Free Republic

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler refused to interfere with Columbia University's assistant Professor of Latin, who is also the local head of the Fascisti Movement. President Butler was moved to put himself on record by a protest from a group of liberals which followed the announcement that the American organization had been formed to combat Italian Fascists in this country.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak and take questions at the National Press Club's first-ever videoconference luncheon at noon on Monday, Sept. 24. Ahmadinejad will appear in the NPC Ballroom in Washington via videolink from New York, where he will be attending the UN Gene... [more]

Supporters of a controversial new Brooklyn academy focused on Arab culture and language said yesterday that the public school's former principal is considering legal action in the wake of her resignation under pressure last month. At a rally in lower Manhattan yesterday, politicians and advocates called for the reinstatement of Debbie Almontaser, who resigned as head of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. Almontaser stepped down four days after The Post ran an article in which she defended T-shirts bearing the imprint "Intifada NYC." "She is not speaking publicly about her resignation, but she is consulting with an experienced civil-rights lawyer,"...

After meeting with American military lawyers representing Omar Khadr, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion renewed his calls for the Conservative government to demand the Canadian's release and repatriation from Guantanamo Bay. The son of an alleged al Qaeda financier, Khadr was accused of killing U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002. Khadr, who turns 21 today, was sent to the U.S. military prison in Cuba following his arrest in Afghanistan at the age of 15. He is the only Western prisoner left at Guantanamo Bay. Dion, widely criticized for failing to...

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said on Monday that bigotry and prejudice, especially in regard to Muslims, were common in Europe and called on governments to tackle the issue. The remarks from the former Canadian Supreme Court judge, which came in the wake of similar charges issued last week by a U.N. rights investigator, were quickly challenged by a leading global non-religious grouping. The report by investigator Doudou Diene of Senegal documented what he called an alarming rise in intolerance, and in particular Islamophobia, in European countries, and Arbour said, "I have no...

GENEVA—A U.N. expert on racism on Friday branded the defamation of religions—in particular critical portrayals of Islam in the West—a threat to world peace. "Islamophobia today is the most serious form of religious defamation," Doudou Diene told the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is currently holding a three-week session in Geneva. Diene cited a caricature of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper, a protest by far-right groups in Belgium Tuesday against the "Islamization of Europe," and campaigns against the construction of mosques in Germany and Switzerland as evidence of an "ever increasing trend" toward anti-Islamic actions in Europe....

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans sharply challenged President Bush's top military general and ambassador in Iraq on Tuesday in a blatant demonstration of misgivings within the GOP about the protracted war. "Are we going to continue to invest blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now? For what?" asked Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who supports legislation setting a deadline to bring troops home. The deep-seated doubt expressed at the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reflected just how far Congress had come since the war began over four years ago. And Republican senators raised tough questions that rivaled...

LONDON: Since the terror attacks hit the United States on Sept. 11 six years ago, Europe has suffered far more than the United States from new attacks and reported plots. There were the train bombings in Madrid three years ago that killed 191 people, the London transit attack two years ago that killed 52 commuters and a string of foiled plots. Then there were the arrests last week in a plot in Germany that the police said could have caused even worse carnage than in Madrid or London. In response, Europeans for the most part are looking inward to explain...

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Monday in or near the hearing room where General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are testifying on the situation in Iraq, according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Four anti-war protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct. One of them, who was not named, is being taken to George Washington Hospital “due to complaint of injury” is also charged with assault on a police officer. According to the information from the Capitol Police, Sheehan and the other three were shouting in a hallway.

To be a "good" Muslim References -  'Palestinian' child abuse -  Evil 'Joy' -  'Blessing' Hitler -  Mourning the wicked -  Australia - Muslim land -  Jihad on all Buddhists -  Spain - Muslim land -  Europe - Muslim land -  Arabs DON'T care about 'Palestinians' -  72 virgins - Loyalty -  'Pallywood' -  (use of) Ambulances for terror -  (use of) Women for terror -  Human Shields -  Middle east background -  September 11 terror plot on London -  Myth on: 'Terrorists are desperate' -  Beheadings -  Ilan Halimi [an example of monsterous wild prolonged torture motivated by hate only] -  Muslims attacking Jews in France -  Ahmadinejad ' Islamic Hitler' -  Cutting -  'Honor killing' -  Jews & Christians as "Apes & Pigs"? - ...

