Free Republic

The "Axis of Idiots"  From the Podium:J. D. Pendry, Retired Sergeant Major, USMC FROM THE PODIUMThis retired USMC Sgt. Major has his Stuff together. Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the "runner-in-chief." Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your...

Once the apotheosis of a pro-Western, dependable Muslim democracy, this week Turkey officially left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis. It isn't that Ankara's behavior changed fundamentally in recent days. There is nothing new in its massive hostility toward Israel and its effusive solicitousness toward the likes of Syria and Hamas. Since the Islamist AKP party first won control over the Turkish government in the 2002 elections, led by AKP chairman Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the Turks have incrementally and inexorably moved the formerly pro-Western Muslim democracy into the radical Islamist camp populated by the...

Barack Obama Starts US Talks With 'Axis of Evil': North Korea and Iran President Barack Obama has approved plans for the US to start direct talks with both North Korea and Iran, in a significant shift in policy. By Philip Sherwell in New York and David Eimer in Beijing 12 Sep 2009 Barack Obama's new approach marks a significant change in American diplomacy The State Department said it would meet one-to-one with Pyongyang negotiators in an effort to persuade the reclusive Stalinist state to return to multilateral talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons programme. Washington has also accepted a vague...

As the world watches the governments of the Middle East divide into two competing blocs based on their allegiance to Iran, a similar Iron Curtain is being created in Africa. The Iran-Syria Axis is teaming up with rogue countries like Sudan, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe, and even radical Islamic forces in Somalia. Opposing this Axis is Ethiopia and Djibouti, although many more countries will enlist themselves in either bloc in the years ahead. The ongoing war in Somalia may be ultimately seen as the first proxy war between these two blocs. A November 2006 United Nations report revealed how several countries...

By any measure, President Bush’s speech to the Knesset last week on the occasion of Israel’s 60th birthday was nothing short of stunning. This paean to the bond between the United States and Israel, while personal in many ways, went beyond anything any U.S. president had previously said and expressed sentiments that all people of good faith and seekers of peace can relate to and embrace. The president’s message was that when it comes to Israel, the U.S. would never accommodate terrorist pressure or political importuning from any source, and those who think otherwise had better reevaluate their position. He...

US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday. The official claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for. However, the official continued, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on...

The government of Colombia says that when it conducted a raid into Ecuador to destroy a terrorist camp there, it seized a laptop that contained a number of communications to and from the "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia." The communications are pretty interesting; among other things, they seem to connect Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to the Communist rebel group. No surprise there. Most intriguing to an American reader are the references to Barack Obama: References to U.S. diplomatic overtures are scintillating, if vague. In a Dec. 11 message to the secretariat, Marquez [FARC's contact with Chavez, who lives in Venezuela] writes:...

'Dutch Universities Rejecting Iranian Students due to Nuclear Threat' THE HAGUE, 03/01/08 - The universities of Enschede and Eindhoven are no longer admitting any students from Iran. They say they are forced to do so by the government, according to newspaper Trouw. The technical universities must state in a declaration that new Iranian students will not in any way whatsoever have access to knowledge on nuclear technology. The universities cannot and do not want to issue this statement because, as they say, their students are entitled to all information available. The third technical university, the TU Delft, does reportedly still...

The assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto illustrates the fragility of the current international order in the face of the radical Islamist threat. Pakistan is an Islamic country with nuclear weapons and security services that contain many sympathizers with the Taliban and al-Qaida. It is hardly clear that the massive US investment in the Musharraf government as a bulwark against these same jihadi groups will be sustainable. Bhutto was murdered by a suicide bomber who shot her before blowing himself up, killing some dozen of her supporters. This bombing followed two others in October from which Bhutto escaped unharmed,...

Huck offers olive branch to Rush, asks for him to get in touch SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The best-talking Republican politician in America has a message for the best-talking conservative voice in the country: Let's talk to one another. Mike Huckabee, taking questions from reporters after a town hall meeting here, responded to the torrent of criticism that Rush Limbaugh unleashed during his broadcast yesterday by turning the other cheek — and then heaping on the praise. "I love Rush Limbaugh; I've always loved his show," Huckabee assured. "I think he’s been great for the conservative movement." The former Arkansas...

