Free Republic

The worldwide struggle for freedom and democracy faces enormous challenges today. Despite the promise of the United States government to support that struggle wherever it can, the Obama administration is not standing tall on the world stage. The American Legacy, as a shining beacon for oppressed peoples everywhere in their time of darkness, is being abandoned.The United States has a enjoyed wonderful track record of fulfilling that commitment. Past leaders of our nation have taken seriously America’s special role in a troubled world. But the fact that the US has historically advanced freedom and democratic values makes me all the more upset when our current leaders fail to demonstrate an understanding...

I never liked it when George W. Bush used the term "evildoers" to describe al-Qaeda and other terrorists. A lot of other people objected as well, but for different reasons. I didn't like the term because it always sounded to me like he was saying "evil Dewar's," as in the blended Scotch. (This always made some of Bush's statements chuckle-worthy -- "We will not rest until we find the evil Dewar's!") I prefer single malts, but "evil" always seemed unduly harsh. The more common objection to "evildoers" was that it was, variously, simplistic, Manichean, imperialistic, cartoonish, etc. "Perhaps without even...

Last week, I built a case for how the Islamic State's monstrous brutalities include the summary killing of men, women and children, including by crucifixion. That was before the world heard of the beheading of courageous U.S. journalist James Foley, which demonstrated just how psychotic and cruel the Islamic State is. Today I will build further on the Islamic State's horrors and crimes against humanity and then conclude by explaining why President Barack Obama's laissez-faire mentality toward U.S. enemies is not only emboldening them but also drawing the U.S. closer and closer to another world war. Reuters reported last week,...

From the dawn of civilisation, the Fertile Crescent has been a cradle to strange and fascinating sects. Not any more As the fighters of the Islamic State drive from village to captured village in their looted humvees, they criss-cross what in ancient times was a veritable womb of gods. For millennia, the Fertile Crescent teemed with a bewildering variety of cults and religions. Back in the 3rd Christian century, a philosopher by the name of Bardaisan was so overwhelmed by the sheer array of beliefs to be found in Mesopotamia that he invoked it to disprove the doctrines of astrology....

On Sunday, August 24, This Week moderator George Stephanopoulos bizarrely worried that the U.S. might take too much action in combating the terrorist group ISIS.

What a difference a year makes. Around this time last year, the West was gearing up for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was accused of carrying out chemical weapons attacks on his own people. That intervention never came to pass, not least because domestic public opinion in countries such as Britain and the United States was opposed to further entanglements in the Middle East. Now, the U.S. is contemplating extending airstrikes on Islamic State militants operating in Iraq in Syria — fighters belonging to a terrorist organization that is leading the war against Assad....

By 207 B.C., Rome and its allies on the Italian peninsula had lost approximately 100,000 soldiers to the invading armies of the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal. To make matters more desperate, the Carthaginians were in the final stages of securing massive reinforcements from Phillip V of Macedon. That year the Roman Senate sent a secret group of provocateurs to Northern Greece who started violent insurrections among PhillipÂ’s disaffected subject peoples to his south. The Macedonian armies never sailed and for next 600 years the course of western civilization would be charted by Rome.Special Forces Will Again Change the WorldAs I...

The crowded stadium roars its approval -- “Allah is great!” -- as a man shoots a woman in a public execution. Militants destroy a historic religious shrine. Women and children face public abuse, private violence, and daily fear. Girls, denied access to education, remain trapped in a seventh-century dystopia. A bloodthirsty terrorist organization promises death to Americans. Think this resembles the Middle East today? No, these references date to the turn of the millennium in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Today, these same toxic forces behead children, sell women into sex slavery, drive ethnic and religious minorities from their homeland. Refugees hide in...

I never crossed paths with James Foley. I regret not having met him. A freelance reporter of great skill and courage, Foley was murdered, on camera, by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq by cutting off his head. I know "beheading" is a mellower term, but I don't think this kind of barbarism should be softened. According to the BBC:"James Foley, 40, had reported extensively across the Middle East, working for US publication GlobalPost and other media outlets including French news agency AFP." Foley had been reporting on the appalling situation in Syria when he was abducted on Nov....

Michael B Kelley and Mike NudelmanAugust 20, 2014 Just about everyone agrees that the world would be a better place without the brutal terrorist group known as ISIS (or Islamic State or ISIL). On Wednesday, Barack Obama compared the group to a "cancer" whose spread must be contained and that the group "has no place in the 21st century." And Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted that "ISIL must be destroyed/will be crushed." But there is one thing everyone must realize in the anti-ISIS crusade: Given the momentum that ISIS has built over the past two years in Syria and...

