Free Republic

Half a year ago in Cairo, President Obama addressed the Muslim world. Global leftists lauded the speech as heralding instant change in the Middle East. The Obama-adoring pundits were right. Change came. But it's all bad. Instead of listening to the extravagant claims of our leftward-plunging media about how profoundly that speech affected Muslims, let's look at what's actually happened since Obama praised Islam and trashed America: Iran: No nukes? Strategic cooperation? Rule-of-law democracy? Greater freedom for the Iranian people? Naw. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's regime plays Obama like a card sharp working a hick who just showed up with his...

Here is video of Lt. Col. Ralph Peters on "The O'Reilly Factor" reacting to Obama's Fort Hood speech. Peters said he was offended when Obama said "the act at Fort Hood was incomprehensible" and "hard to comprehend." Peters said "no, it's not hard to comprehend. It was the act of an Islamist terrorist who gunned down 54 people because he believed he was doing the will of Allah in accordance with the Koran." Peters said "it's clear that the problem is Islam." Peters said he was also offended by all the speeches today because of the fact that there was...

As President Obama belatedly appears at Fort Hood today, will he dare to speak the word "terror?" He won't use the word "Islamist." If he mentions Islam at all, it'll be to sing its praises yet again. We've already learned that Islamist terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan attended the Northern Virginia mosque of Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, a fiery al Qaeda supporter who later fled the United States. We know that Hasan's peers, subordinates and patients repeatedly raised red flags that his superiors suppressed. We know he was a player on Islamist-extremist Web sites. The FBI's uncovering one extremist link after...

On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting, "Allahu akbar!" ("God is great!") committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam. What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Fort Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of nondenominational shoplifting. This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's...

On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam. What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting. This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it’s an act of...

May this horrible act of terrorism be the begining of the end of "political correctness". Today’s interview with Col. Ralph Peters is below the fold. The colonel has always been a voice of reason when it comes to military matters, Iraq and Afghanistan. A noted soldier, author and columnist, I asked for clarity on the Fort Hood massacre when we set this up and he certainly gives it.

Despite BOR's incessant interruptions, Lt Col Peters does a great job in setting the record straight on what this act of cowardice really was......the last minute is most powerful.

Here is video of Col. Ralph Peter telling Bill O'Reilly saying what happened at Fort Hood yesterday "was the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. It was committed by a Muslim fanatic who shouted "Allah is Great," and gunned down 44 unarmed innocent soldiers and civilians." Peters also blasted Obama for not facing the facts of case, and for refusing to call it what it is. O'Reilly told Peters it is possible the guy snapped, but that it is very possible he is a terrorist. Peters pointed out to O'Reilly that most terrorists are not your most stable...

The Obama administration's un-American attempt to vilify Fox News only increased the network's popularity. But this White House debacle can't be judged in isolation: There's a global leftwing assault on the freedom of information. Intense leftist sentiment in most of the international media isn't enough. Extremists seek total control. The one thing leftists just can't bear is criticism. (Mass murder's fine, but don't stray from the party line.) As early as the French Revolution, the left grasped that a free press is inherently subversive to its doctrines. The Obama administration's aborted Fox hunt simply aligned our government with the hounds...

THANKS to a mix of patriotism and high unemployment, every one of our military services exceeded its recruiting goals for fiscal year 2009. That's the good news. The bad news is that, after eight years of indecisive war and ravaged personal lives, the Army's losing the experienced officers and NCOs it needs to train and lead those new recruits. The Army's tough. But after years of voices crying wolf for political purposes, there's real trouble looming on the personnel front. I joined a broken Army after Vietnam. I don't want to see an Army resembling that one again. Yes, we...

When enemy action kills our troops, it's unfortu nate. When our own moral fecklessness murders those in uniform, it's unforgivable. In Afghanistan, our leaders are complicit in the death of each soldier, Marine or Navy corpsman who falls because politically correct rules of engagement shield our enemies. Mission-focused, but morally oblivious, Gen. Stan McChrystal conformed to the Obama Way of War by imposing rules of engagement that could have been concocted by Code Pink: * Unless our troops in combat are absolutely certain that no civilians are present, they're denied artillery or air support. * If any civilians appear where...

