Free Republic

Anyone care to guess who will state that OBL succeded in bringing down America financialy by bringing down the Twin Towers.

INTRODUCTION The natural born citizen requirement in Article II of the United States Constitution has been called the “stupidest provision” in the Constitution,1 “undecidedly unAmerican,”2 “blatantly discriminatory,”3 and the “Constitution’s worst provision.”4 ... snip The natural born citizen clause of the United States Constitution should be repealed for numerous reasons. Limiting presidential eligibility to natural born citizens discriminates against naturalized citizens, is out-dated and undemocratic, and incorrectly assumes that birthplace is a proxy for loyalty. The increased globalization of the world continues to make each of these reasons more persuasive...the natural born citizen clause has increasingly become out of place...

Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, who served as both Democratic foil and dealmaker with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has joined the high-powered public relations firm whose California office is currently occupied by Schwarzenegger's former campaign manager and communications director. Núñez, a Los Angeles Democrat, will be the newest partner and co-chair of Mercury Public Affairs, LLC, a political firm with offices in seven cities across the country, according to a letter he has sent to supporters. Steve Schmidt, who was the architect of Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign, and Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's former communications director and deputy chief of staff, are the...

President-elect Barack Obama and his former general election rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), have come to an agreement on immigration, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid told the Detroit Free Press in a recent interview. Reid said the two standard-bearers have agreed to move forward on immigration legislation during Obama's White House tenure. "On immigration, there's been an agreement between Obama and McCain to move forward on that," Reidsaid when how Congress would handle immigration and healthcare with expanded Democratic majorities and Obama in the White House. Early on in their general election campaign, both McCain and Obama pledged to enact...

OSAMA bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan will be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, CNN has reported citing unnamed US sources. A jury of six US military officers at a Guantanamo terrorism trial in August sentenced Hamdan to five years and six months in prison for supporting terrorism - which taking into account time served, amounted to only an additional five months. The Pentagon refused to confirm the report. "In general we don't talk about transfers until they are completed," Pentagon spokesman Mark Ballesteros said. Hamdan, a native of Yemen and about 40 years old, was picked up...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry tells a story of a conversation that he had with his predecessor George W. Bush five months after both men took office, it occurred in June of 2001, shortly after the president had his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Perry explains that typically a Bush conversation is pretty quick to the chase, asking about his wife and kids and good-bye. But nearly forty minutes later Bush is still on the phone asking about who got the best of who in the Texas state legislature and catching up on all of the intrigues of Texas...

A recently released propaganda video by the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is quite revealing. Not only does the video demonstrate the group’s growing effort to package arguments in a manner designed to appeal to Westerners on the political left, but it also serves as a barometer of radical Muslim groups’ broader shift in rhetorical strategy. The video, “Iraq: Past and Present Colonialism,” appears for the first twenty-seven minutes to be a standard leftist critique of the Iraq war, indistinguishable from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. The slickly-produced video begins with the history of past colonialism in Iraq—including the Mongol conquest...

If the audio message purportedly from al Qaeda's deputy leader is authentic, we have finally heard from a representative of the terror organization about the American election. It was wholly expected that there would be such a tape, though the content, with its references to Malcolm X might be considered somewhat surprising --although in recent tapes al Qaeda's leaders have occasionally referenced critics of American society and foreign policy such as Noam Chomsky and Malcolm X. On the tape, the deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, seeks to make President-elect Barack Obama seem like an apostate for his support of Israel and...

(CBS) Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon ordered a top secret team of American commandos into Afghanistan with a single, simple order: kill Osama bin Laden. It was America's best chance to eliminate the leader of al Qaeda. The inside story of exactly what happened in that mission, and how close it came to its objective has never been told until now.

