Free Republic

“I’ve looked over Jordan, and I have seen Things are not what they seem. What do you get for pretending the danger’s not real... Meek and obedient you follow the leader Down well- trodden corridors into the valley of steel.” - Roger Waters I am tired of all the dancing around the subject with respect to Barack Obama’s political, social, and economic views. He’s not a “liberal,” or a “Democrat,” or a “progressive,” or even a “socialist.” Let’s call it what it is, shall we? It’s time to use the “C” word. His policies are communist, pure and simple. Even...

Laurie Mylroie, a noted author and middle east expert as well as 1992 Clinton campaign advisor on Iraq, evaluated the Richard Clarke book which President Clinton repeatedly and heatedly based his defense of his terror record to Chris Wallace on Fox News. Ms. Mylroie, described the Clarke book as "riddled with errors" and statues further that, "Clarke's book, Against All Enemies is, essentially, an attempt to blame the Bush administration for 9/11, while exonerating Clinton (and therefore Clarke). The reality is quite the reverse." Ms. Mylroie contends that Clarke's story "systematically distorts" key information, and she explains the central failing...

The latest in a stream of eye-opening Iraqi documents shows Saddam Hussein's regime was planning suicide attacks on U.S. interests six months before 9-11. Why won't Washington get the word out?Last month the Pentagon began releasing records captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Among the documents is a letter dated March 11, 2001, written by Abdel Magid Hammod Ali, one of Saddam's air force generals.According to an unofficial translation, Page 6 of the letter asks for "the names of those who desire to volunteer for suicide mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American interests." Assuming the document's accuracy, this shows...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Hot off his best picture win for "Crash," Paul Haggis is in final negotiations to direct and produce "Against All Enemies," a project based on Richard A. Clarke's best-selling memoir chronicling the Bush administration's handling of terrorist threats. Clarke, a former U.S. terrorism czar, offers the ultimate insider's account into the nation's security apparatus, featuring a cast of power brokers that includes President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and himself. The book was published by Free Press in March 2004 and hit No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list, fueling intense criticism over...

The government for the first time yesterday said illegal immigrants on Algerian-flagged LNG tankers in Boston ``may have had indirect associations'' with the so-called millennium plot to blow up the Los Angeles airport.

Sandy Who? Two weeks ago, Republicans were filled with glee, as Democrats fell all over themselves, trying to diminish the fact that Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser, Samuel Berger, better known as Sandy, was caught stuffing classified documents and national secrets down his drawers, in his jacket, in his socks, and in a leather portfolio, in order to steal them from the National Archives, and to later destroy some of them. (Berger returned some documents, but only after he was caught, and had “accidentally” destroyed the most important ones.) Note that Berger reportedly burgled the Archives on as many...

Republicans are filled with glee, as Democrats fall all over themselves, trying to diminish the fact that Bill Clinton's former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, was caught stuffing classified documents and national secrets down his drawers, in his jacket, in his socks, and in a leather portfolio, in order to steal them from the National Archives, and to later destroy some of them. (Berger returned some documents, but only after he was caught, but had "accidentally" destroyed the most important ones.) Note that Berger reportedly burgled the Archives on five separate occasions. Watergate, meet BVDgate. For the past thirty years,...

Republicans are filled with glee, as Democrats fall all over themselves, trying to diminish the fact that Bill Clinton's former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, was caught stuffing classified documents and national secrets down his drawers, in his jacket, in his socks, and in a leather portfolio, in order to steal them from the National Archives, and to later destroy some of them. (Berger returned some documents, but only after he was caught.) Watergate, meet BVDgate. For the past thirty years, many observers have thought it the height of paranoia for Pres. Richard Nixon's men to burglarize the offices of...

Letter To the Editor [of The Sunday New York Times Book Review]: I would like to respond to your review of the timely books ''Against All Enemies,'' by Richard A. Clarke, and ''Ghost Wars,'' by Steve Coll (April 11). I say ''timely'' because I am in the process of reading both, and I find a curious difference in the way they report a certain incident. ''Ghost Wars'' describes a discussion at the Clinton White House of the pros and cons of cruise missile attacks on hunting camps in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden might have been. Despite his evident desire...

Bombing bin LadenTo the Editor:I would like to respond to your review of the timely books "Against All Enemies," by Richard A. Clarke, and "Ghost Wars," by Steve Coll (April 11).I say "timely" because I am in the process of reading both and I find a curious difference in the way they report a certain incident. "Ghost Wars" describes a discussion at the Clinton White House of the pros and cons of cruise missile attacks on hunting camps in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden might have been. Despite his evident desire to "get" bin Laden, Clarke is said to have...