GEN. Stan McChrystal, an honorable soldier, has reported from Afghani stan: He wants more troops for a "classic" counterinsurgency strategy to secure the population, then win hearts and minds. President Obama needs to make a decision: Either give the general the resources he believes he needs, or change the mission. I'm for changing the mission. Concentrate on the continued destruction of al Qaeda and its allies. Nothing else matters in this mess. Last spring, the president handed McChrystal an impossible mission: Turn Afghanistan into a prosperous, rule-of-law democracy cherished by its citizens. The general's doing his best. But we have...

Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died. We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot. We've learned nothing. Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it

Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died. We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot. We've learned nothing. Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it. Instead of killing terrorists, we free them. Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them. Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and...

Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died. We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot. We've learned nothing. Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it. Instead of killing terrorists, we free them. Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them. Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and...

Here is video from Fox & Friends this morning where they talked about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's meltdown in the Congo this past week when she got angry at a question about what her husband, Bill Clinton, thought on an international matter. She then, later in the week, compared Nigeria's vote-rigging scandal to the 2000 U.S. Election, insinuating that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at that time, somehow fixed the election! Ret. Lt. Col. Ralph Peter discusses Clinton's "lost and confused" role in the Obama Administration, where he says Obama has managed to isolate her with little power. He got...

OUR troops are performing superbly in Afghanistan. They can seize any objec tive or defeat any enemy on the battlefield. And it doesn't matter. Using Afghan bases to strike al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan is the right fight. But defending the disastrously corrupt and despised Kabul government is the wrong war. We've thrown our blood and treasure behind the latter. Next week, Afghanistan will stage another national election. Given the machinations of President Hamid Karzai, his henchmen and warlord clients, the vote is on track to make Iran's recent balloting look like a model of probity. Even if...

"If he walked away from his post, and from his buddies in wartime, I don't care how hard it sounds, as far as I'm concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and a lot of legal bills".......It was even a little too much for Foxnews Anchor Julie Banderas...

Here is video of Lt. Col. Ralph Peters talking with Judge Andrew Napolitano who was subbing for Glenn Beck today. They discussed President Obama's visit to Russia. Peters bluntly said that Obama is in over his depth in trying to deal with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He also said that what Obama craves most is adulation and applause. He descriptively said, "Obama is a vampire who doesn't live on blood - he lives on applause." . . . . . (Watch Video)

PRESIDENT Obama went to Moscow desperate for the appearance of a foreign-policy success. He got that illusion -- at a substantial cost to America's security. The series of signing ceremonies in a grand Kremlin hall and the litany of agreements, accords and frameworks implied that the United States benefited from all the fuss. We didn't. We got nothing of real importance. But the government of puppet-master Vladimir Putin (nominally just prime minister) got virtually all it wanted. In Moscow, this was Christmas in July. Ignore the agenda-padding public-health memorandum and the meaningless "framework document on military cooperation" (we've had such...

OUR effort in Iraq passed a major milestone today: Our troops are leaving the cities. Advisers remain in place. Joint patrols will still occur. And our forces will wait nearby to respond to Iraqi calls for support. But the last of the bases and US-only outposts within Iraq's urban centers will be vacated. Terrorists have already begun testing the new security arrangements. Iraqi forces won't always pass with flying colors. Yet this situation seemed a pipe dream not so long ago: Iraq's security forces, serving an elected government, assume primary responsibility for the good order of their own country. We...

IT must have been the viewing angle: The despots who run Iran somehow missed the halo gracing President Obama during his recent sermon to the Muslim world. The ruling mullahs' contemptuous handling of Iran's presidential election was their response to "the Cairo effect" announced a tad prematurely by the White House. Our president's public flagellation of America only emboldened the junta in Tehran -- leaving Iran's power brokers more defiant, determined and dismissive than they've been in years. And the strongest response Obama can muster to the blood in Tehran's streets is: "I am deeply troubled by the violence that...

WHEN Europeans wish upon a star, they get an American president with a huge Third World chip on his shoulder. Those "sophisticated" Europeans dismissed "cowboy" Bush as a rube beneath their contempt. If the continent's opinion-makers could've changed their voter registrations, they would've flown to Chicago to vote for Barack Obama last fall. They got what they wanted. But it isn't what they expected. President Obama may be the least Europe-friendly occupant of the White House since James Monroe (the guy who put up a "Keep Out!" sign on our hemisphere). Bam clearly doesn't like Europeans. A big chill has...