The Sayyid Qutb Reader Selected Writings on Politics, Religion, and Society Edited by Albert J. Bergesen Routledge, 2008 0415954258 (paperback; $34.95) 041595424X (hardback; $135.00) Preface It has been said that perhaps no writer has occupied so central a place within the universe of political Islam in the second half of the twentieth century as Egypt's Sayyid Qutb, and if one wants to understand the mind of radical Muslims, one needs to know what they read, or have read, and they read Sayyid Qutb. In general, his work has been divided into three periods. The earliest (1920-1947) centers on more literary...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7, 2008 – The first detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to have his case brought to trial was sentenced today by a military panel there to 66 months in prison for providing material support to terrorism. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who served as Osama bin Laden’s driver, was tried and sentenced under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Following a two-week trial, a military jury yesterday found Hamdan guilty of providing material support to terrorism, but not of the more serious charge of conspiracy. Navy Capt. Keith Allred, the military judge, sentenced him to 66 months confinement but...

He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "We have various options. The Nuremberg Trials are certainly an example of the kind of tribunal that we could move forward with. I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice. There's no problem there." McCain said it would be a "good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of this guy's crimes, and his intentions, which are still there."

In his interview with CBS News, Obama says: Logan: Because you do have a situation seven years on into this war where Osama bin Laden and all his lieutenants and all the leaders of the Taliban, they’re still there. And they’re inside Pakistan. Obama: Right. It’s a huge problem. And first of all, if we hadn’t taken our eye off the ball, we might have caught them before they got into Pakistan and were able to reconstitute themselves. Several times in recent interviews, Obama has referred to "taken our eye off the ball" in terms of the invasion of Iraq,...

Mexico to honor Sen. Kennedy for work on immigration Friday, July 18, 2008 - Updated 7m ago MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government is honoring U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy for his defense of immigrant rights. Mexico announced today it will award Kennedy the Aguila Azteca, the highest honor the government can bestow on foreign dignitaries. An announcement on Mexico’s federal registry says Kennedy will be presented with a sash in the United States. Mexico says the Massachusetts Democrat has denounced injustices against migrants and "highlighted the importance of addressing illegal immigration by looking for an integral solution." Kennedy co-sponsored an...

Barack Obama Hasn’t a Clue: Here’s Why Osama Bin Laden Hasn’t Been Captured Yet by Gregory D. Lee It has been six-and-a-half years since the 9/11 attacks and Osama Bin Laden still hasn't been captured. Is Barack Obama correct when he claims that President Bush lost sight of OBL when military operations shifted to Iraq? Or is OBL dead from liver disease or from the intense bombing of Tora Bora during the Afghanistan offensive? From my personal experiences living and working in Pakistan for four years in the mid-1990s as a Supervisory Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, I'm...

This "as President" talk by Barack Obama on what he would do about Osama bin Laden is political gobbledygook: "First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head. And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive." -- June 18, 2008 There is no publicly known Presidential Executive Order "out on Osama bin Laden's head." The administration has never acknowledged whether President George W. Bush has or has not signed an Executive Order that states the policy of the United States...

Osama Bin LadenNew Yorkers last week were reminded yet again of the horrors of the 9/11 attacks, when their unrepentant mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was arraigned in Guantanamo Bay. But few are aware a tectonic shift has taken place beneath the headlines in the wider war on terrorism - one that could within a few years significantly lower the likelihood of terror returning to New York's streets. This is because Al Qaeda has gotten itself into hot water with the one constituency that it cannot afford to alienate: its fellow jihadists.Over the past year, a growing number of very consequential...

Absolut-ely Ridiculous Rick Moran Take a look at this map that Absolut Vodka is using in its latest campaign in Mexico and the US: Now I have an open mind about a lot of things. But somehow, giving California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, and about 4 other states to Mexico because they don't like a treaty they signed after losing a war 160 years ago seems a little too much in the way of good neighborliness if you ask me. The word is "reconquista." The open borders crowd tells us that this is a myth, that the issue of...

'Osama bin Laden is Planning Something for the US Election' US author Steve Coll spent years looking into Osama bin Laden's family. Now, his new book provides a unique insight into the clan. SPIEGEL spoke with him about where the terrorist might be hiding, how his father got his start, and the unique romantic liasons pursued by one of his brothers. SPIEGEL: Mr. Coll, Osama bin Laden recently broke a long silence. He threatened Europe and called for the "liberation" of the Gaza Strip. How seriously should we take these missives? Do they tell us anything about him or about...