You better put down your drinks, and make sure there's nothing in your mouths, for the New York Times's David Brooks made a comment on Friday's News Hour that is guaranteed to evoke uncontrollable fits of laughter from those on the right side of the aisle. After introducing regular guests Brooks and Mark Shields, host Jim Lehrer asked their opinions concerning the just-released Osama bin Laden video.

On August 28, 2007, the same day that Abdullah Gul became Turkey's President -- replacing his secular predecessor, and further consolidating the ruling Islamic AK (Adalet ve Kalkınma) Party's (AKP) hold on power -- MEMRI published excerpts from a chilling interview given by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. The interview originally aired July 1, 2007, as part of Erbakan's campaign efforts in support of Islamic fundamentalist political causes before the general elections of July 22, 2007, and the AKP's resounding popular electoral victory over its closest "secularist" rival parties.

DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a meeting today with Dennis Kucinich, US Democratic Presidential candidate, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that Syria would be willing to participate in a multinational conference and peacekeeping force to help Iraq to manage its transition from occupied country to sovereign nation. Assad made these assurances and other observations in a two-hour meeting with Kucinich, who traveled to Syria to discuss a peace initiative which has arisen out of his anti-war work in the House of Representatives. President Assad agreed with Kucinich that various US demands for the privatization of Iraq's oil and...

Republican lawmakers are urging the Justice Department not to participate in a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America — a group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing terrorism-financing case. In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Reps. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sue Myrick of North Carolina called the Justice Department's involvement a "grave mistake." "In light of the threat that our nation ... is currently facing from radical jihadists, and because of the president's commitment to fighting the war on terror on...

A popular comic strip that poked fun at the Rev. Jerry Falwell without incident one week ago was deemed too controversial to run over the weekend because this time it took a humorous swipe at Muslim fundamentalists. The Washington Post and several other newspapers around the country did not run Sunday's installment of Berkeley Breathed's "Opus," in which the spiritual fad-seeking character Lola Granola appears in a headscarf and explains to her boyfriend, Steve, why she wants to become a radical Islamicist. The installment did not appear in the Post's print version, but it ran on WashingtonPost.com and Salon.com. The...

His face covered by a balaclava, an official brandishing a cane repeatedly lashes the back of a man found guilty of breaking Iran's morality laws. Two police officers hold the legs of 25-year-old Saeed Ghanbari and another his arms to ensure there is no escape from the punishment of 80 lashes handed down by a religious court. Traffic was brought to a halt in Qazvin, 90 miles west of the capital Tehran, as more than 1,000 men gathered behind barricades to watch the public flogging.

WHITE PLAINS - Sorrow brought them together but a shared desire for peace and reconciliation has made an unusual friendship blossom between two mothers whose sons were taken from them by the attacks of Sept. 11. Phyllis Rodriguez of White Plains, whose son Greg, 31, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died at the World Trade Center, and Aicha El-Wafi of Narbonne, France, the mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, came to a luncheon discussion yesterday at the WESPAC Foundation, a peace and justice center in White Plains. "I want something good to come from something horrible," Rodriguez told...

CRAWFORD, Tex. It was just two years ago that Cindy Sheehan pierced the national consciousness with her roadside vigil near President Bush's Texas ranch in protest of the Iraq war. Several thousand demonstrators came to Crawford to join Sheehan in 2005, capturing the international media spotlight and seemingly crystallizing the antiwar movement. Before long, Sheehan was transformed from a grieving mother moved to protest by the loss of her son in Iraq into a globe-trotting antiwar hero. Eventually banned from the roadside, she bought five acres of land to serve as a base for future protests, dubbing it Camp Casey...

A Republican victory in 2008 could sink America's reputation in the world even lower. Even if George W. Bush is the most awful American president in modern times, as many historians believe, and even though he has brought the United States into unprecedented disrepute around the world, as opinion polls indicate, the bombastic tone of the candidates seeking to succeed him from his own party raises a disturbing possibility. If the next president is a Republican, this truly bad situation could become still worse. Concerning the Iraq war, of course, there is no discernible difference between the current president and...

Rather than facing possible embarrassment over an invited guest with admittedly loose ties to a terrorism case, the Justice Department cancelled a Muslim-outreach event featuring the attorney general. Aug. 8, 2007 - The Justice Department this summer abruptly cancelled a high-profile “Muslim outreach” event featuring Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after discovering that one of the invited guests was an officer of an organization just named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a major terrorism case. The scheduled event was slated to take place in the main department auditorium known as the Great Hall of Justice on June 27—with Gonzales billed as...