Salaam aleikum, dudes ! I thought I knew a little bit about the Middle East. Boy, was I wrong. Last week, President Obama set me straight. Here's what our president taught me during his Middle-Eastern pilgrimage:

FIGHTING terrorists and insurgents resembles dental care: If you ignore the cavity, it doesn't get better on its own. The sooner you're lying back in the chair, the less painful it's going to be. Last month, Pakistan finally and belatedly admitted to itself that its terrorist problem had spread so deeply that at least one bad tooth had to be pulled. The military went into the Taliban-occupied Swat Valley in force. After years of neglect and rot, the apparent determination of Pakistan's leaders to really take on the terrorists was reassuring. And Islamabad didn't flinch, despite grim fighting and a...

In the old days at Officer Candidate School, the "tac officers," snapping and snarling, would circle a hapless would-be lieutenant: "You're lost, Candidate." "You're confused. "What are you going to do now?" "Make a decision! Make a decision!"

In the old days at Officer Candidate School, the "tac officers," snapping and snarling, would circle a hapless would-be lieutenant: "You're lost, Candidate." "You're confused. "What are you going to do now?" "Make a decision! Make a decision!" That cherished image of the bewildered victim of calculated harassment fits President Obama perfectly, when it comes to the shambles he's made of foreign policy in record time. Around the globe, our enemies -- immediate and potential -- are testing Obama to see how far they can go. Thus far, he hasn't set a limit anywhere. Not a single dictator or terrorist...

The most troubling aspect of international security for the United States is not the killing power of our immediate enemies, which remains modest in historical terms, but our increasingly effete view of warfare. The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to “pay any price and bear any burden” to hurt and humble us. As our enemies’ view of what is permissible in war expands apocalyptically, our self-limiting definitions of allowable targets and acceptable casualties—hostile, civilian and our own—continue to narrow fatefully. Our enemies cannot defeat us in direct confrontations, but we appear determined...

We made one great mistake regarding Guantanamo: No terrorist should have made it that far. All but a handful of those grotesquely romanticized prisoners should have been killed on the battlefield. The few kept alive for their intelligence value should have been interrogated secretly, then executed. Terrorists don't have legal rights or human rights. By committing or abetting acts of terror against the innocent, they place themselves outside of humanity's borders. They must be hunted as man-killing animals. And, as a side benefit, dead terrorists don't pose legal quandaries. Captured terrorists, on the other hand, are always a liability. Last...

WE made one great mistake regarding Guantanamo: No terrorist should have made it that far. All but a handful of those grotesquely romanticized prisoners should have been killed on the battlefield. The few kept alive for their intelligence value should have been interrogated secretly, then executed. Terrorists don't have legal rights or human rights. By committing or abetting acts of terror against the innocent, they place themselves outside of humanity's borders. They must be hunted as man-killing animals. And, as a side benefit, dead terrorists don't pose legal quandaries. Captured terrorists, on the other hand, are always a liability. Last...

THE most effective weapon terrorists have found to wield against us isn't the headline-grabbing suicide bomber or even the deadly roadside bomb, the IED. Such weapons can harm us, but they can't stop us. Terror's super-weapon is the lie. Lying about civilian casualties is the one sure way to impede or even halt US (or Israeli) operations, to force such tight restrictions on our troops that they can't win. The casualty con's so effective as both propaganda and tactic that terrorists everywhere have adopted the technique. It's been so successful that our enemies long ago transitioned to the next phase:...

WITH the ugly sanctimony of those who never had to make hard decisions, the American left demands show trials of those who kept us safe after 9/11. Wrapping themselves in repugnant self-righteousness, the MoveOn.org set wants political prosecutions. Should President Obama acquiesce, he won't be furthering the rule of law, but dismantling it. Show trials have long been popular with leftists. Those who don't conform to each jot of doctrine become "enemies of the people." From Stalin down to Putin, and from Mao to Castro, vengeance disguised as law has been a mega-hit. Those on the left don't want justice....