A jihadist Web site Wednesday posted a message from Osama bin Laden chiding the European Union for allowing newspapers to republish cartoons insulting the prophet Muhammad. In his five-minute audio message entitled, "The Response Is What You See, Not What You Hear," bin Laden accuses Europeans of abandoning the "etiquettes of disputes and morals of fighting." Bin Laden says he considers the reprinting of the cartoons a more serious offense than the killing of women and children. He also adds the revenge for republishing the cartoons "will be more severe." Bin Laden concludes his message by saying if there are...

The amazing series of events that led to an Al Qaeda terrorist manual becoming freely available on the internet can be revealed today. Only last week a terror suspect was jailed in Britain for having a copy of it and told that its possession was a serious criminal offence. But the deadly document, described as a Declaration of Jihad, is a public record in the US after being translated from Arabic and typed up for MI5, passed to the American authorities and then declassified by the Department of Justice. The manual includes advice on planning kidnappings, bombings, assassinations and torture....

The US captured an al-Qaeda terrorist who played an instrumental role in helping Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan after 9/11. Mohammed Rahim now sits in a Guantanamo Bay cell after his capture, arriving there this week, although the CIA won’t say when or where they caught him: The Pentagon says authorities have captured a high-level al-Qaida figure who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan in 2001.Officials declined to say when or where Mohammad Rahim was captured — announcing only that he was handed over by the CIA to the Pentagon earlier this week and is being held at...

The Jordanians had held Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi without trial for several years without trial, but could apparently find no charges to bring against him.  Earlier today, the man described as more influential in al-Qaeda than either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri went free from the prison where he mentored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded al-Qaeda in Iraq: Jordanian authorities on Wednesday released Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a leading al-Qaeda mentor, after several years imprisonment without trial, security sources said.They said Maqdisi, who was regarded as the spiritual mentor of slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,...

U.S. intelligence agencies are beginning to suspect that Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden is dead after all, despite a recent audio tape exhorting Al Qaida terrorists in Iraq. The Al Qaida leader who was the main force behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, was last heard on an audio tape released Dec. 30. The tape mentioned Iraqis who are opposing Al Qaida, but there has been no specific time referenced from his last two messages. An earlier message in October also exhorted Al Qaida to fight in Iraq. Questions about Bin Laden are being...

Which target got a million-dollar missile in the rear yesterday? ABC News reports that Pakistani officials believe they killed someone high up the al-Qaeda food chain with a missile strike yesterday, but they're not saying who it might be. Hopes have been raised in the past, but usually have wound up either killing lower-level figures or, as George Bush famously noted, a camel and a ten-dollar tent: Pakistani intelligence sources say they believe a "high-value" al Qaeda target was killed in a missile strike yesterday in the country's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. U.S. officials said there was no indication that...

WEST COLUMBIA — When private property gets in the way of a road project, its owners will be moving out of the way, one way or another, in almost every case. With a widening of Highway 36 on the horizon and state and federal officials ready to drive the Trans-Texas Corridor through the Lone Star State, many land-owning Texans are preparing to defend their property from their own government. Brazoria County residents troubled by the looming eminent domain fights came to the Gulf Coast Christian Center on Saturday morning to voice their views to Tom Lizardo, chief of staff for...

CAIRO, Egypt - Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father — except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there's the black leather biker jacket. The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is better way to defend Islam than militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West. Omar — one of bin Laden's 19 children — raised a tabloid storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father—except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there's the black leather biker jacket. The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is better way to defend Islam than militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West. Omar—one of bin Laden's 19 children—raised a tabloid storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took the name...

Conservative and liberal bloggers alike are buzzing about Mitt Romney's alleged statement to an Islamic businessman that he "cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified" for a Muslim, based on the percentage of Muslims in the U.S. Romney quickly disputed businessman Mansoor Ijaz's account of their exchange, but Ijaz stands by his telling. To make matters worse for Romney, TPM Election Central just dropped another bomb: apparently two NV GOPers had asked Romney a similar question several months ago and gotten a similar answer, which one of them even described as "racist." Will this hurt Romney among IA...

