Free Republic

Security concerns halt deliveries, idle work force and slow rebuilding effort As President Bush prepared to tell the nation on April 13 that the U.S. and its coalition partners will stay the course in Iraq, conditions there are more unstable than at any time since Baghdad fell nearly a year ago. This month’s escalation of violence has resulted in the kidnapping of scores of civilians from a dozen countries and the deaths of 70 coalition forces and at least 700 Iraqi civilians. Reconstruction has slowed to a crawl. Supply convoy operations were suspended, pending security upgrades, and contractors were avoiding...

<p>Mr. Tom Hamill was captured when his convoy was attacked by Muslim guerrillas. He showed great courage and patriotism when interviewed immediately after being captured he said, " Our convoy was attacked, thats all I'm saying."</p> <p>Militants threatened to kill American hostage Thomas Hamill, 43, of Macon, Miss., who was the latest in a series of kidnappings in Iraq.</p>

None Dare Call It Treason By Jason Maoz Senior Editor The Jewish Press Controversial pundit Ann Coulter's best-selling book "Treason" has raised the ire of liberals, and not a few conservatives, who feel she wields too broad a brush in painting Americans on the left side of the political divide as unpatriotic - even, as the title implies, treasonous. Coulter's critics have a point, of course; her over-the-top generalizing makes it difficult if not impossible to take the book seriously (a far more judicious - and better-written - treatment of the subject is Mona Charen's "Useful Idiots"). But whatever degree...