Free Republic

Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Sunday,” veteran journalist Bob Woodward said people in the military are complaining to him that the Obama administration has no strategy to defeat ISIS other then having people like Susan Rice “micromanage” military responses. Woodward said, “If you talk to people in the White House and the military, I think there’s agreement and John McCain is right and General Flynn is right, there is no strategy. They have not sat down and said this is where we want to go and this is how we want to do it. And the measure of...

Relax America, we now have an official national security strategy. President Obama delivered a long-overdue national security strategy document to Congress Friday, emphasizing diplomacy over military power and warning against American over-reach in world affairs. The 35-page policy document released yesterday tweaks our previous strategy of Leading From Behind® (LFB). You may recall that the primary tactic of that successful strategy was “don’t do stupid stuff.” As that proved inordinately more difficult to implement than we had HOPE-d, we’ve augmented it – with our new strategy of “don’t do anything.” It’s an extension of our popular “wait and see” attitude...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Friday that President Obama’s Washington critics often lack “perspective” and that the U.S. no longer faces threats akin to World War II. “Too often, what’s missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there is a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or during the Cold War,” Ms. Rice said at the Brookings Institution in Washington, The Hill reported.

Susan Rice pushed back on critics of President Obama's foreign policy Friday as she unveiled the White House’s new national security strategy. Rice, the White House's national security adviser, said in a speech at the Brookings Institution that the nation is “stronger than we have been in a very long time” despite the bitter debates raging in Washington. “Too often, what's missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there is a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World...

WASHINGTON — With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO’s military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev’s beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday. President Obama has made no decisions on providing such lethal assistance. But after a series of striking reversals that Ukraine’s forces have suffered in recent weeks, the Obama administration is taking a fresh look at the question of military assistance. Secretary of State John Kerry, who plans to visit Kiev on Thursday, is...

White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes was dealt two major political blows, each on the same day. On one front, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (Ret.) appeared on the O’Reilly Factor and broke some shocking news about the case of Bowe Bergdahl. On another front, legal watchdog Judicial Watch has reported that it has obtained documents as a result of its FOIA lawsuit against the State Department. Last April, Rhodes was revealed as the author of the infamous ‘smoking gun’ Benghazi email that instructed then U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to claim a demonstration took place in Benghazi before the...

Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told FOX News today that White House witnesses including National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor, will come testify before the committee whether they want to or not. “I would suspect that some, and I won’t say who, it would not be fair to Mr. Cummings, I would suspect some will come voluntarily but they’re coming whether it’s voluntarily or not. So, in urge to their benefit I would urge them to come voluntarily.”

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew the Obama White House’s Benghazi talking points BEFORE the White House even sent them around to administration officials. Hillary Clinton used the administration’s exact talking point blaming the attack on a YouTube video before Obama’s White House speechwriter Ben Rhodes drafted it to prepare Susan Rice for Sunday morning talk shows days later.

For those left unsatisfied with the media’s uncritical and shallow coverage of the recently released Benghazi report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I wanted to pass along this just-published article, 10 major takeaways from the House Benghazi report that the media is completely ignoring, based on a careful read of the actual text of the report and appended documents. The media’s unwillingness to actually study the report given the political value of the “headline” takeaways, not to mention its uncharacteristic lack of skepticism at an investigation conducted by a committee led by Republicans almost completely absolving the...

Chuck Hagel’s unceremonious dismissal as secretary of defense has refocused attention, once again, on the insularity of President Obama’s inner circle, its suspicion of outside voices, and its distaste for dissent. But it has changed in one way: this time, the concerns about secrecy, enforced groupthink, and high school clique behavior don’t center on Valerie Jarrett. Instead, the name that keeps surfacing is that of National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It’s true that this isn’t the first time we’re hearing of the toxic atmosphere and mismanagement at Rice’s National Security Council. But it’s striking how clearly the battle lines appear...

