Free Republic

To strike Syria, or not to strike Syria. As of Thursday evening, Donald Trump, our tweeter in chief, is keeping the world, the Russians and Syria's dictator-in-chief Bashar al-Assad guessing. On Wednesday, President Trump said U.S. missiles "will be coming" to visit Syria in retaliation for its government's alleged use of chemical weapons on the Syrian town of Douma on April 7. On Thursday, Trump hedged a little, tweeting that he "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!" Later he tweeted, "We'll see what happens." Trump being...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)A documentary filmmaker who spent time with the Free Syrian Army said that moderate rebels are “laughing” at President Obama’s plan to arm them against the Islamic State, claiming they simply “don’t take this seriously.” Matthew VanDyke, an American filmmaker and a friend of executed journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, spoke with Fox News’s Shepard Smith about the White House’s plan to arm and train thousands of rebels affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, a more moderate rebel group that’s friendly with the West, in order to encourage them to fight the Islamic State. VanDyke warned that removing the...

“For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Barack Obama said in a written statement in August, 2011. The statement came following reports that indicated Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was involved in a bloody crackdown on protesters who rose up amid the Arab Spring revolutions. Two years later, Obama was marshalling support for air strikes against forces loyal to Assad. Though the administration had ruled out “regime change” through military force, toppling Assad was the goal nevertheless. The United States was responding to the clear evidence that Damascus had used chemical...

"But, may I add, the training also will service these troops in the same struggle that they've been in since the beginning of this conflict against the Assad regime"

It's all settled. Russia and the United States have agreed that Bashar al-Assad's impressive arsenal of chemical weapons will be inventoried, secured and destroyed by the middle of next year, give or take a few months. Or maybe a few decades if appeasement bears its usual poisoned fruit. Naturally the deal doesn't cover any and all canisters of sarin Brother Assad may already have used to assure a painful and paralyzing death for hundreds of his own subjects -- from oldest to youngest regardless of age or sex. (Who says the man is not an equal-opportunity killer?) There's no need...

Out of the corner of my eye, as I was passing a television, I saw a plane fly into a building. The sound was not on, and I thought, it must be a small plane and a small building. An errant pilot or a plane with failing equipment that crashed when it intended to land. I was wrong. It was Sept. 11, 2001, and what I had seen out of the corner of my eye were the first moments of a coordinated terrorist attack on our country. The devastation and details would hit me later. Almost 3,000 Americans died that...

Some things you just have to do, in spite of great uncertainty. Launching missiles at Syria isn't one of them. Many pundits talk about going to war as if all we have to do is make up our minds about what "ought" to happen -- who the bad guys are -- and the rest is just details. If we decide we must punish a tyrant, let the military worry about how to get it done. We ought to worry more about details. Everyone agrees there are huge "known unknowns" in Syria -- we barely know the composition of the rebel...

Thirty-five miles northeast of Damascus is a small Christian village built into the mountains of Syria. Until yesterday, the most interesting thing about this town called Maaloula was that its 6,000 residents are among the last in the world who still speak Aramaic – the language Christ spoke as a boy in a carpentry shop, as man giving a sermon from a mount, and on the eve of his death and resurrection when he broke bread and poured wine and said, “This is my body…. This is my blood.” Yesterday, according to reports by eyewitnesses, the Christians of Maaloula were...

It is increasingly likely that President Obama's punt on Syria will doom effective action. Since announcing a week ago that he would seek congressional support for a U.S. military response to the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people, he's actually lost votes from those who appeared willing to back a strike. By Friday, "no" or "leaning-no" senators slightly outnumbered those favoring action, while nearly half of House members were either firmly against or leaning against U.S. intervention, with only 24 clearly in favor. And Democrats are generously represented among those opposed. Of course, the president could...

President Barack Obama is simultaneously saying he intends to take military action against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to punish it for using chemical weapons, but that he will not put U.S. troops on the ground in Syria. Is such a plan more likely to advance the interests of the American people or those of the Assad regime's most vehement foe -- al-Qaida? Will it increase or decrease future acts of evil? On Feb. 11, 2012, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a videotape in which he urged Muslims to support the rebellion against the Assad regime. He likened what...

Syria: The Asad government continues to insist that it did not use chemical weapons in the attack on 21 August. It approved an extension of the UN inspection team's visit and requested that it investigate three gas attacks against Syrian soldiers since 21 August. Lebanon's Daily Star reported on 26 August that at least four Hizballah fighters are receiving treatment in Beirut after coming into contact with chemical agents in Syria, a security source said. The source said four or five members came into contact with the chemical agents while searching a group of rebel tunnels in the Damascus suburb of Jobar over...