Free Republic

Mitt Romney's recent triumphal tour of Britain, Israel, and Poland struck me as a much-needed and most welcome apology tour for Barack Obama's abject abandonment and humiliation of our most loyal and trusted allies. Finally, here is an apology tour that Americans can get behind. It was a triumph. The enemedia says otherwise, of course. Mitt Romney began the long overdue, overwhelming task of beginning to rebuild allied relationships with longtime friends who were abandoned and betrayed by a reckless, feckless, subversive president.

Robert Kelley has done a series of interesting posts on his own blog (cross-posted to Duck of Minerva) exploring options for U.S. retrenchment and offering a template for thinking about U.S. alliance commitments. Consider what follows a set of variations on the theme he began. Kelley asks: if U.S. leaders tried to pursue a policy of partial retrenchment, what alliances commitments might they choose to limit or terminate, and which allies would still be considered important? Framing the question this way acknowledges that there may be some reputational issues involved in downgrading a long-standing security partnership, even if its original...

Last week, President Barack Obama rejected the world's most powerful living symbol of anti-communism, anti-Sovietism, and victory in the Cold War. The White House declined to have Lech Walesa stand in for the late Jan Karski, who posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Our president spurned Walesa, first president of free Poland, who had once risked everything to courageously join Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II in keeping Solidarity alive in Poland. Like Reagan and John Paul II, Walesa knew that Solidarity could be the wedge to split the Communist Bloc from top to bottom, as it indeed...

Just how phoney, disingenuous, condescending, insincere, and weasely IS Barack Obama? Watch this montage of the president speaking about foreign countries and see for yourself. Unbelievable.

From the Danish show Detektor, here's a telling showcase of President Obama's mannerisms when he's wheeling and dealing in the foreign-relations arena. This isn't to say that we don't have good relationships with each of these countries, but... the words "indiscriminate" and "disingenuous" do spring to mind (h/t Ace):

After 9/11, it became commonplace to ridicule the status of Saudi Arabia as an “ally.” For decades, American leaders cuddled up to the Saudi Royal Family as it spent billions of dollars to export radical Islam around the globe. Today, the U.S. is eager to have our “ally,” Qatar, take a leading role in the region while it does the exact same thing. Qatar is home to Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, the most influential Sunni theologian and top Muslim Brotherhood cleric. He uses his popular show on Al-Jazeera, also based in Qatar, to rally support for Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and...

With vote tallies in for Egypt’s first round of parliamentary elections in it is abundantly clear that Egypt is on the fast track to becoming a totalitarian Islamic state. The first round of voting took place in Egypt’s most liberal, cosmopolitan cities. And still the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists received more than 60 percent of the vote. Run-off elections for 52 seats will by all estimates increase their representation. And then in the months to come, Egyptian voters in the far more Islamist Nile Delta and Sinai will undoubtedly provide the forces of jihadist Islam with an even greater...

A source on the Rick Perry campaign tells Hot Air that the Texas governor conducted some Texas-size fundraising in the third quarter. Coming in just a little over halfway through, Perry raised $17.1 million. That number would put Perry somewhere between $4-6 million ahead of Mitt Romney’s rumored total for Q3, according to this report last week from the Boston Globe. It’s also likely to far outpace Herman Cain’s fundraising or that of the other Republicans currently in the race. The pace is even more impressive. Perry had 49 days in which to raise funds, rather than the full 92...

Rick Perry aligned himself with some of the most hawkish pro-Israel voices on the question of Israel and Palestine today, but offered a more moderate vision than some of his supporters'. And the Texas governor laid out a far more articulated and current stand on the issues of Israel and a Palestinian state in a short speech to largely Orthodox Jewish supporters of Israel in a ballroom at the W Hotel on New York's Union Square. Perry spoke surrounded by Jewish leaders, many of whom -- like Likud figure and settler tribune Danny Danon and National Council of Young Israel...

For many, photographs from the World War II have only been seen in grainy black and white. But now, new colour images have emerged that show the full horror of the destruction inflicted by Nazi bombings across London. The powerful images were released to mark the 70th anniversary of the launch of Winston Churchill's 'V for Victory' campaign on July 19, 1941.

In honour of President Obama’s state visit to Britain this week, here’s an updated and revised list, as a reminder to readers of the president’s less than stellar track record when it comes to US-British relations. 1. Siding with Argentina over the Falklands 2. Calling France America’s strongest ally 3. Downgrading the Special Relationship 4. Supporting a federal Europe and undercutting British sovereignty 5. Betraying Britain to appease Moscow over the New START Treaty 6. Placing a “boot on the throat” of BP 7. Throwing Churchill out of the Oval Office 8. DVDs for the Prime Minister 9. Insulting words...

