Free Republic

While President Obama is physically surrounded by water, soaking up sun and sand, his foreign policy is under heavy siege as critics pound the administration from all sides. The commander-in-chief’s limited military moves to stifle the Islamist extremists in Iraq, which many Republicans say are mere pinpricks and Democrats worry will escalate U.S involvement, can be credibly linked to the White House’s inaction in the Syrian civil war. And on that point – Syria – former secretary of state and Democratic 2016 frontrunner Hillary Clinton unloaded on her former boss’s “failure to help build up a credible fighting force,” creating...

“When you get farmers, dentists and folks who have never fought before going up against a ruthless opposition in Assad, the notion that they were in a position to suddenly overturn not only Assad but also ruthless, highly trained jihadists if we just sent a few arms is a fantasy.” - Barack Obama to CBS on June 22 Editor's note: Obama reiterated the statement to Tom Friedman of The New York Times in an interview published on August 9. In one sentence, U.S. President Barack Obama disregarded the thousands of soldiers who defected from the Syrian Army since the uprising...

WASHINGTON — President Obama abruptly changed course on Saturday and postponed a military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack so he could seek authorization first from a deeply skeptical Congress. (Snip)

Cheikhmous Ali pushes a box of ballpoint pens across the table towards his friend Ahmad. The stout Syrian laughs aloud as he tucks one of the pens into his shirt pocket. "You think it'll work?" asks Ahmad. Ali nods. "And how," he says. The archeologist is proud of his plan: he has inserted mini digital cameras into the pens. "The quality isn't great, but it serves our purposes," he says. snip Ahmad is on a potentially deadly mission; he risks being kidnapped on suspicion of spying, tortured and possibly even executed. He's determined to document what is currently happening in...

Beirut (AFP) - The jihadist Islamic State has withdrawn from several villages dominated by a Sunni tribe in eastern Deir Ezzor province after clashes, a monitoring group said Friday. Related Stories Islamic State imposes media controls in Syrian province Reuters Islamic State expels rivals from Syria's Deir al-Zor: activists Reuters Islamic State kills Syrian soldiers, captures parts of base: group Reuters Islamic State killed 270 in Syrian gas field battle: monitor Reuters [$$] Islamist Militants Gain in Syria The Wall Street Journal The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the extremist group had withdrawn from Abu Hamam, Kashkiyeh and Ghranij,...

Email Print 0Comments An estimated 93,000 people have died in Syria's metastasizing civil war. Hundreds of thousands of that conflict's refugees strain resources and stability in neighboring countries. Iran continues its steady march toward nuclear weapons development. North Korea menaces its neighbors and episodically threatens to launch nuclear missiles at Los Angeles. Turkey, long lauded by Obama as a model for the region, is violently cracking down on peaceful demonstrators. Slow growth and high unemployment hobble the world's most advanced economies as growing bureaucracy and crippling debt take their toll. Islamist movements are making gains in Mali, Indonesia, Pakistan and...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has stopped talking to US President Barack Obama on the phone, amid growing strains between Ankara and Washington over Syria and the Gaza conflict. Turkey, a fierce opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an open supporter of armed rebel fighters, felt betrayed when the United States backed away from military action against Damascus in September. "In the past, I was calling him (Obama) directly. Because I can't get the expected results on Syria, our foreign ministers are now talking to each other," Erdogan said in a live interview on pro-government ATV...

Walid Shoebat says that quagmire that is going on in Iraq is just going to increase and there isn’t much America can do about it at this point. But when it comes to what started this quagmire in Iraq, Walid blames the US for ‘aiding and abetting’ the Free Syrian Army in Syria, which we all know is a terrorist group: We’re indirectly aiding and abetting an Al-Qaeda like operation, when it comes to Syria, and that’s what started the quagmire. Our aiding and abetting the Free Syrian Army — which is a terrorist group and we’ve been showing this...

Almost the entire Syrian side of the Golan Heights is now under the control of rebel forces, including radical Islamist groups, a senior Israeli military commander in the area said Friday. Only the Quneitra border area is still in the hands of forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, Lt.-Col. Anan Abbas, deputy commander of the Golan Brigade, told Israel’s Channel 10. About 95 percent of the Syrian side of the Golan is in the hands of anti-Assad rebels, including radical Islamic groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, affiliated with al-Qaeda, a rival of the burgeoning Islamic State of Iraq and...