Hollywood hates Bush. Richard Clarke hates Bush. Is it any wonder that Sony Pictures has bought the rights to Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke's indignant I-was-there-so-I-should-know polemical memoir? At Sony, John Calley will be responsible for overseeing the project's development. "You could shoot the first 56 pages and have an extraordinary half of a movie," he told the New York Times, "then it goes on to more enthralling stuff."A remarkable suggestion, and reason enough to devote this column to John Calley and Richard Clarke jointly. Good job, boys. (Confetti, streamers, so on.)Now, the first 56 pages of Against All Enemies are...

The bestseller at the center of a national debate on America's security, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," may soon be hitting the silver screen. Sony Pictures has optioned the film rights to former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke's book, which questions the country's readiness to address potential terrorist threats before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The project will be produced by John Calley, a veteran Hollywood executive who stepped down as the studio's chief executive and chairman last year. Clarke last month testified at the commission investigating the Sept.11 attacks and said the...

Was it "shaking trees" or shaking knees that led to the arrest of convicted millennium terrorist Ahmed Ressam? As former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke tells it in his book "Against All Enemies," an international alert to be on the lookout for terrorists played a role in Ressam's capture at a Port Angeles ferry terminal in December 1999, his car loaded with bomb-making material. But national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in her testimony before the Sept. 11 commission last week, discounted Clarke's version and credited a savvy U.S. customs agent, Diana Dean. Dean stopped Ressam because "she sniffed something about...

Was it "shaking trees" or shaking knees that led to the arrest of convicted millennium terrorist Ahmed Ressam? As former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke tells it in his book "Against All Enemies," an international alert to be on the lookout for terrorists played a role in Ressam's capture at a Port Angeles ferry terminal in December 1999, his car loaded with bomb-making material. But national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in her testimony before the Sept. 11 commission last week, discounted Clarke's version and credited a savvy U.S. customs agent, Diana Dean. Dean stopped Ressam because "she sniffed something about...

NEW YORK (AP) — Former counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke's best-selling book may soon be a movie. Sony Pictures Entertainment has purchased the film rights to Against All Enemies, Sony vice chairwoman Amy Pascal told The New York Times for its Saturday editions. In the best-selling book, Clarke, a counterterrorism adviser to the past three presidents, charges that the Bush administration prioritized Iraq above threats from al-Qaeda before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The movie version is to be produced by John Calley, the entertainment group's former chairman, who worked on the 1976 Watergate drama All the President's Men...

Sony Pictures has optioned film rights to Richard Clarke's nonfiction best seller "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" for producer John Calley. "Enemies" -- which was published last month by the Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster -- has been at the center of the current national debate about America's readiness to respond to terrorist threats before Sept. 11. Clarke, who was a counterterrorism expert in the administrations of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, appeared before the 9/11 Commission the week the book was published. During that hearing, he testified that the Bush White...

Sony Pictures has optioned film rights to Richard Clarke's nonfiction best seller "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" for producer John Calley. "Enemies" -- which was published last month by the Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster -- has been at the center of the current national debate about America's readiness to respond to terrorist threats before Sept. 11. Clarke, who was a counterterrorism expert in the administrations of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, appeared before the 9/11 Commission the week the book was published. During that hearing, he testified that the Bush White...

The odor of dishonesty hangs about Richard Clarke's book. At best it's a useless volume, at worst... Let me make a few brief remarks about Clarke before I address what it says. As everybody knows, he is now front and center in the controversy surrounding 9-11 and the war in Iraq. Some people have attacked his character, and his motives. Motives are almost always unknowable, and it is therefore senseless to question them except in the case of politicians whose actions are often transparently dishonest and prompted by ulterior considerations. I can't possibly know Clarke's motives, but I can judge...

On March 23, 2004, Richard Clarke told BBC News "I am going to make sure the American people have the facts that I don't think they fully had before and they can make the appropriate decision." The question is: what facts does Richard Clarke provide us with, if any? On August 5 2002 Dan Rather on CBS Evening News declared: "Veterans of the Clinton administration say the Bush team didn't take their al-Qaeda warnings and plans seriously enough." Stone Phillips on NBC Nightly News revealed: "There is a new published report tonight that the outgoing Clinton administration gave the Bush...

"Another Conspiracy Theory intrigued me because I could never disprove it. The theory seemed unlikely on its face: Ramzi Yousef or Khalid Sheik Muhammad had taught Terry Nichols how to blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building. The problem was that, upon investigation, we established that both Ramzi Yousef and Nichols had been in the city of Cebu on the same days. I had been to Cebu years earlier; it is on an island in the central Philippines. It was a town in which word could have spread that a local girl was bringing her American boy friend home and that...