Free Republic

We have to warn you, Twitchy readers. This is not easy to watch. It will turn your stomach. But we are not showing this to be gratuitous. This is in the spirit of 'do not look away.' That has been a mantra across Twitter this week, as many of the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli elderly, women, and children have surfaced, many of them published by Hamas themselves, proud of what they are doing. This is no different. Hams recently published this video of their militant terrorists holding Israeli toddlers and infants hostage. There is nothing gruesome here,...

These two were part of a 10 man foreign volunteer squad called "team baguette", part of the large foreign legion attached to the Ukraine military. They are volunteers who previously worked for the US military, but are not active duty anymore. They were captured in the Kharkov area, having bad intel that Russians weren't where they were going. (Click link for video)

A captured Russian soldier has described how he was shot at and his comrade killed after fellow troops opened fire on them when they tried to protect Ukrainian civilians. In a video, the POW described how he and a lieutenant tried to save a woman in her 20s, and her mother, after Russian soldiers were given orders to fire on civilians on February 24 in Kharkiv. In the clip, the captured soldier claimed he was shot in the foot, and the lieutenant killed, when other troops realised the pair weren't shooting at civilians. It comes as a separate video showed...

A Russian commander captured by Ukraine condemned Moscow’s “genocide” invasion — saying in a remarkable televised statement that the troops were duped into believing Kyiv had been overthrown by Nazis and needed liberating. National Guard Lt. Col. Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich, who was captured along with two other soldiers, said he had been told they were being sent to help Ukraine because it was “dominated by a fascist regime” and that “nationalists and Nazis had seized power.” “Obviously, this information was unilateral information,” Mikhailovich told reporters in a video that emerged Monday. National Guard Lt. Col. Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich condemned Moscow’s...

Folded in his bunk aboard the U-505 submarine, with temperatures topping 100 degrees, a German sailor recorded his misery: "For a few days now we have been 'enjoying' the tropical heat. Everybody is perspiring freely,'' he writes. "Even in the bunks it takes only a few minutes until everything is soaked wet. The heat is so unbearable. ... "Sometimes wish I could shed my skin." On June 5, the Museum of Science and Industry will open a new $35 million indoor exhibit of its famous World War II U-505 sub, captured by the U.S. Navy in 1944. But the museum's...

A former Army Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was cleared of spy accusations is now a Democratic National Convention delegate pledged to Sen. Barack Obama. Former Capt. James J. Yee was among the delegates who were elected by precinct representatives Saturday at the party's 9th Congressional District convention at North Thurston High School. Others chosen at the gathering were Zach Smith, a former supporter of ex-Sen. John Edwards who is now pledged to Clinton, and Natalie Stevens, an alternate pledged to Obama. Yee, a West Point graduate, was accused in 2003 of being part of a spy ring...

This image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi. Gunmen in a three-car convoy seizedNazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the U.S. for more than a decade outside hishouse Saturday in the Libyan capital, his relatives said. (AP Photo/FBI) In a time when the current administration appears to favor kills over capture as well as "catch and release", last Saturday Abu Anas al-Libi (Zawahiri's man in Libya) survived President Obama's kill list to be captured instead of droned upon: Since President Obama stepped...

The Bush administration and Congressional Republicans reached agreement Thursday on legislation governing the treatment and interrogation of terror suspects after weeks of debate that divided Republicans heading into the midterm elections. Under the deal, President Bush dropped his demand that Congress redefine the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions, handing a victory to a group of Republicans, including Senator John McCain... “There is no doubt that the integrity and the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved,” said Mr. McCain, who was tortured during more than five years as a prisoner in North Vietnam... On another...

Friday, February 20, 2009 Posted By:Catherine MoyPermalinkObama’s Government Report: Guantanamo is Humane and Abides by Geneva Conventions President Obama in one of his first actions in office ordered the closure of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also ordered an in-depth study of the prison camps to decipher whether the terrorists and alleged terrorists at Gitmo are properly treated and that U.S. troops are abiding by the Geneva Conventions. The report, part of which was leaked today, shows that Gitmo “complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions” and that the prisoners are treated with dignity. A Pentagon...

Why is it, that the impression the media leaves me with, is that Hamdan is "just a driver" and a victim of circumstances? Just another tragic pawn and casualty in the illegal and immoral war instigated by the imperialistic, oil-grubbing, human-rights/U.S. Constitution-violating Bush regime? Well, he's been found guilty of supporting terrorism, but acquitted on charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terror. Anyway... Jonathan Mahler writing last Sunday for the NYTimes Magazine: The men in the dock might very well be war criminals, the argument goes, but what about the policy makers and interrogators who violated their rights...