Bin Laden's latest tape--translated http://mfile.akamai.com/5020/wma/rushlimb.download.akamai.com/5020/New/osamamessage.asx

When al-Qaida’s media arm released its first Osama Bin Laden video in nearly three years, most of the media attention was focused on Bin Laden's beard. It appeared either dyed — or perhaps even pasted on. He was ridiculed and a variety of theories were offered to explain it. But now, there is a running debate among video analysts about whether al-Qaida faked the video altogether —that rather than being new, the September 7 message may have been something recorded at the same time as his last video in October 2004 (and then released with new audio). The point of...

A Simple Way to End the War on Terror by Yacka Jah Yacka Tue Oct 23, 2007 at 09:03:20 PM PDT While it appears from more than one point of view that the War in Iraq and the War on Terror are situations from which we may never be able to extricate ourselves, from the mountains of Pakistan comes a very simple solution: convert to Islam. Before we reject this out of hand, lets seriously consider it for a moment: Osama Bin Laden promised the wars would be over if Americans convert to Islam. This may sound like a lot...

Bronxville, N.Y. - In yet another sign of trouble for Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden publicly conceded that his like-minded militants in Iraq "made mistakes." In an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera this week, he sounds deeply anxious about the survival of Al Qaeda in Iraq – a group that is largely independent of his own organization but adheres to a similar ideology. Al Qaeda's top leader appealed to Sunni Arab tribes and other armed Iraqi Sunni groups to stop fighting Al Qaeda members and unite against the real enemy – the US-led coalition. Al Qaeda in Iraq faces growing...

<p>The last days on Earth of Abu Osama al-Tunisi apparently were filled with anxiety: “We are desperate for your help,� he said in a letter to al Qaeda chieftains.</p>

Banner announcing Osama bin Laden's audiotape. Click image to view animated version. Recent report from US commanders in Iraq have stated al Qaeda in Iraq has been set back by a combination of the latest offensive and the willingness of local Iraqis to turn on the terror group. Based Osama bin Laden's latest audiotape, al Qaeda central command agrees that the fight against the US and the Iraqi government is not going well. A clearer picture of Osama bin Laden's view on the state of jihad in Iraq emerges after the release of the full transcript of Osama bin...

TxDOT knows where you went It hired a firm to film plates, send surveys — a move some call sneaky AUSTIN — Did you drive on Interstate 35 in early September? Where were you going, and why? How many people were in the car with you? And by the way, how many people live in your house? The Texas Department of Transportation wants to know, and a company it hired may have videotaped your license plate, then sent you a survey to find out. The survey is being done in the name of sound transportation planning. Officials say the method...

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to...

Frequent demands for justice are trumpeted in leftist-derived articles, for intentions of slamming President Bush over the administrations perceived failure to apprehend Osama Bin Laden. Such cries for justice, by the left, are normally reserved for the benefit of convicted criminals who’ve been offered more than ample opportunity to take full advantage of what our system of laws entail in the way of protection. When they’re not busy protesting on behalf of the truly guilty, liberals are typically found demanding stiff punishment for the innocent. Among the many lies originating from the left – and there are many – is...

Osama bin Laden is Already Dead By Highwheeler at freerepublic.com In the weeks since the terrorist airliner hijackings and the subsequent attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, both U.S. military and U.S. political strategies have been slowly revealed. Not every piece of information was overt and obvious to the casual observer about these operations. While certain pieces of information were outwardly and proudly proclaimed, most were the carefully and heavily edited bits of information that still remain the most interesting. I am talking about the sporadic information that was missing, retracted, or just puzzling in its nature. This thesis ...

A little more than a month ago...some U.S. intelligence and military analysts thought they had found one of the world’s two most wanted men just where they last saw them six years ago. For three days and nights — between Aug. 14 and 16 — U.S. and Afghanistan forces pounded the mountain caves in Tora Bora... (snip) The military operation included "several hundred" U.S. and Afghan ground forces... Elements from the 82nd Airborne blocked off escape routes through the mountains on the Afghanistan side of the border, while helicopters inserted U.S. Navy Seals at night. The Seals pinpointed enemy positions...