Conservative thinker and strategist Paul Weyrich sees a Republican political disaster in 2008 because of Iraq. "I believe that the Democrats, most likely with Senator Hillary R. Clinton (D-NY) as the nominee, will win," he says. "The Republicans, regardless of who they nominate, will lose because of the war in Iraq. Voters want to punish the Republicans for Iraq." It's easy to see how this might develop. But the backlash could get even worse when members of the conservative Republican base begin to grasp how the Bush policy has led to the virtual destruction of the Christian community in Iraq....

Ron Paul is Going to Mars, and Gambling911 Will be There to Greet HimRon Paul has scheduled a trip to Mars this coming Friday August 3rd and Gambling911.com's own resident "alien" Kira Wissman will be there to greet him.Mars, Pennsylvania sits just outside of Pittsburgh with a population of 1,746.  Paul will be at the Four Points Sheraton North between 8 pm and 10 pm. Dr. Paul and senior campaign staff will hold a private briefing at 7 PM at the Four Points Sheraton North hotel. Admission: $1000 donation per person.Thus far, 47% of the contributions made to Ron Paul's...

There has been much brouhaha over the quarrel between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul which occurred during a recent debate between Republican candidates. The topic turned to the overriding issue of transnational terrorism, where Mr. Paul went unfettered: “Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there… I’m suggesting that we listen to the people that attacked us and the reason they did it. And they are delighted that we’re over there…” There is nothing morally ambiguous in opposing war or holding non-interventionist views. In fact, the sincerity in this Libertarian...

Christian America may soon be the death of Iraqi Christians. Although Islam long has been in the ascendancy in Iraq, the so-called Assyrians, who speak a neo-Aramaic language, predate the rise of Islam. Today, however, the Iraqi Christian community faces possible extermination. The irony is extraordinary: America, a nation with deep Christian roots, has inadvertently loosed the vicious forces bent on destroying Iraqi Christians. Persecuted by Islamic extremists and targeted for their frequent cooperation with occupation authorities, Christians have ever less hope in a nation that has fallen into violent chaos. The Assyrian International News Agency has released a new...

Friday, July 27, 2007 San Diego, Calif. -- More than four decades ago, while I was a Naval Academy Midshipman visiting this delightful seaport city, one of my summer reading texts was "Sufferings in Africa." Originally published in 1817 by Capt. James Riley, the book is said to have influenced young Abraham Lincoln profoundly to the necessity for abolishing slavery. The tome ought to be required reading for U.S. politicians and diplomats who insist that meeting and talking with Iranian officials -- as they did this week in Baghdad -- can be a productive endeavor. Without giving away too much,...

It is generally accepted that the conflict we are in is as much a war of ideas as a military one. Sadly, the United States has largely failed to wage this ideological struggle against adversaries who both understand its vital importance to the outcome and who often, like most ideologues, are very skilled in its ways. This is bad enough overseas, where adherents to one strain or another of the ideology best described as Islamofascism use various organizations, media and educational institutions to recruit and indoctrinate young people. The failure to recognize the danger such activities represent, let alone to...

A month since the European Union signed a landmark treaty including moves to better coordinate foreign policy, there are signs that a high-level new caucus may be emerging inside the 27-member bloc with some worrying attitudes toward Israel. Led by France, foreign ministers from 10 mainly Mediterranean countries declared themselves to the world earlier in July with an open letter to new Middle East Envoy Tony Blair offering advice on how he should proceed with his duties. When more than a third of the EU's member states issue a joint call for action on a major issue in international affairs,...

Paul faithful flock to Spartanburg appearance A little-known Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for president visited Spartanburg on Saturday and seemed to arrive with all the makings of rock-star candidate for his party — despite polling low, little name recognition and a relatively small campaign staff. Supporters call it the “Ron Paul Revolution.” You might’ve seen it on signs or T-shirts. Or MySpace. Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Event Center — first, when he entered the room, a second one when a re-entered after...

Nonsense about terrorism." That was the headline atop the July 10 Paul Campos column in the Rocky Mountain News. The title was fitting. The column, itself, was nonsense on stilts. Campos' point was that this nation has grossly overreacted to the threat of Islamofascist terrorism, a recurring theme for Campos, who has written variations of this in the past. He dismisses the 3,000 killed in the terrorist attacks on 9/11 by comparing that number to the 14 million Americans who have died from all other causes in this country since that date. This numerical sleight of hand trivializes the distinction...

