Free Republic

STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FAILED LEADERSHIP "Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to ISIS, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi. Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical care that never came. Hillary Clinton put the whole country at risk with her illegal email server, deleted evidence of her crime, and lied repeatedly about her conduct which endangered us all. They released criminal aliens into our country who killed one innocent American after another -- like...

The Pentagon wants to reboot a failed program designed to train Syrian rebels in the fight against the Islamic State, even though this same $500 million dollar program had almost nothing to show for itself. The goal was to train 5,000 fighters, but the first class of 54 melted and scattered after being attacked by the al-Nusra front, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. The second class of so-called moderate rebels handed over at least 25 percent of their U.S. military gear to al-Nusra. Pentagon officials now say they’ve identified what elements of the program to tweak to make sure they...

MANAMA, Bahrain – The United States is ramping up its support for Syria's opposition with a pledge of nearly $100 million in fresh aid. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the additional assistance Saturday at the Manama Dialogue security conference in the Gulf island nation of Bahrain.

The 137-page, FBI-sworn affidavit against California State Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat who is also running for Secretary of State, and over two dozen other individuals reads like a crime thriller. Beyond the widely reported stories of alleged wire fraud, money laundering, corruption, and bribery, the affidavit contains tales of alleged murder-for-hire plots involving a political consultant close to Yee, as well as large international weapons trafficking operations.Indeed, while the media have fixated on the hypocrisy of a gun-control advocate--Yee sponsored legislation against detachable magazines, for example--alleged involvement in gun smuggling, few reports delve into the kind of weapons with which...

Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan. The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- who later admitted in court that they'd attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known...

Masked from public view, two of the U.S. military’s elite special operations commandos have been awarded medals for bravery for a mission that further undercuts the Obama administration’s original story about the Benghazi tragedy. For months, administration officials have claimed no special operations forces were dispatched from outside Libya to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012, al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex because none was within range. The Pentagon, under intense public criticism for not coming to the aid of besieged Americans, published an official timeline in November that carefully danced around the issue....

I realize Obama is quite busy playing fetch with Bo and Sunny. However, I hope he has a few moments to consider turning on the fountain at the WWII Memorial and un-barricading the remaining war memorials on the National Mall. Our veterans of WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are aging. Many of them are severely disabled, because of their heroism. It is immoral and embarrassing that our President would allow amnesty advocates to prance about on the sacred ground where taxpayers erected memorials to honor our veterans, rather than the actual veterans. The National Mall is a...

Rebel forces in Syria killed as many as 190 civilians and seized more than 200 hostages during a military offensive in August, Human Rights Watch says.... A report by the New York-based group says the deaths occurred in villages inhabited predominantly by members of President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite sect near the city of Latakia. ... "This operation was a co-ordinated, planned attack on the civilian population in these Alawite villages." ... The report says ISIS [the 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant'] and Jaysh al-Muhajirin were [are]still holding the hostages, most of them women and children. ... "The...

September 26, 2013 Issa feared targeted by terrorists after Democrats revealed secret Libya trip Alex Pappas A leaked State Department email indicates that officials were worried about the safety of House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa after Democrats revealed his plans for a secret trip to Libya this week. Issa, a Republican from California, has safely returned from his fact-finding trip to the country as his committee continues to investigate the terrorist attacks that killed America’s ambassador and three others in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. CBS News reported Thursday on an email that quoted a Libyan national sharing...

Some of the largest Free Syrian Army brigades teamed up with an al Qaeda affiliate and other large Islamist groups to reject the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition and call for the establishment of sharia, or Islamic Law, throughout Syria. The move is a major blow to the US-backed Syrian National Coalition and Free Syrian Army, which the West has held up as the moderate faction of the Syrian rebellion. Abd al Aziz Salamah, the leader of Liwa al Islam, announced that 11 rebel groups, including al Qaeda's Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, signed a statement that...

Maybe its incompetence or maybe it's something more, but in the end does it really matter when dead is dead? According to State Department and military sources, dozens of highly armored vehicles called GMV's, provided by the United States, are now missing. The vehicles feature GPS navigation as well as various sets of weapon mounts and can be outfitted with smoke-grenade launchers. U.S. Special Forces undergo significant training to operate these vehicles. Fox News is told the vehicles provided to the Libyans are now gone. Along with the GMV's, hundreds of weapons are now missing, including roughly 100 Glock pistols...

Five minute handycam videos show crash of apparent SU-22 amidst AAA and surface to air missile fire. Presumably taken by FSA rebels, video clip collection shows six different views of the same event. First clip is totally inconclusive, however subsequent clips in the collection suggest the most likely cause was a successful MANPADS hit. Fire is visible from the aircraft tailcone as the strike aircraft arcs through the sky and strikes the ground in a huge ball of smoke, with no pilot ejection discernible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9divCVW94 After the success of Reagan's post-Lockerbie Libyan air raids Gaddaffi went on a years-long...

If ever there was a terrorist attack that cries out the name “President Barack Hussein Obama!” the massacre at Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi is it. The Somalian terrorist group, al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the slaughter of at least 68 people, including Canadian diplomat Annemarie Desloges and an as yet unnamed other Canadian. Imagine this horrific scene: Terrified shoppers hid behind counters as the gunmen went on the rampage using guns and grenades. (Daily Mail, Sept. 22, 2013) Today 10 to 15 hostages are still trapped in the shopping center as security forces...

September 19, 2013 MASTERFUL: Rep. Trey Gowdy GRILLS Adm. Mullen on why he didn’t interview Hillary Clinton over Benghazi The Right Scoop Rep. Trey Gowdy masterfully goes after Adm. Mullen on the fact that he choose not to interview Hillary Clinton on Benghazi, despite the fact that she was responsible for all of it. It’s excellent as usual. Watch: VIDEO LINK

During the second portion of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing about Benghazi Thursday on Capitol Hill, the majority of Democrats on the Committee left the room and refused to listen to the testimony of Patricia Smith and Charles Woods. Ms. Smith is the mother of Sean Smith, an information management officer killed in the 9/11 Benghazi attack. Charles Woods is the father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, who was also killed.

Wow.. Ted Cruz is going off on the administration over Benghazi! Watch here: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/

Ideology prevails, rather than the national interests of the United States. Ideology has prevailed in Syria and likely will in Iran and elsewhere.It's all a big clusterdunk.The following article from Stratfor provides a good summary of what President Obama's America did and did not do about Syria. As it contends, the concept of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) has deteriorated over the years. The threshold of mass destruction ceased to be the significant measure, and instead the cause of death in a given attack took center stage. The use of WMDs became a matter of ideological interpretation. Hence, the alleged killing...

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced resolution, S.R. 225, Wednesday to create a joint select committee to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attacks from one year ago. But after requesting unanimous consent to introduce and pass the resolution, Democrats blocked it from consideration.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say the CIA has been delivering light machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks, following President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the rebels. The agency has also arranged for the Syrian opposition to receive anti-tank weaponry like rocket-propelled grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries that has been arming the rebels, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official and two former intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the classified program publicly.

President Obama spoke tonight and flip-flopped on Syria. We are going to launch, but we might later. In other words, markets should remain nervous, but better than a few days ago. Actually, President Obama still wants to launch what Kerry called a “really small” strike, but wants Congress to postpone a vote. I predict that we will not get final resolution on Syria until after October 1st, the kick-off date for Obamacare. The VIX dropped today signifying less volatility in the SP500. vix091013 And the 10 year zero coupon volatility continues to drop. Like a Tomahawk Cruise Missile. 10yrvolzero With...