Yesterday Pope Francis endorsed military action to stop the Islamic State (formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) from persecuting religious minorities, especially Christians and Yazidis, in Iraq. The pope’s statement is to be welcomed—albeit with serious reservations. As various experts noted, the Vatican is typically opposed to any sort of military action. James Bretzke, a priest and professor of moral theology at Boston College, told USA Today that “popes in recent history have all lined up against any military intervention, including World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War and, most recently, the U.S. invasion of Iraq...

[Huge SNIP of excellent "rant." Must read in full] ".........And don't you buy the crap so-called academics are peddling, that Hamas was the duly democratically elected government of Gaza. Hamas took power, not in an election, but in a bloody coup, machine gunning their fellow Palestinians, blindfolding, binding and throwing them off of multi story buildings. They have terrorized their own people, not only Israel. Their people, indeed, live under the yoke of occupation, but not by Israel, by Hamas. And as for the apologists and enablers of Hamas, who contribute to the misery of Palestinians and Israelis alike, while...

Investopedia defines a “zero sum game” as “a situation in which one person’s gain is equivalent to another’s loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero.” If a political leader wielding power sees the world as a zero sum game – gains to one must mean a loss to another – it is likely that this leader will promote policies that will limit growth, wealth creation and innovative problem solving. What a zero sum worldview will produce more of is political, class, and ethnic resentment and strife. It so happens we have a leader today that has...

The GOP is in the midst of a public foreign policy debate. Debate is fine, but as Republican we must agree on some basic premises. The most important premise is that instead of laughing at us, our enemies should be terrified of us. Yes, terrified. The world isn’t some sort of fantasy milieu of earnest, huggy people who want to work together to forge a brighter tomorrow for all the world’s citizens. It’s full of bad people, many of whom want us enslaved if not dead. They aren’t bad because we’re rich, or insufficiently carbon neutral, or any of that...

An online friend “Miss Marple” notes the similarities between the thuggery in Ferguson, Missouri and the depredations of the Middle East’s jihadi wild packs: I read a book by the historian Barbara Tuchman [A Distant Mirror. The Calmitous 14th Century] which theorized that the Hundred Years War was caused by a culture that was adolescent, because so many older people had died during the Black Plague. All of the nobles and rulers at that time were in their late teens and had not much guidance from older, calmer heads. That idea has remained with me ever since I read the...

For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been to support “moderates.” The problem is that there are actually very few of them. The Arab world is going through a bitter, sectarian struggle that is “carrying the Islamic world back to the Dark Ages,” said Turkish President Abdullah Gul. In these circumstances, moderates either become extremists or they lose out in the brutal power struggles of the day. Look at Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya and the Palestinian territories.

The battle of our centuryFATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZAIt is not a war between religions. It is a war within Islam that has lethal consequences for all those it touches. It began dramatically on Sept. 11, 2001. Our century is characterized by a lethal theological war in the house of Islam, with brutal consequences for the whole world, whether it be lower Manhattan or northern Iraq. Centuries are not exactly 100 years long. The late British historian Eric Hobsbawm proposed a more persuasive division of history with his "long 19th century," which began with the French Revolution in 1789 and...

By PETER BAKERAUGAugust 15, 2014 WASHINGTON — In this summer of global tumult, the debate in Washington essentially boils down to two opposite positions: It is all President Obama’s fault, according to his critics; no, it is not, according to his supporters, because these are events beyond his control. Americans often think of their president as an all-powerful figure who can command the tides of history — and presidents have encouraged this image over the years because the perception itself can be a form of power. But as his critics have made the case that Mr. Obama’s mistakes have fueled...

" only the large scale here is exceptional. This is the traditional celebratory gunfire at a wedding celebration. Note that the arms being fired are fully-automatic sub-machine guns. And you thought the United States had a "gun culture!" We're pikers compared to most of the Middle East...."

First Appearance of ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (English Subtitles) So overnight the crisis on Mount Sinjar is, well, over. The president's vacation may now continue uninterrupted by videos on CNN of kids being tossed into helicopters that land briefly, are overwhelmed by a mob, and fly away with a cohort of sobbing women and children. The world's media has been dismissed by U.S. officials speaking on background to the New York Times. No more fall of Saigon analogies please! The Times' references to "the secret team of Marines and Special Operations forces [that] were already on Mount Sinjar,...