Muslim terrorist leaders are "thankful" for the efforts of activist and congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan, stating in a new book Sheehan's anti-Iraq war activities and her statements against President Bush "give us hope" the U.S. will change its Mideast policies. "You [Sheehan] give us hope and you show us that there are different Americans than those whom we know," stated Ramadan Adassi, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the West Bank's Anskar Refugee Camp. "This sincere woman says what we've been saying all these last years – Saddam never threatened America or its security. Now Iraq...

On the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Americans were treated to two starkly contrasting images that speak centuries of difference between the U.S. and its enemies. In Frame One, we see Gen. David H. Petraeus testifying before Congress on the status of the war in Iraq. In Frame Two is Osama bin Laden in a new video -- resplendent in white robes, his beard recently rinsed dark to conceal the gray -- promising that Islam will subjugate the West. One an image of courage, integrity and honor; the other a caricature of manhood. Then there is a third frame....

Friends, this is not a do-it-if-you-have-time request. This is the most urgent kind of request for your action Friday — and again Monday.... In the middle of actions on Defense next week, the open-borders Senators are going to attempt to attach three proposals that would give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and dramatically increase the importation of additional foreign labor for American jobs. Many of the Senators who helped us kill the Comprehensive Amnesty in June are indicating they are in favor of these preferences for illegal foreign workers and new foreign workers over American workers. We must keep...

Like Brian De Palma, Osama Bin Laden has recently released a new movie. Like De Palma’s new release, Bin Laden’s new feature is predictably anti-American. Unlike previous Bin Laden special productions, America’s arch-enemy has taken another arrow out of Hollywood’s quiver. Bin Laden has moved almost far enough left to successfully compete for next year’s presidential endorsement from MoveOn.Org. We could almost call him Osama Bin Lenin. Bin Lenin’s latest propaganda flick incorporates many of the “known facts”™ that pervade the typical speech given by the average leftwing American Populist. He perhaps read Senator Jim Webb’s November 2006 editorial in...

A banner once displayed in front of an abandoned Al-Qaeda safehouse in Iraq has found a new home at a US military museum.The three-meter-long (10-foot-long) black flag, recovered by a battalion of Marines in Fallujah in November 2004, is now on display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.The flag "is believed to be the same banner seen in the atrocious videos broadcast all over the world displaying the torture and executions of many innocent civilians by insurgents and terrorists," according to the text accompanying the exhibit.The flag was found, the narrative went on to say,...

So you've seen the latest message from our favorite goat-toucher Usama bin Laden. In it, he criticizes Americans for reelecting, instead of punishing Bush, as well as harping on Democrats for not securing a retreat out of Iraq. He also mentions global warming and praises Noam Chomsky, the patron saint of the left. It was at this point, I thought I was listening to Keith Olbermann. That's when it dawned on me: bin Laden isn't just a terrorist, he's worse — a liberal! So, when one political party shares a wartime agenda with the guy who's trying to end your...

Projection: The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others. Maureen Dowd's columns are as much pop psychology as political commentary. The NY Times columnist understands virtually everything in terms of the underlying impulses of the id, ego and super-ego. When it comes to Republicans' presidential preferences, Dowd's idée fixe is that they seek father figures -- strong men who will dole out discipline and authority. But could this ultimately be the projection of Dowd's deep-seated desire for a strong man of her own? Take today's [p.p.v.] opus, Old School Inanity, in which Dowd twice trots out her...

How big a threat is the global jihad being waged against the United States and the west? I agree with the left that the threat should be kept in perspective. I do not agree with the left when they attempt to minimize it. Fred Thompson’s take on OBL and The Long War is just about right: “Bin Laden being in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan is not as important as there are probably al-Qaida operatives inside the United States of America,” Thompson said... Thompson said the al-Qaida leader and the Iraq war must be seen as part of the...

Bin Laden Tape: 'No Overt Threat To US' Updated: 19:10, Friday September 07, 2007 There are no overt threats or calls to attack on a new video featuring al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to reports from the US. Unidentified American officials are quoted as saying that date references on the video indicate it was made recently. The recording of bin Laden has been timed to mark the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks against the United States. It contains the first new images of the terror leader in nearly three years. The Homeland Security Department has said it...