<p>BAGHDAD _U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq , U.S. officials said Wednesday.</p> <p>The FBI is investigating the grisly development, and the families of the five kidnapped contractors have been notified, American officials said on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the case publicly.</p>

How to balance military needs, international humanitarian law, and the reality of facing an enemy whose tactics are not restrained by accepted conventions are challenges to which Israel and other Western nations need to devote serious thought. The asymmetry of battle that Israel faces requires a rethinking of strategy to deal with threats from forces whose ideologies allow them not just to frustrate many Western military advantages but to use the openness of Western societies—especially their print and image media, and the organizations through which the Western penchant for self-criticism is expressed—to their own advantage. Ideology, including the perception of...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The White House said Thursday it is taking seriously the allegations by former hostages that Iran's hardline president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of their captors at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran a quarter century ago. President Bush told foreign reporters he has "no information, but obviously his involvement raises many questions." "As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer, who served as the embassy's naval attache at the time, told CNN. "...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more...

At a Town Hall meeting in Des Moines, IA, on June 1st, John McCain was asked about his views on torture, and he repeated just about word-for-word what he said in the second Republican debate (video link): Every retired and active duty military officer that I know says we shouldn't torture people. General Colin Powell, all of these others who have had the responsibility of leadership because they fear that if we torture people what happens to their soldiers when they are captured. We don't want that to happen to men and women serving in the military. The Stiletto has...

In response to the news blurb about the Marine who put two rounds ("double tap") in a wounded insurgent's head in Fallujah, here's a response from a Marine: "It's a safety issue, pure and simple. After assaulting through a target, we put a security round in everybody's head. Sorry al- Reuters, there's no paddy wagon rolling around Fallujah picking up "prisoners" and offering them a hot cup a Joe, falafel, and a blanket. There's no time to dick around on the target. You clear the space, dump the chumps, and move on. Are Corpsman expected to treat wounded terrorists? Negative....

Torture, Al-Qaeda StyleDrawings, tools seized from Iraq safe house in U.S. military raid MAY 24--In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like "blowtorch to the skin" and "eye removal." Along with the images, which you'll find on the following pages, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters. Photos of those items can be seen here. The images, which were just declassified by the Department of Defense, also include a picture of a ramshackle Baghdad safe house described as an...

Our troops rock!  Thank you for serving! The Freeper Canteen    The Protocols to the Geneva ConventionsandUnlawful Enemy Combatants     Protocol IProtocol I is an amendment to the Geneva Conventions.Adopted on June 8, 1977 by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armed Conflicts presided over by Pierre Graber of Switzerland. The protocol entered into force on December 7, 1979 (six months after its adoption by the conference) and is binding for a country six months after it has ratified it. As of 14 January 2007 it had been ratified by...

Shame on the Liberals for their Afghan policy By PETER WORTHINGTON Regardless of what they say for public consumption, the federal Liberals really do not like the military, especially the soldiers. This is apparent in their efforts to mortify the Harper government over claims of torture and abuse of Taliban prisoners captured by the Canadians in Kandahar and turned over to the Afghans. There's even the suggestion that our soldiers could be nailed for war crimes if abuses are committed against these prisoners by Afghans -- a concern echoed by Liberal allies in the private sector. The ludicrous alternative is...

Negotiating a complicated piece of legislation with wide-ranging implications is always a difficult endeavor, and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was no exception. We worked with the administration to achieve a fair system for the prosecution and conviction of suspected terrorists. The proposed legislation also reaffirms and underscores our nation's commitment to the Geneva Conventions, which we must uphold as a matter of principle and to protect our service members in this and future wars. We believe that we have succeeded in this effort. We also believe that the American people deserve to have this important legislation properly described....

And now for the definition-impaired, the meaning of the word "naive": "deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment." There was plenty of that on display last week in Pittsburgh and in Washington. At the annual National Conference of Editorial Writers Convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania governor and former general chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ed Rendell, addressed a group of pundits on the subject, "Will the Real Democratic Party Please Stand Up?" After running through standard Democratic boilerplate issues - increase the minimum wage, raise taxes (except property taxes), spend more on education (as if too much is not already...