Free Republic

Top White House officials have reportedly been holding private meetings with lawmakers this week to boost support for the president’s foreign policy strategy, although the outreach effort appears to have left some lawmakers confused and upset. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) described a meeting with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and National Security Adviser Susan Rice earlier this week as “one of the most bizarre I've attended on Foreign Relations on foreign policy in our country.” “I know several of us were involved in a very bizarre discussion last night. This continues a very bizarre discussion,” Corker added, according...

Israel spies on the United States more than any other ally does and these activities have reached an alarming level, Newsweek magazine reported on Tuesday. The main targets are US industrial and technical secrets, the weekly said, quoting classified briefings on legislation that would make it easier for Israeli citizens to get visas to enter America. Newsweek said a congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony "very sobering ... alarming ... even terrifying", and quoted another as saying the behavior was "damaging." "No other country close to the United States continues to cross the line on...

Reality checks needed during war DON SELLAR Halabja (pop. 80,000) is a small Kurdish city in northern Iraq. On Wednesday, the Star reminded readers that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army killed 5,000 Kurds in a 1988 chemical weapons attack on Halabja near the end of a bloody, eight-year war with Iran. The statement that Saddam was responsible for gassing the Kurds — his own people — was straightforward. Indeed, U.S. President George W. Bush has used similar language about the disaster at Halabja in making a case for a military strike to oust Saddam. Yet the Star also reported, in a...

A bill that could potentially cut off foreign aid to Palestinians has some surprising opposition: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobby, says Sen. Rand Paul, who is sponsoring the legislation. "Ironically, the group AIPAC is pushing back this bill and this is to me very troubling," Paul told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

While the White House has continually threatened further sanctions against Russia for non-de-escalation (even as it un-de-escalates itself), the specifics of the additional sanctions have been sparse. German CEO warnings over blowback from economic sanctions... the "nonsense" of replacing Russian gas with US gas... the Russian warnings of "interdependence" and "boomerangs"... all reduce the West's arsenal of financial sanctions. But, as The Times of London reports, perhaps the US has found a crucial pain point for Putin - a sanctions regime that would target Putin's personal wealth, which includes a reported $40 billion stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As The...

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened. - From a recent...

There is no large Russian military presence in East Ukraine, head of EU intelligence, Commodore Georgij Alafuzoff, has said. The spy chief has dismissed multiple accusations from the West alleging Russian involvement in the unrest in the region. In an interview with Finnish national news broadcaster, Yle, Alafuzoff said the Russian military had nothing to do with the seizing of government buildings in eastern Ukraine. “In my opinion, it’s mostly people who live in the region who are not satisfied with the current state of affairs,” said Alafuzoff, referring to the situation in East Ukraine. He went on to say...

Syria's opposition fighters have been supplied with U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, the first time a major American weapons system has appeared in rebel hands. It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wire-guided missiles, which are capable of penetrating heavy armor and fortifications and are standard in the U.S. military arsenal. The United States has sold them in the past to Turkey, among other countries, and the Pentagon approved the sale of 15,000 of the weapons to Saudi Arabia in December. Both countries aid Syrian opposition groups. U.S. officials declined to discuss the origin of the weapons but did not dispute...

Under pressure from Arab nations, the United Nations Human Rights Council has rejected a U.S.-backed choice to replace its outgoing point man on Palestine, and is now eyeing two candidates who share a long history of alleged anti-Israel bias. The current front-runner to replace Richard Falk, a 9/11 truther who once praised Ayatollah Khomeinei and was reliably anti-Israel while serving as the council's special rapporteur on Palestinian rights, is Christine Chinkin, a law professor at the London School of Economics. Chinkin authored the Goldstone report, an infamous UN study on the Gaza conflict that was repudiated by Israel. A dark...