NEW YORK — Russian President Vladimir Putin was named the Time magazine "Person of the Year." Richard Stengel, Time's managing editor, said the 2007 honor went to the Russian leader "for an extraordinary feat of leadership in taking a country that was in chaos and bringing it stability." Others in the running for the honor included Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore and author J.K. Rowling

Iran tested a newly-developed ballistic missile on the day of the Annapolis conference, Channel 10 reported Wednesday. The Ashoura missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and is capable of reaching Israel, US Army bases in the Middle East and eastern European cities, including Moscow, said the TV channel. According to the report, the new missile is an improvement on the existing Shihab-3 missile. The Ashoura uses solid fuel instead of the Shihab's liquid fuel, giving it a significantly faster launch sequence which is harder to detect. Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Mostafa Muhammad-Najjar had announced the development of the new...

In Tokyo, on Channel 10, Asahi TV (also broadcast nationwide) on popular Sunday morning discussion and news analysis talk show "SUNDAY PROJECT".It is showing former US Ambassador to the U.N. conservative John Bolton make very strong statements against new Bush Adminstration approach of carrot (and no stick) on North Korea.They are splicing in footage of mealy mouth pansie State Department types making quisling-ish comments at press conference.

Children of Che Guevara meet Iran’s culture minister Tehran Times Culture Desk September 27, 2007 TEHRAN -- Two children of Ernesto Che Guevara met Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Hossein Saffar Harandi here on Tuesday. Aleida and Camilo Guevara are currently visiting Iran and are scheduled to meet with high-ranking Iranian officials. The culture minister paid tribute to Che Guevara and said Iran and Cuba have one point in common, which is the fact that both have experienced U.S. hostility. Saffar Harandi added that Cuba has made good progress over the years, and congratulated Aleida and Camilo on...

VANDENBERG AFB, Calif., Sept 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Riki Ellison, President of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), http://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/, was at Vandenberg AFB to view the ground-based interceptor launch from the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense site on Vandenberg AFB, CA and got to witness the successful intercept by one of our nation's ground-based interceptor missile (GBI) deployed there against a threat-representative long range target missile launched from Kodiak, Alaska. Ellison's overall appraisal of the test was characterized as "an overwhelming success with the 7th intercept of this system gives our nation and our public great confidence that our military has the...

<p>Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.</p>

The foreign ministers of India, Russia and China were meeting Wednesday in the Indian capital in a bid to strengthen relations and to explore cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism and energy security, Indian officials said. The meeting between India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing is part of efforts by the three countries to forge a trilateral forum to work more closely on regional security issues, the officials said. "This will be the second stand-alone meeting of its kind," said Navtej Sarna, external affairs ministry spokesman. The foreign ministers...

<p>WASHINGTON - An order from President Bush authorized a series of U.S. raids against Iranians in Iraq as part of a broad military offensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.</p> <p>Bush issued the order several months ago, Rice told The New York Times as she prepared to visit the Middle East. She said the president acted "after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity" among Iranians in Iraq "and increasing lethality in what they were producing."</p>

BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese delegation that the communist nation didn't plan to conduct additional nuclear tests, a news report said Friday. Kim told Chinese envoy Tang Jiaxuan that "we have no plans for additional nuclear tests," Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unnamed diplomatic source in Beijing. Kim also expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to the delegation and said Pyongyang would return to nuclear talks if Washington backs off from its financial sanctions, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

Full Text: North Korea statement The following is the full text of a statement released by the foreign ministry of North Korea, which calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK): On 14 October, the United States instigated the UN Security Council to unjustly find fault with our self-defensive nuclear test as a threat to international peace and safety, and once again passed the vicious resolution on sanctions and blockade against the Republic. Our successful nuclear test is a positive defensive countermeasure to defend our country's sovereignty and the people's life and safety so as to cope with the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials say North Korea's military has informed China it intends to carry out a series of underground nuclear tests, NBC News reported on Tuesday. No further details were provided in the report. The United States said North Korea had moved equipment into place that may indicate it plans a second nuclear test, despite international condemnation of its first underground nuclear explosion on October 9. North Korea has denounced U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test as a declaration of war.