HOLLYWOOD and countless professors warned us: Military vets are drooling trailer-trash who beat their wives and, at best, wind up as homeless street people -- at worst, as homicidal psychos deformed by war. Now, thanks to our ever-vigilant Department of Homeland Security, the full extent of the danger has been revealed: Our so-called "war heroes" are rushing back to join right-wing-extremist hate groups to overthrow our government. Let's not quibble about little things like evidence. The Obama administration just knows that vets are all racist, Jew-hating crazies waiting to explode. Thank God, DHS has a fearless leader, Janet-from-another-planet Napolitano, who...

A TRUE American hero has been freed. Three pirates are dead. A fourth pirate is in custody. Our Navy shone. Now the hard work starts. This weekend's success won't be enough to keep our merchant mariners and cargo ships safe. Somali pirate gangs have already threatened retaliation against third-party captives. (We'll see what they do.) And all Somalis believe that the United States lacks strength of will and staying power. They remember President Bill Clinton's cowardly retreat from Mogadishu. They'll expect a replay from President Obama. Some pirates may avoid US-flagged ships. Others will go out hunting for them --...

This weekend's success won't be enough to keep our merchant mariners and cargo ships safe. Somali pirate gangs have already threatened retaliation against third-party captives. And all Somalis believe the US lacks strength of will and staying power. They remember President Bill Clinton's cowardly retreat from Mogadishu. They'll expect a replay from President Obama. Some pirates may avoid US-flagged ships. Others will go out hunting for them -- to teach us a lesson. Will our president behave as Clinton did with al Qaeda, simply hoping the problem will disappear? Despite the blessed rescue of Capt, Richard Phillips, the indicators aren't...

For a young Somali, piracy's a glamorous profession, the local equivalent of being a Manhattan hedge-fund manager a few years back: His risk is minimal, the rewards are huge - and there's no punishment for pillaging other people's wealth. Just as we encouraged those strutting wizards of finance not long ago, we now embolden pirates. READ FULL ARTICLE

THE real climax of President Obama's Spring Apologies Tour wasn't his photo op with our troops in Baghdad or even his "American Guilt" concerts in Western Europe. While fans in the press cheered wildly at every venue, the real performance came in Turkey. And it was a turkey. Obama means well. Just as Jimmy Carter, his policy godfather, meant well. But the road to embassy takeovers and strategic humiliation is paved with good intentions -- coupled with distressing naivete. On every stage, Obama draped Lady Liberty in sackcloth and ashes, drawing plentiful applause but no serious economic or security cooperation...

THE real climax of President Obama's Spring Apologies Tour wasn't his photo op with our troops in Baghdad or even his "American Guilt" concerts in Western Europe. While fans in the press cheered wildly at every venue, the real performance came in Turkey. And it was a turkey. Obama means well. Just as Jimmy Carter, his policy godfather, meant well. But the road to embassy takeovers and strategic humiliation is paved with good intentions -- coupled with distressing naivete. On every stage, Obama draped Lady Liberty in sackcloth and ashes, drawing plentiful applause but no serious economic or security cooperation...

GOD bless Bob Gates: Our secretary of defense can't be bought, can't be bullied and can't be fooled. And he values our men and women in uniform. "This is a reform budget," the SecDef stated yesterday as he unveiled the Pentagon's new priorities. He insisted that we must "critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements." Translation: We need to give our troops the numbers and gear they need, not the gilded garbage defense-industry cartels foist upon us -- on loan-shark terms. Gates appears to have made the right call on every single issue. And, instead of beginning with a...

DIRT doesn't matter. You don't defeat a trans-national terrorist organization by occupying medieval villages. Yesterday, President Obama presented his "comprehensive new strategy" for Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was neither new, nor a strategy. Behind all the rhetoric, he just said, I'm sending more troops and more money. Barack Obama? I heard Lyndon Johnson. The only LBJ touch that BHO lacked was the word "escalation." The rhetoric was masterly. The content was drivel. He said, "The situation is increasingly perilous." Which situation? Why? For whom? Certainly, it's becoming more perilous for our troops as we escalate in support of the wrong...

