image. Al Qaeda itself is competing with a fanatical jihadist organization known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The ISIL is a...

The Afghanistan government's recent release of dozens of imprisoned terrorists, many of whom had killed Americans, was a galling betrayal of those Americans who died defending Afghanistan against the Taliban terrorists — as well as those Americans who have returned home with arms or legs missing, or with minds traumatized beyond repair. If we learn nothing else from the bitter tragedy of the war in Afghanistan, it should be that we should put an end forever to the self-indulgence of thinking that we can engage in "nation-building" and creating "democracy" in countries where nothing resembling democracy has ever existed. It...

Compensation for Jews pushed out of Arab lands may become yet another issue MUCH as Palestinian refugees and their offspring remember the orange groves and cinemas they lost in Jaffa when Israel was born in 1948, Jews who once lived in Iraq recite the qasidas—lyrical Arabic poetry—and recall the time when most of Iraq’s banks and transport companies were run by Jews. “Iraq has gone downhill since they forced us out,” sighs a professor at a gathering of academics of Iraqi origin at Or Yehuda, a Tel Aviv suburb, slipping into Arabic. “Mubki, lamentable.” American officials are unclear on the...

General Rashid Dostum is a legendary and widely feared ex-warlord running for vice president alongside presidential candidate Dr. Ashraf Ghani (more on him later). Revered by fellow ethnic Uzbeks, he has been credited with having tremendous influence in Afghanistan’s previous elections. A fierce battlefield commander, Dostum is said to have been instrumental in helping the U.S. Special Forces topple the Taliban regime following the 9/11 attacks. He has strongly denied accusations of human rights abuses and other war-related atrocities throughout decades of strife across Afghanistan

Iran is assisting key Al-Qaeda figures to transfer Sunni fighters into Syria, the Obama administration charged Thursday. The accusation, detailed in new sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury department targeting Iranian terror links, indicates Iranian officials are backing opposing sides in the Syrian civil war. Olimzhon Adkhamovich Sadikov, described by the Treasury Department as an Iran-based Islamic Jihad Union facilitator who “operates there with the knowledge of Iranian authorities,” was designated for providing logistical support and funding to Al-Qaeda’s Iran-based network. -excerpt- Sadikov, also known as Jafar al-Uzbeki and Jafar Muidinov, serves as a “key extremist smuggler based in Mashhad,...

A senior al-Qaeda figure with close ties to the terrorist group’s current leader has left Iran, where he had lived for years after fleeing American forces in Afghanistan in 2001, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials. Thirwat Shihata is the latest suspected terrorist to leave Iran, raising questions about the country’s motives for allowing or forcing the departure of a string of al-Qaeda members that it had sheltered over the past decade. A top-secret 2008 U.S. document, which was leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, lists 13 senior al-Qaeda figures or associates in Iran. Five...

U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan have skyrocketed under President Obama. Since 2009, 73 percent of all U.S. deaths in the country have taken place, amounting to 27.1 fatalities per month, on average. Billy and Karen Vaughn, Gold Star parents of Special Operations Chief (SEAL) Aaron Vaughn who was killed in action in 2011, are speaking out about why. U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are now forced to fight a two-fronted war. Before each deployment, these soldiers understand fully that day after day they will do battle against relentless terrorists with shifting loyalties and unspeakable hatred. But what none of them...

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Feb. 12, in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when they were struck by enemy small arms fire. Killed were: Spc. John A. Pelham, 22, of Portland, Ore., and Sgt. First Class Roberto C. Skelt, 41, of York, Fla. Pelham and Skelt were assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.

As a former combat commander, I can tell you that fear is difficult to avoid on the battlefield. But on today’s battlefields, a new fear haunts our troops: the fear of persecution by their own government. That fear leads to internal hesitation. And that leads to death. Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents who know the pain of having their warrior son betrayed write on Breitbart.com “U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are now forced to fight a two-fronted war. Before each deployment, these soldiers understand fully that day after day they will do battle against relentless terrorists with shifting loyalties and unspeakable...

Once again, proving that he is a better ally to the Taliban than to America ; Mohammed has refused every request to hold these enemy combatants. Now free to re-join the fight and kill more U.S. troops . I have an idea ; Take No Prisoners ( in the future )

THE Victoria Cross has been awarded posthumously to Australian commando Corporal Cameron Baird, killed in Afghanistan in June 2013, Tony Abbott has announced. The Prime Minister told parliament that Corporal Baird, of the Special Operations Task Group, was the 100th Australian recipient of the highest military honour for bravery in wartime. He was the 40th - and last - Australian to die in Afghanistan. He is the fourth Australian VC from the conflict. Mr Abbott said the Tasmanian-born Corporal Baird, 32, was already an iconic figure in the army, and had also received the Medal of Gallantry. He was being...

U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are now forced to fight a two-fronted war. Before each deployment, these soldiers understand fully that day after day they will do battle against relentless terrorists with shifting loyalties and unspeakable hatred. But what none of them could have foreseen was the killing field that would open from their rear: the Continental United States. Our government’s incessant tightening of already restrictive ROE (Rules of Engagement), compounded by the failed COIN (Counterinsurgency) strategy—also known as “winning hearts and minds”—has made an otherwise primitive enemy formidable. Our best and brightest come home in body bags as politicians and...

"If these negotiations [with Iran] fail, there are two grim alternatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, "a nuclear Iran, or war, or perhaps both." Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham returned from the Munich security conference saying that even John Kerry agrees that President Obama's Syrian policy has failed. They are urging another look at air strikes. North Korea is warning that should the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises go forward in March, it could mean war, possibly nuclear war. Philippines President Benigno Aquino III this week compared his country's situation to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the disputed islets off his...

In the last 17 months since the U.S. government financially blacklisted the Haqqani Network, one of the deadliest insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not a single dollar associated with the group has been blocked or frozen, according to U.S. officials and one of the Congressman who oversees the Treasury Department’s financial war on terrorism. But it’s not just the Haqqanis—an ally today in the Taliban’s fight against U.S. troops and the Afghan government—who seem to have been spared from America’s economic attacks. According to a Treasury Department letter written in late November, not a single dollar been seized from...