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Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy has there been such a stunning display of dangerous naivete. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed U.S. nuclear secrets to the U.N. conference while proudly proclaiming it showed America is sending "a clear, unmistakable signal" that this nation is committed to nuclear disarmament. Kellogg-Briand laid the groundwork for Munich in...

  Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly ResponseBy Aaron J. Klein Random House, $24.95, 256pp. In a sensational new book, Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response, Aaron J. Klein, Time Magazine military and intelligence affairs correspondent, mines newly declassified documents and over 50 interviews with high ranking Israeli intelligence, military, and political figures to finally tell us what really happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics—and after.Striking Back is authoritative and definitive—if by necessity somewhat incomplete.  It will be many years before all the details are revealed, but Klein manages enough to...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

NOT long after a portly, jovial priest in the German industrial city of Essen was accused of sexually abusing three boys in 1979, he was offered a new home in Munich by Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, who was Archbishop of Munich and Freising at the time, wanted Father Peter Hullermann — known to friends in the church as “Hulli” — to undergo psychotherapy. A psychiatrist quickly concluded that Hullermann was untreatable, however. “I told the church officials that Hullermann must never be allowed to work with children again,” said Werner Huth, the psychiatrist, in an interview...

SNIPPET: "BERLIN: The take-off of a German flight to Tokyo was delayed after two dozen Japanese tourists on board fell ill with violent stomach cramps, German police said. Shortly before take-off on Saturday afternoon, the Airbus A340 carrying some 300 passengers returned to the airport terminal in Berlin after the tourists complained of stomach pains and nausea, said a police statement." SNIPPET: "The victims also complained of vertigo, vomiting and circulation problems, according to doctors, though their lives were not thought to be in danger, said the police statement. Doctors were still trying to ascertain what had caused the sickness,...

At the threshold of my career as a journalist in Paris I was once the unwitting victim of a classic Mossad honey trap. Little did I know that Patricia Roxborough, the girl who pursued me and made sure she was the object of my desire, was a trained assassin of the feared Israeli intelligence service. We met, by chance, through friends in 1969. I was an impressionable 21-year-old learning the ropes of being a foreign correspondent in the French capital. Roxborough said she was a Canadian freelance news photographer. She was tall, beautiful and intelligent and her flashing eyes hinted...

SNIPPET: "MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Munich international airport was re-opened on Wednesday after a three-hour shut down caused when a passenger left the security check even though his laptop computer set off an explosives detector, police said. About 1,200 police did not find the man in their search of the terminal, which was shut down and completely evacuated. "

A terminal at the Munich airport was closed and passengers were evacuated Wednesday after a security breach in which a laptop tested positive for explosives and its owner fled, AFP reported.

The Taliban have a new target: beer and bratwurst. In perhaps their most bizarre threat to date, Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have threatened to bomb the Oktoberfest festival in Munich, Germany, which attracts millions of visitors ever year, along with several landmark buildings and government officials. The threats, while perhaps farfetched, follow a series of warnings from the Taliban and Al Qaeda and underscores a concerted effort by the insurgents to weaken Germany’s resolve for the fight in Afghanistan. Germany has responded by banning all air flights over Munich for the rest of the 16-day festival, which ends Oct. 4....

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...

Strategic Defense: With Iran on the verge of a deliverable nuke, the administration tells our allies in the dead of night that we will scuttle missile defense plans in Eastern Europe to please the Russians.Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after...

Alliances: The U.S. has expressed a willingness to barter away missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Now the Polish foreign minister says he hopes his country doesn't regret trusting the United States.The Brussels Forum is a privately organized high-level meeting of the most influential North American and European political, corporate and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges currently facing both sides of the Atlantic. One of the pressing issues discussed at this year's conference was whether the U.S. is serious about bartering away plans for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for...

Munich - Plans for a new mosque to be built in Munich got the official go-ahead Wednesday, after years of political wrangling. The city council approved building plans for the 10-million-euro (13 million dollar) mosque to be built in the city centre, despite opposition from Bavaria's Christian Socialist Union (CSU) and another regional party. A broad political majority voted in favour of the project, including Social Democrats (SPD), Federal Democrats (FDP), Greens and the Left Party, according to a city spokesman. The Turkish-Islamic mosque organisation Ditim now has to obtain the funds to buy the land for the mosque by...

BOSTON — A flight from Munich, Germany to Washington has been diverted to Boston because a passenger complained of "flu-like symptoms." Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella said United flight 903 was being diverted to Boston early Friday afternoon after a 53-year-old female passenger told flight attendants about her symptoms.

A Black September terrorist who served only about half his 30-year sentence for planting three car bombs in New York City in 1973 was released Thursday into the custody of immigration officials to be deported. Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, was released from the Supermax maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo... Al-Jawary has denied involvement in the 1973 New York City bomb plot; he claims his real name is Khaled Mohammed El-Jassem. The FBI to this day remains unsure of his true identity; his nom de guerre was Abu Walid al-Iraqi. Al-Jawary was a member of Black September, a terrorist group responsible for...

SNIPPET: "A Black September terrorist who served only about half his 30-year sentence for planting three car bombs in New York City in 1973 was released Thursday into the custody of immigration officials to be deported. Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, was released from the Supermax maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, said Carl Rusnok, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. Rusnok said a federal immigration judge had signed a deportation order for Al-Jawary."

US Vice President Joe Biden , left, meets with the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Ivanov for bilateral talks during the International Conference on Security Policy, Sicherheitskonferenz, at a hotel in Munich, southern Germany, on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009 US Vice-President Joe Biden waves as he leaves at the Bayerischer Hof hotel, the venue of the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, southern Germany on February 7, 2009. The US administration signaled a new spirit of international cooperation this weekend but called for its allies to do more and painted a bleak picture of the war in Afghanistan German Chancellor...

MUNICH (AP) — Russia welcomes President Barack Obama's determination to start a new era in diplomatic relations but that will take time, Russia's deputy prime minister said Sunday after meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. Minister Sergei Ivanov said Biden had "reaffirmed the strong intention of the U.S. to start anew," which was a "very positive" development for Russia-U.S. relations. "The U.S. administration sent a very strong signal, and the signal was heard — a signal that says they're ready to resume the Russian and U.S. dialogue frankly and openly," Ivanov told a news conference at the Munich Security Conference.

Eyes trained to watch the Hindu Kush must now turn askance toward Germany where the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy is scheduled to take place next weekend. Organizers of the annual event revealed on Thursday that among the 300 prominent figures from the international arena of foreign, security and defense policy will be a "very high-ranking personality" from Tehran. Other VIPs include US Vice President Joseph Biden, who is expected to make a major foreign and security policy speech. The big question is: Will the United States and Iran make contact at Munich?

In his first trip as Vice President, Joe “Stand up Chuck!” Biden is off to embarrass himself in front of the Germans…a challenge, but we know Joe is up to it. After issuing his first Vice Presidential apology for insulting the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a lot of apologies from this guy), Biden will board the Vice-Presidential short bus to attend a conference of like-minded Euro-trash. I’m sure he will be well received, especially among the “few” Germans who keep shrines to the era of National Socialism in their...