Last week, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Jonathan Gruber, one of prominent architects of Obamacare, was exposed as little more than an elitist fraud. Gruber was caught on videotape expressing the haughty attitude that drove the Affordable Care Act, deriding the "stupidity" of Americans as a way to justify misleading them. Gruber apparently thinks such deception is OK because yokel voters could not handle the truth about the looming chaos he helped to engineer in their health coverage. Unfortunately, Gruber's disdain for the proverbial masses -- he was paid nearly $400,000 in consulting fees -- is thematic of the last...

When mentioning the most polarizing figure in the Democratic party outside of the president himself, that one person who creates a visceral reaction every time he or she speaks, one of the following contestants is invariably in the running for top prize: A) Eric Holder B) Susan Rice C) Charlie Rangel D) Debbie Wasserman Schultz But with Holder on the way out, Rice (thankfully) muted lately after a series of unintentionally comical Sunday talk show appearances, and Rangel stuck somewhere between stupid and 1866, first prize falls to the DNC Chairwoman — who may be forced to update her LinkedIn...

NEW YORK (CNN) – President Obama spoke Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly as he tackles a range of thorny international issues with his counterparts. Obama said Iran and North Korea “must be held accountable” if they continue to ignore international nuclear weapons treaties. Iran recently reiterated its unwillingness to give up its nuclear program, which the United States and other Western nations fear is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is strictly for civilian power. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said she didn’t expect a direct meeting between Obama and Iran’s president, Mahmoud...

President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has long been an advocate for weakening American sovereignty in order to benefit the UN and its anti-American agenda. It is a policy known as “engagement,” where the United States subsumes its own vital interests, abandons its traditional role of leadership in the world community, and, as Anne Bayefsky writes, pushes the process of “subcontracting American national security” to the UN. Time Magazine refers to this policy — without a hint of irony — as “leading from the back.” And while Washington was busy this past week exchanging blows over the...

This week marks the one year anniversary of Susan Rice’s confirmation by the United States Senate to represent the American people at the United Nations. Over the past 12 months, the U.S. has faced some serious foreign policy challenges such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions, North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons’ tests, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, freezing terrorists’ assets world-wide and now the on-going disaster in Haiti. But while the UN struggles to find common ground on these and other important issues, Susan Rice has chosen to spend several days of the work week over the last year in Washington, DC hanging out...

White House national security adviser Susan Rice clarified on Monday that any U.S. military action against the Syrian regime is in part aimed to send a message to its ally Iran over its nuclear operation, Al-Arabiya reported. Rice’s remarks at the New America Foundation think tank are part of a public effort by the White House to build support in order for Congress to authorize President Barack Obama to use military action against Syria. Rice also said that the U.S. is morally bound to respond to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against its own people since it...

Rice told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the Iranian delegation approached the Obama administration about a phone call between President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The request came after indicating earlier in the week that a direct meeting at the UN General Assembly would not be possible due to Iran’s internal political reality.

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice ridiculed Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, for spending time with Republican casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, The Washington Free Beacon reported on Monday. According to the report, Rice was asked in a recent meeting with a top American Jewish leader why she had not held meetings with Dermer. She responded, “He never asked to meet me.” “Besides, I understood that he’s too busy traveling to Sheldon Adelson’s events in Las Vegas,” she added, referring to the major Jewish philanthropist who also owns Israeli daily Israel Hayom. Haaretz reported that Rice was referring to Dermer’s...

Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army. As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters...

"My family is more important to me than my party," declared  Senator Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat, as he spoke from the podium of the Republican National Convention on September 1. "There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush." [1] Many Democrats howled in outrage at Miller's "betrayal" - former President Jimmy Carter in particular. In an angry personal letter to the Georgia senator, Carter accused Miller of "unprecedented disloyalty" and declared, "You have betrayed our trust. [I]t's quite possible that your rabid speech damaged our party..." [2] But...