Doesn’t Obama know that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has bulldozed the part of the Syria/Iraq border that it controls? Doesn’t he know that there are no significant forces in Syria that want a secular state, but only various bands of pro-Sharia Islamic supremacists? Doesn’t it occur to him how incoherent it is to want to arm these people in Syria and fight against them in Iraq? For there is no significant difference between the “rebels” fighting Assad and the “extremists” fighting Maliki.“Obama seeks $500 million from Congress to help moderate Syrian rebels,” Reuters, June 26,...

FBI agents working with the agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested a suspected al Qaeda supporter in late May for plotting to kill newly returning American soldiers in the greater Rochester area. The media first reported on the foiled terrorist plot in early June. The suspect, Mufid A. Elfgeeh, a US citizen who was born in Yemen, had written on his Twitter feed: "al Qaeda said it loud and clear, we are fighting the American invasion and their hegemony over the earth and people." According to Time Warner Cable Buffalo, Elfgeeh used his Twitter micro-blog to promote funds for "jihadists...

Russia and Saudi Arabia Saturday stressed the importance of preserving Syrian and Iraqi territorial integrity after talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Riyadh and Moscow have opposing positions on the conflict in Syria, with Russia backing President Bashar Assad and Saudi Arabia supporting the rebels seeking to topple him for more than three years. But Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov said they had agreed "to work together to apply the Geneva I agreement that provides for a peaceful transfer of power in Syria," a Saudi spokesman said after the meetings. The ministers also...

Like Birkenstocks and ironic t-shirts, blaming Bush has never gone out of style on the left. When Al Qaeda’s resurgence in Iraq became so obvious that even the media, which had been pretending that Obama’s claims about a successful withdrawal were true, could no longer ignore them, their talking points were all lined up and ready. It was all Bush’s fault.Defenses of the war by pivotal figures like Dick Cheney and Tony Blair only enraged them further. “Why wouldn’t they admit it was all their fault?”But the left’s lazy talking points about Iraq, like their talking points about the economy,...

JERUSALEM – Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials. The officials said dozens of ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in Iraq. The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any...

Here is the full replay video and transcript of President Barack Obama’s speech on the situation in Iraq. He delivered the statement on Friday, June 13, 2014 at the White House. The text and complete video are below, after the jump. See more at: http://www.shallownation.com/2014/06/13/president-obama-iraq-speech-video-transcript-june-13-2014/#sthash.y7VTvu2d.dpuf

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has become the richest terror group ever after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars - the equivalent of $429m (£256m) - from Mosul's central bank, according to the regional governor. Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish televison reports that Isis militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen. Following the siege of the country's second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati,...

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...

The FBI says more Somali travelers have left Minnesota, possibly to fight for al-Shabaab in Syria. Investigators believe Somalis who left to fight against the regime of President Bashar Assad in Syria were motivated by radical ideology, not nationalism. The FBI asking the Somali community in the Twin Cities for more information on anyone who may have left to fight overseas. If you know anyone who is planning to and/or has traveled to a foreign country for armed combat or who is being recruited for such activities, please contact www.fbi.gov/fttips or call (763) 569-8020. All information will be kept completely...

In a move that would expand America’s involvement in Syria’s civil war, President Obama is close to authorizing the U.S. military to train moderate Syrian rebels to fight the regime of Bashar Assad and al Qaeda-linked groups, according to reports. U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday that the new military program would supplement a small training effort led by the CIA, which Mr. Obama authorized a year ago. At the White House Tuesday, Mr. Obama declined to answer a reporter’s question about the U.S. sending more advisers to train the rebels. In a commencement address at the U.S....

VIDEO AT LINKThursday on the Senate floor, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that the administration's missteps in Syria would eventually come to the shores of the United States. He argued Syria is the new breeding ground for al Qaeda terrorists and said U.S. citizens have gone to Syria to train and are returning to possibly carry out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. “No one should believe that we will be immune to what is happening in Syria," he said. "The tide of war does not recede simply because we wish it so.”