Pakistan: With viral corruption throughout and Islamist fanatics sweeping half of its territory, Pakistan's coming apart. Its Dem-adored prez tries to ban opposition parties and gut the judiciary. It has nukes and seethes with hatred of America. And Islamabad controls our primary supply route into Afghanistan, using it as an extortion tool. Obama's response? Billions in new aid for Pak pols to pocket. We'd be better off handing the money to AIG to pay out more bonuses. Afghanistan: Obama's Vietnam. Am I the only American who remembers that candidate Obama had a plan to capture Osama bin Laden and fix...

Desperate to placate its blame-America supporters, the Obama administration has clamped down on news from Guantanamo. Why? After their lurid criticisms of Gitmo, the Dems now have the world's worst killers on their hands. And they don't know what to do. Responsibility sucks. At the core of our inability to cope with Islamist terrorists lies Washington's denial that fanatical Islam is even a factor. Yet refusing to accept that Islam Gone Wild is behind the actions of al Qaeda or the Taliban is akin to insisting that sex has nothing to do with making babies. Other factors may intensify or...

YESTERDAY, President Obama went to Camp Lejeune. He spoke in front of US Marines, but his real audience was his left-wing campaign supporters. And his carefully worded speech - its parsing of language worthy of Bill Clinton - may go down in history as his "Mission Accomplished" moment. We'll see who leaves Iraq when. During last year's presidential campaign, it was evident that Obama wouldn't keep his promises to his leftist base to pull our troops out rapidly. While he benefited greatly from the troop surge he opposed - which handed him a convalescent Iraq - he's learning that reality...

January 13, 2009 -- WELL-MEANING Western commentators make a grave error when they insist that Islamist terrorists want to drag the Muslim world back to the seventh century. It's much worse than that. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and related fanatics really want to take their homelands (and the rest of the world) back beyond the era of Mohammed - to the grisly ancient days of human sacrifice.

Israel hasn't killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israeli didn't kill them. Hamas did. It's time to smash the lies. The lies of Hamas. The UN lies. And the save-the-terrorists lies of the global media. There is no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers. There is no gray area. There is no point in negotiations. Hamas is a Jew-killing machine. It exists to destroy Israel. What is there to negotiate? When Hamas can't kill Jews, it's perfectly willing to...

WOULD you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democratic Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA. Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq. The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity. Al Qaeda...

WHEN New York Times "investigative reporter" David Barstow was in kindergarten, a young Army officer lay in a hospital bed recovering from one of the three grievous wounds he would suffer in the course of four combat tours in our nation's service. Barstow never felt compelled to serve his country in any capacity. Instead, he dedicated his life to that godlike calling, journalism, in which those who never actually do anything are empowered to attack those who get things done. That wounded officer, Barry McCaffrey, would rise from his hospital bed and, despite losing most of the use of one...

THE best foreign-policy advice any president left behind for his successors was Teddy Roosevelt's admonition: "Walk softly, and carry a big stick." President-elect Barack Obama should take it to heart. In a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday evening, Obama sounded well-intentioned - but dishearteningly like President Bush at his most naive: He set his own bar for success impossibly high. Just as Bush vowed to get Osama "dead or alive," Obama suggested - as he did during the campaign - that he'll get the terror master Bush failed to find. Worse, the president-elect stated that he'll "stamp out al Qaeda once...

THE American people have spoken, and whatever our personal preferences, our duty as citizens is to support our next president. And he's going to need support: The international vultures are already circling. (snip) He's going to have to show some Southside Chicago street grit. Fast. Our enemies haven't wasted any time. (snip) In a direct challenge to our president-elect, Medvedev announced that Russia would deploy its latest-generation battlefield missiles to the Kaliningrad exclave between Lithuania and Poland. The Russian president made it clear that the target would be the US ballistic-missile interceptors to be based on Polish soil. (snip) President...

Allowing the fanatics who've ravaged Islam (and who've slaughtered countless Muslims) to speak for themselves, author Laurent Murawiec quotes the late Ayatollah Khomeini: "Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war . . . I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim . . . A religion without war is a crippled religion. It is war that purifies the earth."A notorious ally of Khomeini's, Ayatollah Khalkali, put it even more bluntly: "Those who are against killing have no place in Islam." Those are but two of the hundreds of chilling citations in "The...