What, exactly, is a "moderate" Muslim? That's the question I asked three experts on a panel at this week's Christians United for Israel Summit in Washington, D.C. CUFI is an organization to gather Christians of all denominational stripes in support of the state of Israel. There was broad representation at the event – all the way from "Zionists" and pre-millennialists to Christians who simply believe support for Israel makes good political sense. It is the only true democracy in the Middle East, the first line of defense in the war on terror. It was a well-organized event. The group clearly...

Follow the Yellow Streak Road by Jed Babbin Posted 07/13/2007 ET Betty Williams, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping start peace talks in Northern Ireland, said the other day, “"Right now, I could kill George Bush." Though the New York Times isn’t suffering that bad a case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, its July 8 editorial said: “President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened -- the...

Just heard Pres. Bush to give a news Conference about the Progress in Iraq at 1030am Today.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is quickly becoming the last line of defense for the White House in a standoff with congressional Democrats over keeping U.S. troops in Iraq. With Senate Republicans publicly bucking the president's war plan, Boehner and House Republicans remain largely unified in their opposition to a withdrawal, even though many have expressed grave frustration with the White House since casting a series of votes earlier this year opposing an end of U.S. involvement. Democrats will test that resolve this week when House members vote on a measure to force a speedy withdrawal that would...

Even as our troops make serious progress against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq and other extremists, Congress - including Republican members - is sending the terrorists a message: "Don't lose heart, we'll save you!" Iraq's a mess. Got it. The Bush administration has made so many mistakes I stopped counting a year ago. But we've finally got a general in Baghdad - Dave Petraeus - who's doing things right. Iraqi politicians are still disgracing themselves, but our troops are killing America's enemies - with the help of our former enemies. Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq is suffering a humiliating defeat, as fellow Sunni Muslims turn against the fanatics...

WASHINGTON - Nervous Senate Republicans beseeched the White House without apparent success Wednesday for a quick change in course on Iraq as congressional Democrats insisted on high-profile votes calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by spring. Prospects for a less-sweeping, bipartisan challenge to President Bush suffered a setback when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the leading proposal has "less teeth than a toothless tiger." Taken together, the events pointed toward a 10-day period of politically charged maneuvering in the Senate in which Democrats push for a withdrawal, the White House's allies resist and a small but growing...

Gordon Brown, the new prime minister in London, is determined to learn the hard way that terrorism is real, that terrorists are not impressed by well-meaning softlings and fearful mollycoddlers. Mr. Brown moved into No. 10 Downing Street a fortnight ago and even before the missus learned where to keep her brooms, mops and wash buckets, the new P.M. was hard at work sweeping all traces of Tony Blair's war on terror into the rubbish bin. (That's what our English cousins call the garbage can.) No more calling Islamist killers "Islamist killers," or radical Muslims "radical Muslims." Mr. Brown sent...

The Republican rebellion against the war in Iraq widened over the weekend as more of the party’s senators voiced dissent against President George W. Bush’s strategy. Republican unity on Iraq has shattered in recent weeks, amid mounting pessimism about the ability of US forces to bring stability to the country. Weakening Republican support for the war has left Mr Bush looking increasingly isolated as Congressional Democrats prepare for a fresh barrage of votes aimed at forcing a US withdrawal from Iraq. Three Republican senators have joined the calls for a change of course in Iraq in recent days, adding to...

Republican Revolt: Some Discuss Defying President Democrats Still Lack Votes to Override Veto July 8, 2007 — After a week-long recess, Congressional members will head back to Capitol Hill this week. And some top Republicans openly are discussing defying President George Bush and supporting a bill to bring home overseas troops. Six Republican Senators have signed a bill that calls for implementing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, including setting conditions for a possible redeployment of U.S. troops next spring. A growing sense that the president's surge strategy isn't working may be driving the shift. "The overall level of...

About 100 people turned out this afternoon for an "Ask Mitt Anything" session with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts. Men and women — some from as far away as Indian River and Dade counties — filled more than two-thirds of available seats in rooms at Palm Beach County Convention Center. Romney, 60, deftly fielded questions on topics ranging from embryonic stem cell research, health care for soldiers returning from war and what to do in Pakistan. Romney said he thought in combatting radical jihadists, America should work more with moderate Muslim states, strengthening things like schools...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments Monday whether there is merit to a lawsuit by the family of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old activist from Olympia killed by a bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003. The defendant in the case is Caterpillar, which made the D9 bulldozer involved in her death. The case, Corrie et al. v. Caterpillar, was filed in Seattle in 2005, but a district court dismissed it. After this hearing, the appeals court will rule whether the suit should be dismissed or sent back to the lower court. Cindy and Craig...

