Free Republic

Vladimir Putin (5'7", allegedly), let’s review: His first term as President of Russia coincided with George W. Bush’s stolen American Presidency. I hate this American President, his stick is much bigger than mine From 2000-2008 Putin tried, more or less, to make nice with America and the West. Accordingly, he confined most of his inner-machismo to his big game hunts; and dealing with internal enemies. Ask Litvinenko: Is polonium a chemical weapon? Then, when GWB’s second term was over, he gave Dmitry Medvedev (5'4") In Russia, the difference between 5'7" and 5'4" is what they say it is. a “short”...

Might moral theology, in the form of the venerable just-war tradition of moral reasoning, point a path beyond the fantastic mess that is American policy toward an imploding Syria — a fiasco created by the Obama administration’s dangerous combination of ideological besottedness, fecklessness, and mind-boggling incompetence? The question is not as odd as it may seem at first blush. For the better part of 1,500 years, the just-war tradition — initially developed by such sophisticated thinkers as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas — has provided a framework for collaborative deliberation about ordering various means (armed force and other instruments of political...

CNN´s "State of the Union" host Candy Crowley asked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers whether it makes any difference that Vladimir Putin and Russia got the upper hand over the U.S. in the deal struck on Syria´s chemical weapons.

President Barack Obama praised an agreement reached Saturday between the U.S. and Russia, saying it offers a chance to destroy Syria's huge stockpile of chemical weapons and promises to end the threat the weapons pose to the region and the world as well as the Syrian people. Obama said in a statement Saturday that the international community expects Syria to "live up to its public commitments" to hand over its chemical weapons stockpile. Warning that the U.S. "remains prepared to act" if Syria falls short, he also cautions that more work remains even after the progress the deal represents. ~~snip...

[The Clown] declared that the United States is still prepared to act militarily to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons despite the decision to pursue a diplomatic deal and not strike Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons. He also acknowledged that his approach to the Syria crisis has been uneven, but defended it... Obama spoke in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” taped Friday before the United States and Russia agreed on a plan to bring Syrian chemical weapons under international control in order to avoid military strikes.

(CNN) -- A Syrian minister declared "victory" for his country on Sunday, thanking Russia for orchestrating a chemical weapons deal to avert U.S. military action, Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported. "We welcome these agreements. On the one hand, they will help Syrians come out of the crisis, and on the other hand, they prevented the war against Syria by having removed a pretext for those who wanted to unleash it," National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar was quoted as saying. He called the deal an achievement of Russian diplomacy, and "a victory for Syria won thanks to our Russian...

A top House Democrat and Republican differed Sunday about how the United States' effort to solve the Syria crisis swerved from a threat of military force to a possible diplomatic solution, but they agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is now leading the effort. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., argued that a potential diplomatic solution couldn’t have been possible without President Obama first saying the U.S. would take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad for an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack that killed nearly 1,500 of his own people. “We wouldn’t be at this point if not for the...

CNN’s State of the Union host Candy Crowley asked Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) if the U.S. really cared whether Russia had the diplomatic edge in the deal over Syrian chemical weapons, which provides a framework for the destruction or removal of them over the next year. Rogers explained the deal was a “Russian plan for Russian interests” before Crowley cut over him with her question Sunday. Rogers replied that it was serious because the U.S. had given away the credibility of its military force by allowing Russia to take the lead in the region. “The Syria plan has been...

Syrian minister calls chemical weapons deal a Russian-won 'victory' over U.S. 10:09am EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syria's Minister for National Reconciliation said on Sunday that the chemical weapons agreement between Russia and the United States was a "victory" for Damascus, won by its Russian allies, and had taken away the pretext for war. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Saturday in Geneva on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to account for his chemical weapons within a week. The deal may avert U.S. military strikes. "This agreement, an achievement of Russian diplomats and the...

Firstly let us take a look at the "evidence" Obama and Kerry were peddling. For a start, John Kerry makes his mark under Peter's Principle as a failed Presidential candidate. As a diplomat and statesman, as US Secretary of State, he is either an incompetent jackass or else he is a barefaced, blatant liar, either case rendering him totally unfit for the job. One of the photos he was waving around as evidence to incriminate President Al-Assad was taken in Iraq in 2003.

Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Mongolia are expected to become full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at its next summit, said former Secretary General of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Akram Zaki on Wednesday. Speaking at an international conference entitled “SCO’s Role in Regional Stability: Prospect of Its Expansion” organized by Islamabad Policy Research Institute here, Akram Zaki said China and the Russian Federation had supported Pakistan, India and other countries’ membership of the SCO. The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic and military organization, which was founded in Shanghai in 2001 replacing the Shanghai Five that came into being...

"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," Secretary of State Dean Rusk famously said during the Cuban missile crisis. Barack Obama has been doing a lot of blinking lately. On Syria especially. "There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movements on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons," he said back in August 2012. Chemical weapons were a "red line." Presumably the president hoped that his statement would deter Bashar Assad's embattled regime from using chemical weapons. And presumably he hoped that his demand in 2011 for Assad to relinquish...

President Obama on Sunday hailed the agreement reached with Russia over the weekend to seize and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons as a “foundation” that could eventually lead to a political settlement of the civil war that has gripped that nation and killed tens of thousands of people over the last two years. Mr. Obama said the United States was in a “better position” to prevent President Bashar al-Assad of Syria from using poison gas again because of the deal hammered out by Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. “Look, we’re not there yet,”...

Lebanese daily says 20 trucks crossed into Iraq last week, bearing equipment and material used for manufacturing chemical weapons. Syria has moved 20 trucks worth of equipment and material used for the manufacturing of chemical weapons into neighboring Iraq, the Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal reported on Sunday. The newspaper reported that the trucks crossed the boundary separating Syria with Iraq over the course of Thursday and Friday. Border guards did not inspect the contents of the trucks, which raises suspicions that they contained illicit cargo, according to Al-Mustaqbal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials say the CIA has been delivering light machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks, following President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the rebels. The agency has also arranged for the Syrian opposition to receive anti-tank weaponry like rocket-propelled grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries that has been arming the rebels, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official and two former intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the classified program publicly.

MOSCOW — First, Vladimir Putin accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of inciting protests against him at the end of 2011. The next fall, the Russian president threw the U.S. Agency for International Development out of his country. Then he decided civic groups that get U.S. financing must be foreign agents. By the end of last year, Putin decided Americans had become unfit to adopt Russian children. This summer, he decided to harbor Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency document leaker, despite strenuous U.S. objections. And ever since the Syrian conflict began, Putin has thwarted President Obama’s attempts to get the United...

The column made its way into the newspaper with the help of leading American public relations firm Ketchum, which has offices across the globe and represents some of the world's most prominent brands, as well as the Russian Federation. The firm was responsible for getting Putin's editorial placed in the Times. According to Justice Department filings, Ketchum was paid $1.9 million by the Russian government during the first six months of this year. It got another $3.7 million for public relations work for Gazprom, the oil and gas company controlled by the Kremlin

The U.S. and Russia have reached a deal to hand over Assad's chemical weapons stockpiles to the international community for their removal and destruction. This move allows the U.S. to save face, and it has at least temporarily postponed a U.S. military attack on Syria. But the Syria problem is obviously far from solved. In all likelihood, the complete removal and destruction of chemical weapons is a pipe dream.

...Warning; Graphic content A Syrian boy is held by the hand as he walks past the body of a beheaded Islamic militant loyal to Assad. An unnamed photojournalist was given rare access to the public execution in the town of Keferghen in the north of the country. @LeJournal/SIPA/Rex Features ... A group of young children sit on a wall as they stare at the dead body. The severed head of a militant is held aloft. The photographer witnessed four executions on August 31. @LeJournal/SIPA/Rex Features

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has published an article applauding a Russian-backed proposal to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons. … Castro also lauds Russia as a “brave country” that “stayed firm before the unusual pretension of the government of the United States, threatening to launch an overwhelming attack against the Syrian defenses.” …