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Provoked by renewed daylight NATO bombing of his capital, Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy raged against the alliance yesterday, screaming his message and daring Western forces to keep it up. Khadafy spoke in a telephone call that was piped through loudspeakers to a few thousand people demonstrating in Tripoli’s Green Square at the end of a day when NATO intensified bombing runs across the capital. State television carried the Khadafy message live, then repeated it a few minutes later. “NATO will be defeated,’’ he yelled in a hoarse, agitated voice. “They will pull out in defeat.’’ The sound of automatic weapons...

President Barack Obama decided he could continue the air war in Libya without congressional approval despite rulings to the contrary from Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers, according to published reports.

ISLAMABAD: The US has established contacts with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, a media report said on Tuesday. Abdul Haqiq, a former Afghan Taliban spokesman who used the alias Mohammad Hanif, played a key role in helping Washington reach out to Mullah Omar, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted a source as saying. Haqiq was arrested by US and Afghan intelligence agents in Afghanistan in June 2007. He was one of the high profile Afghan Taliban spokesmen along with Yousuf Ahmadi, appointed after chief spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi was arrested in...

On Thursday, President Obama will "reach out" yet again to what he insists on calling "the Muslim world." Think of it as the 2.0 version of his much-ballyhooed, but seriously deficient, 2009 speech at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. His message this time, we are told, will be that the death of Osama bin Laden and the outpouring of support for democratic change across the Middle East and North Africa opens a new dawn for Muslims - and even greater opportunities for expanded relations with the United States than he promised two years ago. But will they? The answer would appear...

How would you feel if you knew the president regularly sought the advice of a magazine editor/columnist and TV host? It’s true. According to CNN, Obama has made a habit of seeking “wisdom and advice” from host Fareed Zakaria. In an interview with fellow CNN host Elliot Spitzer, Zakaria admitted Obama and he talk regularly about the Middle East and international policy, a point that Spitzer said makes his heart “warm:”

As Muslims prepare to erect a mega-mosque near the site of the 9/11 atrocities, it is well to reflect that the sort of tolerance, or indifference, that allows them to do so, is far from reciprocated to churches in the Muslim world. I speak not of Islamist attacks against churches—such as the New Year attack in Egypt that killed 21 Christians; or when jihadists stormed a church in Iraq, butchering over 50 Christians; or Christmas Eve attacks on churches in Nigeria and the Philippines. Nor am I referring to state-sanctioned hostility by avowedly Islamist regimes, such as Iran's recent "round...

Now that Barack Obama has given a green light to Muslim Brotherhood participation in a new Egyptian government, it is unlikely that the organization will be kept out of power. And since the Brotherhood is the largest and most ideologically committed group in Egyptian politics, most likely it will end up in the driver’s seat in any new regime, and set the nation on course toward becoming an Islamic state. Obama almost certainly knows all this, and yet approved of Brotherhood involvement anyway. A look at some of his appointments, associations and activities shows that this should come as no...

Freedom: Egypt's revolution has rattled dictators everywhere. Some are responding by moving toward reform, others by cracking down. Yes, there's a difference between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Judging by the chain reaction of responses from as far away as Belarus, Venezuela and Thailand, it's as if an invisible activating agent detectable only by dictators sounded an alarm. Seems no one wants to be "the next Egypt." But they haven't all acted alike, which calls to mind the distinction made by former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick in a 1978 essay titled "Dictatorship and Double Standards." In the context of the Cold...

Wednesday, Feb. 2, President Barack Obama delivered an ultimatum to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman and the army and security chiefs: Mubarak must be removed in the coming hours or else US aid to Egypt will be cut off, debkafile's Washington sources exclusively report. Pressure on the Egyptian armed forces to oust the president forthwith was further applied by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who called Vice President Omar Suleiman, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates who called Egyptian defense minister Mohamed Tantawi, and US armed forces chief Adm. Mike Mullen in a telephone call to the Egyptian chief of staff...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says the passion and dignity demonstrated by the people of Egypt has been an inspiration. He says young protesters will reach their destiny. In brief remarks at the White House Tuesday evening, the president said, "We hear your voices."