On the forefront of our country's most western state, against the backdrop of the USS Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri, floats 4 of our major Missile Defense assets; the USS Russell (DDG-59), USS Lake Erie (CG-70), USS Port Royal (CG-73), and SBX-1. These 4 ships, in conjunction with the GBI sites in Alaska and California can neutralize North Korea's ballistic missile intentions. In the last 12 months, the United States has successfully intercepted 13 ballistic missiles during realistic operational testing. In the last 90 days, the United States intercepted 4 ballistic missiles from long range to short range and...

UNITED NATIONS — The United States dropped the possibility of using force against North Korea over the regime's purported nuclear test, a concession to Russia and China in the hope of seeing a U.N. Security Council resolution on the standoff passed by Friday.

Four days after North Korea tried to set off its first nuclear bomb, U.S. intelligence agencies think the blast detected by seismic sensors was a plutonium-fueled device that did not fully explode. "The working assumption is that what happened, more likely than not, was an attempted nuclear test that fell far short of being successful," said one U.S. official familiar with the latest intelligence assessment. There is still no confirmation that North Korea succeeded in creating a nuclear explosion, and so far no radioactive particles that would confirm a successful nuclear test have been detected. The Washington Times first reported...

TOKYO - Japan is ready for North Korea to carry out its threatened nuclear test as soon as this weekend, officials said yesterday. Japanese Vice-Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi, on a visit to Washington, said Pyongyang's resolve to test its first atom bomb should not be underestimated. "We discussed the possibility that the test would occur this weekend," Mr Yachi said after talks with US Deputy National Security Adviser Jack Crouch. North Korea issued a statement on Tuesday saying it would test a nuclear bomb, dramatically raising the stakes in its standoff with the US on its quest for atomic weapons....

"S. Korean Dollar Payments to Kaesong (North Korea) Illegal"

US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made his strongest public case for a plan, opposed by some in the US Congress and by Russia, to convert some Navy long-range missiles from a nuclear to a conventional role for potential use against terrorist targets anywhere in the world. Rumsfeld held talks Sunday with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, and they discussed the issue at a joint news conference. Opponents of the plan argue that it could create a situation in which a conventionally armed US Trident missile, launched from a submarine, would be mistaken for a nuclear launch, thus risking the...

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/ap/ADDITION_CUBA_CASTRO.sff_NY110_20060813062244.jpg This is one of four photographs published Sunday Aug. 13, 2006 by Cuba's Communist Youth newspaper's online edition Juventud Rebelde proporting to show The first photographs of Fidel Castro since his illness two weeks ago. Castro holds a copy of the Saturday Aug. 12, 2006 edition of Granma, the Communist Party newspaper. The headline reads "Absolved by history." The Associated Press cannot verify the authenticity or the date when these photographs were shot. (AP Photo/HO) Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Mr Chavez said he wanted to conclude "a unity pact" in Minsk Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Belarus "as a model social state" like the one he and his government are building. During a visit to Belarus, he called for joint efforts to counter what he described as "hegemonic" capitalism. Mr Chavez later met Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko, accused in the West of crushing fundamental rights. Mr Chavez is on a world tour, partly to win support for a Venezuelan seat on the UN Security Council. From Belarus, he will travel to Russia, Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali....

Opening a security conference in Tehran on July 8, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exhorted the Islamic world to mobilize against Israel and "remove the Zionist regime." Four days later, Hezbollah terrorists staged a raid across Israel's northern border, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing eight more. It was Iran that supplied Hezbollah with its immense arsenal of artillery rockets. When Hezbollah launches them at Israel, it is doing the bidding of its patron. The same is true of Hamas, which is likewise financed by Iran. Israel may be able to inflict a punishing defeat on Hezbollah, but regime change in...

WASHINGTON - Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It's smack in the middle of the Arctic. First-of-its-kind core samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor show that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise, three new studies show. The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer-than-thought polar region heated by run-amok greenhouse gases that came about naturally. Skeptics of man-made causes of global warming have nothing to...

MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday rejected a US call for Moscow to end its cooperation with Iran in constructing the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Foreign ministry spokes-man Mikhail Kamynin said that the plant had no relation to Iran's work in uranium enrichment. "The adoption of a commitment on ending cooperation with this or that state in some sphere lies exclusively in the competence of the UNSC," he said in a statement. "Up to now, the Security Council has taken no decision on ending cooperation with Iran in nuclear energy." Every country "has the right to decide with whom and how it...

Russia has insisted it is opposed to moves by the United States and its allies to impose sanctions against Iran. At a meeting in Moscow, Russian officials met delegates from the US, Britain, France, Germany and China to discuss the latest moves in Iran's disputed nuclear programme. Afterwards Russian spokesman Mikhail Kamynin insisted that neither the sanctions route nor the use of force would lead to a solution of the problem. In Washington, the Bush administration says further action is needed. White House spokesman Scott McLennan said: "Violations and failures by the regime to comply with its international obligations run...

Not meant to scare, rather to serve as a wake-up call. This Monday Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported that part of Ukraine's Soviet-era nuclear arsenal may well have found its way to Iran. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainians agreed to transfer the Soviet nuclear arsenal that remained in Ukraine after independence to Russia. According to Novaya Gazeta, some 250 nuclear warheads never made it to Russia and are thought to have been sent to Iran instead. The report further noted that the warheads in question will remain operational until 2010. ............................ Iran's recent financial maneuverings also...

Not only were neither Saddam Hussein nor Iraq mentioned in a film about the Iraq-Kuwait war, but the Manchurian corporation's technicians rewire the brains of the abducted U.S. soldiers with false memories of al-Qaida-type jihadists so that they will lay the blame for their terrorist acts on an innocent Muslim jihadist. Why don't the movies have plausible, real-world villains anymore? One reason is that a plethora of stereotype-sensitive advocacy groups, representing everyone from hyphenated ethnic minorities and the physically handicapped to Army and CIA veterans, now maintain liaisons in Hollywood to protect their images. The studios themselves often have "outreach...

In his first State of the Nation address during his first term, Bush lumped Syria along with Iran and North Korea as the so-called the world's "axis of evil."

Iran says it has found the wreckage of two US unmanned spy planes on its territory in recent months, accusing the US of violating its sovereignty through illegal overflights. The Foreign Ministry says Iran "strongly protests against such unlawful acts and emphasises the necessity to observe the principles of international law concerning the sanctity of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states". The Pentagon has no immediate comment to the protest, which came in letters to the US Government written months ago but only made public at the United Nations on Monday. They described the crash of a Shadow 200...

The UN Security Council approved a resolution Monday demanding Syria co-operate with a UN investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, threatening further action against Damascus if it continues to stonewall. Syrian border police keep watch. INDEPTH: Syria The resolution was unanimously approved by the 15-member council after the threat of economic sanctions was dropped from a previous resolution, co-sponsored by the U.S., France and Britain. Russia and China had objected to the initial text which called for the threat of economic sanctions unless Syria co-operated with an investigation into the bombing that killed Rafik Hariri and 20...

On the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of D-Day, Presidents Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush traveled to Normandy to lead us in tribute to the bravery of the Greatest Generation of Americans, who had liberated Europe. Always a deeply moving occasion. The 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, were not times of celebration or warm remembrance. Angry arguments for and against the dropping of the bombs roil the airwaves and fill the press. And the reason is obvious. While World War II was a just war against enemies...

Senior Iranian officials have indicated that Russia could become a partner in lucrative projects to build 20 nuclear power stations in Iran. "A plan has been approved in parliament obliging the government to study the possibility of building 20 nuclear power stations. Many countries, including Russia, could participate," Kazem Jalali, head of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, announced in Moscow. Jalali, heading the Iran-Russia Parliamentary Friendship Group on an official visit to Russia, made the remarks at a meeting with Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom). Jalali told Russian officials that Iran still intends...