Republicans, I come in peace.Until very recently, Rand Paul’s project of insinuating himself comfortably within the Republican Party, and positioning himself as a plausible presidential nominee, had gone along with remarkable ease. Yes, the author of his campaign book turned out to be an unreconstructed neo-Confederate. That was a speed bump. (Who among us has not entrusted the explication of his worldview to a man who has cheered on the assassination of President Lincoln?) Paul had staged a masterful piece of political theater with his marathon Senate speech denouncing the Obama administration’s drone policy. He has assembled a top-tier campaign...

The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American 'mercenaries' from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny. ... The latest news relesae from Greystone, as posted on a company blog, is from September 2012, titled "New business in Russia" and simply says the company "provided executive protection services in Russia." In April 2012, the company announced it had been awarded a similar contract in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFSHGhq19CM&feature=share

Is the Republican Party's Middle East policy up for bid? For four days ending Sunday, a quartet of presidential hopefuls trooped to Las Vegas to attend the annual gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Impresario: Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas-Macau casino mogul whose fortune is estimated at $39 billion -- 8th richest man on the planet -- and who dumped $92 million into the election of 2012. Adelson kept Newt Gingrich alive with a $15 million infusion of ad money, gutting Romney, and then sank $30 million into Mitt's campaign. This time Sheldon wants to buy himself a winner. Ari Fleischer,...

Unrest in the nation must be running high if people are looking for ways to pull up stakes and leave the union entirely. Some Texans petitioned the White House to break away in 2012, though not much came of the effort. Possibly my favorite breakaway story was that of the Conch Republic, which seceded from the US in 1982, immediately suing the government for $1B in war damages.Despite the lack of success on the part of these previous efforts, they all had one thing in common. They weren’t looking to join up with any other nations, but rather to strike...

Turkey has warned it will take any necessary steps to protect the Suleyman Shah tomb in Syria if it comes under attack. The tomb, which is protected by Turkish soldiers, is located in the city of Aleppo in Syria near the Turkish border and Ankara considers it to be Turkish territory. Turkey’s political leadership has reacted strongly to a threat made by the radical group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, to attack the Suleyman Shah tomb protected by Turkish soldiers in Syria. Tensions recently have been on the rise with Ankara strongly condemning ISIS’s tactics in Syria....

Back in 2013 it was Syria where the world was gearing for imminent military action after a relentless series of false flag provocations by the United States (intent on securing a Qatar gas pipeline to Europe) which in the last minute was deftly diffused by Vladimir Putin. In 2014, it was the Ukraine's turn, and after a prolonged campaign orchestrated by Victoria Nuland and the US State Department (again) which succeeded in the now traditional violent coup (see Egypt and Libya), once again saw Putin victorious, after yesterday's annexation of the all important Crimean peninsula, achieved without the firing of...

"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...

JERUSALEM — The threat of US military action against Syria remains "real", Washington's top diplomat said on Sunday a day after striking a deal with Russia to destroy Damascus's chemical weapons stockpile. "The threat of force remains, the threat is real," US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a news conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We cannot have hollow words in the conduct of international affairs." Kerry's remarks were made following a four-hour meeting with Netanyahu at which the two men discussed the US-Russian agreement on eradicating Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons, and also talked...

Vladimir Putin (5'7", allegedly), let’s review: His first term as President of Russia coincided with George W. Bush’s stolen American Presidency. I hate this American President, his stick is much bigger than mine From 2000-2008 Putin tried, more or less, to make nice with America and the West. Accordingly, he confined most of his inner-machismo to his big game hunts; and dealing with internal enemies. Ask Litvinenko: Is polonium a chemical weapon? Then, when GWB’s second term was over, he gave Dmitry Medvedev (5'4") In Russia, the difference between 5'7" and 5'4" is what they say it is. a “short”...

MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian state TV host has invited US Senator John McCain to take part in his show and discuss his stance on Syria. Popular Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov said Sunday that the Republican senator known for his critical views on Russia’s leadership can appear in his show to respond to President Vladimir Putin’s recent article in the New York Times on Syria. “On our behalf, the broadcaster and myself invite Senator McCain, who wanted to respond to Putin’s letter … to the Sunday Night program,” Solovyov said on Sunday. McCain said earlier that...