Obama administration officials say they are not taking sides between President Hosni Mubarak, America’s key ally in the Arab world, and the street protesters who purportedly represent a path to democracy in authoritarian Egypt. These officials might even believe what they’re saying. But the very assertion of “not taking sides” is itself a tilt away from the all-out support traditionally given by Washington to this Egyptian strongman in recent decades. The administration’s move is a slide toward the unknown. Senior officials have no idea of exactly who these street protesters are, whether the protesters are simply a mob force incapable...

"At the memorial service for the victims of the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, President Obama said that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords opened her eyes for the first time after his (Wednesday) visit. It was the first time she had opened her eyes since the shooting that wounded her Saturday outside a Tucson grocery store. "We all started crying," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said in a phone interview from Air Force One later Wednesday night. "Other than the birth of my children, it was the most incredible moment I have ever had." Also in the room were Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand...

EXCERPTS "At the start of 2011, we’re still just emerging from a once-in-a-lifetime recession that’s taken a terrible toll on millions of families," Obama said. "We all have friends and neighbors trying to get their lives back on track." (snip) "In a few days, a new Congress will form, with one house controlled by Democrats, and one house controlled by Republicans – who now have a shared responsibility to move this country forward," Obama said. "And here’s what I want you to know: I’m willing to work with anyone of either party who’s got a good idea and the commitment...

Robert Ford to become first US ambassador to Damascus since 2005; opponents say move rewards Syrian regime for bad behavior. Talkbacks (30) WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama has bypassed the US Senate and directly appointed four new ambassadors, including Robert Ford, who will become the first US envoy to Syria since 2005. Specific senators had blocked or refused to consider the confirmations of the nominees for various reasons, including questions about their qualifications. But in the most high-profile case, that of the new envoy to Syria, a number of senators objected because they believed sending an ambassador to the...

Barack Obama lets his faith show By: Carol E. Lee December 28, 2010 04:28 AM EST HONOLULU — President Obama’s trip to church Sunday followed a steady rebirth over the past three months in public expressions of his Christianity. Obama has publicly mentioned his “Christian faith” more times in the past three months than he has over the past year. He has more frequently cited passages of the Bible, including repeated references to the spirit of Genesis 4:9 — “I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper” — which was a mainstay of Obama’s 2010 campaign stump speech....

Our school children are facing Muslim indoctrination with “The 99″ project which is set to air in January with a 13 episode series on the Discovery Channel for Kids. President Obama praised this media event for capturing young imaginations by “teaching tolerance for Islam” at his recent Washington, D.C. Presidential Summit speech. This new series is using animated adventure heroes to depict the 99 attributes of Allah in what the London Times is saying “the show’s mission is to instill old fashioned Islamic values” into our Christian children. Kathy Bright of the Bright Media network has developed (2) The Shield...

Today the FCC voted to regulate the internet, but that’s only part of the story. Behind the scenes, President Obama has been working with the international community, not Congress, to institute government control of the internet. Under the banner of cyber security, Melissa Hathaway, Obama’s former White House official, urged that the power of three regulatory agencies (SEC, FCC and FTC) be harnessed to bring about a “comprehensive solution set.” The plan to take control of the internet was devised through the Atlantic Council’s Program on International Security. That’s right… the Obama administration has been working closely with other countries...

(CNN) - President Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan on Friday on a surprise visit.

"I don't think about Sarah Palin," President Barack Obama tells Barbara Walters in a White House interview. Obama said he is concentrating on being "the best possible president" rather than the 2012 election, ABC News said in a preview of the conversation. "Obviously Sarah Palin has a strong base of support in the Republican Party, and I respect those skills," he said. "But I spend most of my time right now on how I can be the best possible president. And my attitude has always been from the day I started this job that if I do a good job...

In an interview this morning on Glenn Beck’s radio show, Bobby Jindal said that at a meeting with the President during the gulf oil spill, that he and the President of Plaquemines Parish were told specifically by Obama not to go on TV and criticize him. Jindal says that it was clear Obama was frustrated with the level of criticism he was getting and goes on to accuse Obama of caring more about perception and politics than actually cutting through the red tape and getting things done. Video is HERE