BEIJING: China and Russia are to hold rare joint military exercises involving up to 8,000 service personnel from Aug 18-26, the Global Times reported, citing Russian media reports. 'Peace Mission 2005' will involve China's army, navy and air force, while Russia will dispatch its navy and air force, it said. China's Defense Ministry has not announced the exercises. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said last Thursday during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao that joint exercises will take place later this year. According to the Global Times, which is run by the official People's Daily, final arrangements for...

MOSCOW - With Russia and China pledging to develop their partnership, investment and energy issues topped the agenda of their bilateral summit in the Russian capital. The countries also lashed out at perceived US unilateralism by issuing a declaration demanding a curb on outside interference in nations' internal affairs. During his visit to Russia from June 30 to July 3, Chinese President Hu Jintao discussed ways to boost bilateral cooperation, including investment and the energy sector, and signed a declaration with President Vladimir Putin denouncing "monopoly and domination in international affairs" and calling for an end to "attempts to divide...

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Russia will not lose no matter who wins the second round of the presidential election in Iran. It has a fair chance of preserving its priority standing in Iran's foreign policy under any president - Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, technocrat and pragmatist, or his rival, the ultraconservative Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, who produced a furore with his surprise success at the election. This is the unanimous opinion of most Russian experts. Unlike Washington, which said the election in Iran was undemocratic and would not create a legitimate...

Iran's Guardian Council approved a law on Saturday that will press the government to develop nuclear technology that could be used to build atomic weapons. This should come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention to the growing danger of the remaining two parts of what President Bush aptly named the Axis of Evil. The UN and the EU would have us play nice and politely ask them time and again to stop their dangerous pursuits. They might even face UN resolutions, if they don't decide to threaten nuclear war in response. Ultimately it will take force...

Fellow FRiends, there have been quite a few threads on FR about the new potential axis between China-India-Russia. Many have said, that this axis poses the next evil in the world the US has to confront. Others, like me have stated that the Chinese and Indians are just not compatible. All you have to do is travel to places like Vancouver, Canada (large Indian and Chinese population), Hong Kong, etc. In any of these places, the two cultures do not mix. They are a complete cultural misfit. I have posted a comedy routine by an Indian comic (Russell Peters -...

In the closing stages of World War II, as Allied and French resistance forces were driving Hitler's now demoralised forces from France, three senior German officers defected. Legionnaires were recruited from German POW camps The information they gave British intelligence was considered so sensitive that in 1945 it was locked away, not due to be released until the year 2021. Now, 17 years early, the BBC's Document programme has been given special access to this secret file. It reveals how thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British king...

Sixty years after the Allied victory over fascism in Europe, Britain is still "obsessed with the Nazi period" and "ignorant" about German history after 1945, Berlin's ambassador to London has said. Thomas Matussek said that the countries were "drifting apart" because British schoolchildren were growing up with "dangerous misunderstandings" and were not taught "what Germany is about". Asked about Prince Harry's decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party, he said he could not advise a member of the Royal Family - but added: "If it were a normal teenager, I would like to create an opportunity...

As if striving to be worthy of its position as part of the Axis of Evil, North Korea test fired a missile into the Sea of Japan Sunday. South Korean officials said last month that Pyongyang had recently shut down a nuclear reactor, possibly to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium. This comes on the heels of Iran's threat Saturday to resume producing nuclear fuel.

Just 48 hours before representatives of 189 nations meet at the United Nations to review the flaws in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran threatened Saturday to resume producing nuclear fuel, and North Korea dismissed President Bush as a "philistine whom we can never deal with."

The Holy See's ambassador to Taipei Ambrose Medtha confirmed on Wednesday that (TAIWAN) President Chen would attend the funeral, and added that he believes the president would have "no difficulty" at the Italian immigration on his way to Vatican City. According to MOFA spokesman Michael Lu, President Chen will depart on a special China Airlines flight at 15:40 on Thursday afternoon, and land in Rome at 5 a.m. on Friday. The president will return to Taipei on the afternoon of that same day, Lu said. The five-member Taiwanese delegation will include Minister Chen, Taipei Grand Mosque Imam Ma Shiao-chi,...