BENGHAZI, Libya – French fighter jets fired the first shots at Moammar Gadhafi's troops on Saturday, launching the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war in support of an uprising that had seemed on the verge of defeat. In the hours before the no-fly zone over Libya went into effect, Gadhafi sent warplanes, tanks and troops into Benghazi, the rebel capital and first city to fall to the rebellion that began Feb. 15. Then the government attacks appeared to go silent.

The early weeks of 2011 have been marked by a surge of protests in the Middle East and North Africa have now overturned two longstanding autocratic regimes, in Tunisia and Egypt. However, the wave of democratic protests have not been contained to the Maghreb, even if the entrenched regimes of the Gulf and Levant do not appear under immediate threat. One country being watched very closely by Washington is Jordan, which ranks as one of America’s staunchest allies in the region. Jordan looked an unlikely target for the kind of social unrest found elsewhere in the region, with a more...

SAS Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith is Australia’s 98th Victoria Cross holder after the bronze cross with crimson ribbon was pinned to his chest by Governor General Quentin Bryce in Perth today. During a formal investiture ceremony at the picturesque beachside headquarters of the SAS at Campbell Barracks, Swanbourne, Corporal Roberts-Smith became only the second Australian soldier to wear the Victoria Cross of Australia after Corporal Mark Donaldson who received the honour in 2009. Before 1991 it was an Imperial Honour that was won by 96 Australians from the Boer War to Vietnam. He is only the second Western Australian born holder...

Obama's insular White House worries his alliesThe president famously relies on a tight circle of advisors. But with Republicans running the House next year, many say Obama will need some new faces to convey a new message. By Peter Nicholas, Washington Bureau 7:06 p.m. CST, December 24, 2010 Reporting from Washington — In the West Wing it had become a pretty common sight: two national security aides with close ties to the president, Thomas Donilon and Denis McDonough, hurrying into the Oval Office to show him the latest piece of hot intelligence. Some administration officials who watched the scene unfold...

Defining 'New Labour,' defending the Iraq war, getting to know George W. Bush. It is now painfully obvious that Tony Blair—the man who led Britain for a decade, who transformed the country's dully orthodox Labour Party into dashing, moderate "New Labour," who faced down parliamentary opponents with brio and eloquently defended the invasion of Iraq—is no longer much of a hero in his own country. Indeed, he is intensely disliked, not least for his loyalty to the "freedom agenda"—the idea that, after 9/11, Western democracies had a duty to face down tyrants like Saddam Hussein and end the threat they...

Democratic Socialists of America, is despite its deceptive name is the U.S.'s largest and probably most influential Marxist based organization. Many of its several thousand members operate through the Democratic Party, New York's influential Working Families Party and the organization also counts thousands of of labor unionists, religious activists, journalists and college professors in its ranks. D.S.A. helped establish and continues to support the more than 80 strong Congressional Progressive Caucus and is particularly close to "single payer" healthcare champions Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Caucus founder Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. [caption id="attachment_653" align="aligncenter" width="439" caption="Quentin Young, Barack...

For many wartime veterans, the navy's 100th anniversary this year comes with mixed emotions. They recall the pride and fondness Canadians once held for the navy in the decades after the Second World War, but are deeply saddened by the state of the navy today -- not only its declining capability and its neglect by Ottawa, but its irrelevance for so many Canadians at a time when the army, and its mission in Afghanistan, dominate the headlines. "I don't think half of Canada knows anything about the navy's history," says veteran Ted Paxton, "and while the modern navy hasn't been...

I’m told there won’t be any daylight between the US and Israel in the aftermath of the incident on the flotilla yesterday, which resulted in the deaths of 10 activists. Regardless of the details of the flotilla incident, sources say President Obama is focused on what he sees as the longer term issue here: a successful Mideast peace process. “The president has always said that it will be much easier for Israel to make peace if it feels secure,” a senior administration official tells ABC News. The suggestion is that US condemnation of Israel would further isolate that country, and...

We are at war with radical Islam, and that war will go on for many years. For me, the question is this: will the secular Western civilization shared by America and Europe, which allows us to enjoy life and its creature comforts, still be standing at the end of that war? Or will radical Islam, with an aggressive culture that treasures martyrdom and death over life, prevail? The vast majority of Muslims, of course, are peace-loving. The fanaticism found among the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia is not found in many of the countries where a billion, 400 million Muslims live....