When Ken Tomlinson calls for an investigation into the “cover-up” of U.S. Arabic broadcasting outrages, it is clear he understands where that probe would lead: to Karen Hughes, under secretary of State for public diplomacy and a long-time member of President George W. Bush’s inner circle...

"['Palestinian'] Army of Islam clearly had a jihadi agenda," Johnston said. "They described me as a prisoner in the war between Muslims & non-Muslims. Freed BBC reporter compares captivity ‘to being buried alive’Canada.com, Canada - "The Army of Islam clearly had a jihadi agenda," Johnston said. "They described me as a prisoner in the war between Muslims and non-Muslims. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=a13ca489-8f28-49af-b731-083b61057605&k=18163

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has been quietly engaging the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Officials said the State Department has approved a policy that would enable U.S. diplomats to meet and coordinate with Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and other Arab states. They said the program would first be restricted to elected officials from the Brotherhood and eventually be extended to their political chiefs. "The region is going Islam," an official said. "We see this in nearly every country in the Middle East. We either understand it and engage with it or find ourselves completely out of the picture." The...

MEMRI is ‘propaganda machine,’ expert saysBy Lawrence Swaim, Staff Writer The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) provides daily English translations of film and print media stories originating in Arabic, Iranian and Turkish media. It also furnishes original analysis of cultural, political and religious trends in the Middle East. It sends its daily postings to every news outlet in the United States and Europe, in addition to politicians and cultural leaders. And it’s free, which makes it a Godsend for journalists, editors and policy analysts. But according to its critics, it is also a dangerous, highly sophisticated propaganda operation, disseminating...

CAIR membership plummets June 11, 2007 ONLINE EXCLUSIVE / DEVELOPING: Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Audrey Hudson will report in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Times. According to tax documents obtained by The Times, the number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006, a loss of membership that caused the Muslim rights group's annual income from dues to drop from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged...

For almost 70 years, Scouts and Guides have savoured their place of peaceful worship under the trees. But no longer. The woodland chapel has been demolished - its wooden pews and rudimentary cross and altar removed. In its place is a campfire circle. The change has been imposed by the Scout Association, which believes the chapel excludes non-Christian Scouts. Locals are dismayed, but the association says it is simply "moving forward". The basic open-air structure in woodland surrounding Belchamps Scout Centre in Hockley, Essex, was built between the wars by volunteers. They used old telegraph poles for pews and built...

A Canadian political scientist excoriated for attending what was widely labelled a Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran has retaliated with a blistering published attack on his university president and his colleagues for being illiterate Islamophobes. Writing in the influential Literary Review of Canada, Shiraz Dossa, a tenured professor at Nova Scotia's St. Francis Xavier University, said that his academic integrity and academic freedom were grossly impugned by the university administration, an assault on his reputation that he said has yet to be remedied. He accused the president and chancellor of authorizing a "small Spanish Inquisition" to denounce him - a campaign...

Iraq's Sunni vice president spoke out yesterday against the upcoming U.S.-Iran talks on the situation in his country, saying the dialogue was "damaging to Iraq's sovereignty. Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish-dominated government has been pressing for those talks, due to take place on May 28 in Baghdad to help appease spiraling violence in Iraq. But the comments by Tariq al-Hashemi, a leader of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, reflected wide differences among the country's religious and ethnic groups on the role of Shiite-dominated Iran. "It's not good to encourage anybody to talk on behalf of the Iraqi people on their...

In today's Friday's NY Times, David Brooks presents some disturbing food for thought: The war on terror has shredded the reputation of the Bush administration. It’s destroyed the reputation of Tony Blair’s government in Britain, Ehud Olmert’s government in Israel and Nuri al-Maliki’s government in Iraq. And here’s a prediction: It will destroy future American administrations, and future Israeli, European and world governments as well. That’s because setbacks in the war on terror don’t only flow from the mistakes of individual leaders and generals. They’re structural. Thanks to a series of organizational technological innovations, guerrilla insurgencies are increasingly able to...

If there were a gold medal for misrepresentation, it would go to the Canadian Peace Alliance. As the Citizen recently reported, members of the peace alliance attended a conference in Cairo where other participants included terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that pioneered the suicide bomb. The peace alliance, which claims to be the "largest network of peace coalitions and organizations in Canada," is an odd outfit. When North Korea tested a nuclear bomb last fall, the peace alliance issued a press release denouncing ... the U.S. and Israel. In another press release on Iran's nuclear program, the...