Free Republic

Though evidence has emerged showing that the White House knew the murder of the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, was a terrorist attack within 24 hours of the event, it persisted in advancing a “riot over an insulting video” meme for more than two weeks. This failure to be straight with the American people is, according to Press Secretary Jay Carney “no biggie.” “The terrorist thing has been around for a long time, what good would announcing one more episode of the lengthy story have done?” Carney wanted to know. “On the other hand, the course the Administration did...

Until recently traditional Muslims and Salafists lived harmoniously side-by-side in Tatarstan. No longerFOR years Tatarstan was held up as a model of stability and tranquillity as the Muslim-majority republics of the Russian north Caucasus became embroiled in a separatist conflict that spawned a still-continuing civil war along religious lines. More than half of Tatarstan’s 4m people are Sunni Muslims who have long enjoyed friendly relations with the rest of Russia. Kazan, the regional capital on the Volga river 450 miles (724km) east of Moscow, is a prosperous and attractive city. That sense of calm has changed since July, when assassins...

<p>On Sunday morning, BuzzFeed correspondent Michael Hastings emailed Philippe Reines, Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and personal spokesman at the State Department, asking a series of pointed questions about State's handling of the Benghazi fiasco, and Reines' over-the-top attack on CNN.</p>

"Some unsolicited thoughts from an Egyptian revolutionary"Dear Americans, I have a confession to make: While the whole world was transfixed by us, yet again, due to that whole attacking-the-embassy business, I was going through a tumultuous emotional journey, alternating between bewilderment, horror and shock-based laughter, ending with the most unexpected of feelings: pride. I must say that currently I am filled with a sense of ironic pride for my country and my revolution, for the status both have achieved over the past 19 months. The attention and importance given to Egypt, well, it has been nothing short of overwhelming. We...

I have seen some bad movies, but none so horrid that I wanted to kill the director. Not even Woody Allen. It may have caught your attention that gaggles of enraged Muslims executed a U.S. ambassador plus a few other folks, and continue rioting around the world. Their current fit of pique was provoked by a laughably low-budget film that critiques Islam and takes a swipe or three at Muhammad (no, not the fellow who drives the taxi that takes me to the airport … the other and slightly more famous Muhammad). No person of sound mental condition could take...

An 18-year-old suburban Chicago man, who the authorities say was enamored with Osama bin Laden and intent on killing Americans, has been arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a Chicago bar, officials said Saturday. Mr. Daoud, a United States citizen who lives in Hillside, Ill., on the outskirts of Chicago, has been under surveillance for months, and in multiple conversations with agents expressed a desire to kill on a mass scale as revenge for what he believed was the persecution of Muslims by the United States, according to court papers. In one conversation...

An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to last week's attack -- challenging the Obama administration's claims that the assault grew out of a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam film. The intelligence source said no protests were happening before the attackers struck at about 9:35 p.m. local time last Tuesday. The account backs up claims by a purported Libyan security guard who told McClatchy Newspapers late last week that the area was quiet before the attack. "There wasn't a single ant outside," the unnamed...

Sudan has rejected a U.S. request to send 50 Marines to that country to help boost security at the American embassy in Khartoum, a U.S. official confirms. With the Marines en route to Sudan on Friday night, a U.S. official said at the time that it appeared that Sudan might reverse an earlier decision to allow the 50 Marines to enter the country. Sudan's reversal was made public today when Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti told SUNA, the official Sudanese news agency, that "Sudan is able to protect the diplomatic missions in Khartoum and the state is committed to...

<p>CHICAGO (AP) - FBI agents have arrested a man they say planned to set off a car bomb outside a bar in downtown Chicago.</p> <p>Federal prosecutors say 18-year-old Adel Daoud was arrested Friday night in an undercover operation in which agents pretending to be extremists provided him with a phony car bomb.</p>

Who was responsible for the security of the Ambassador? What was the plan to ensure his safety and the safety of the other U.S. citizens? Were warning signs ignored? Did the marines have ammunition? What were their rules of engagement? Did they have tear gas, grenades? How many of them were there? Where were their reinforcements? Who ordered the chopper with the squad from across the desert? What was the outcome? Was the ambassador tortured before he died? Did the President attend his security briefings the week before the murders? I do not watch MSM, but I presume these topics...

El Paso, TX--Parents of some elementary school students are furious over a class assignment. They said children were asked to draw images depicting the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Parents said the teacher gave specific instructions to fourth-graders at Hughey Elementary in central El Paso. "'We had to draw the boom cloud, the planes hitting, and people jumping out of the windows,'" said Ivie Gremillion. Those are the directions Gremillion said her daughter was given on Monday. The drawing includes people jumping out of burning buildings yelling, "Help," and "I love you," and another student's drawing has one stick figure saying...

Strength Through Peace Ronald Reagan

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Canada has placed Iran on its list of state sponsors of terrorism and has shut down its embassy in Tehran, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said. Baird, speaking to reporters ahead of the opening of the annual summit of Pacific nation leaders here, said the skeleton Canadian Embassy staff in Tehran has been withdrawn for their own safety. Canada is also expelling all Iranian diplomats in Canada. "Canada views the government of Iran as the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today," Baird said. "The government of Canada is formally listing Iran...

With the focus of the coming election appropriately directed at the economy and the creation of jobs, some of the media is desperately attempting a redirection of attention toward foreign policy. More precisely, the MSM is fabricating a four year history of its protagonist’s foreign policy. Other than having given the go-ahead to kill Osama Bin Laden, the President’s foreign policy from the beginning of his term has been abysmal and has confused America’s allies as well as its taxpayers. The MSM is doing its best to prop-up the primarily missing-in-action-unengaged leadership with incomprehensible accolades such as Where Obama...

Fearing additional attack on German soil, Germany offered Black September political upgrade of PLO, 'Der Spiegel' reports. BERLIN – For years, Germany’s government had contact with the organizers of the Black September terror group that was responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli sportsmen and a German police office at the 1972 Olympic Games, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Sunday. Several months after the murders, the West German government proposed a secret meeting between one of the organizers of the Palestinian terrorist group and then-foreign minister Walter Scheel. The aim of the clandestine meeting was to create a “new basis...

Prosecutors in rural Long County, near the sprawling Army post Fort Stewart, said the militia group composed of active duty and former U.S. military members spent at least $87,000 buying guns and bomb components and was serious enough to kill two people — former soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York — by shooting them in the woods last December in order to keep its plans secret.

This year the Department of Homeland Security has purchased a reported 750 million rounds of hollow-point bullets. To help put this in perspective, US troops fighting in Iraq used about 70 million rounds/year. In an effort to quell apprehensions as to the intent of her agency, Secretary Janet Napolitano emphasized that “it is important that the government not be out-gunned by its enemies. We must have the firepower to suppress anyone who may rise against us.” Napolitano also cited the lack of skill of the forces under her command compared to potential enemies. “The extra rounds are needed to offset...

When the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was passed by Congress last year, people of all political persuasions were rightly alarmed, because one of its provisions clearly gave the federal government and military the power to indefinitely detain, without charges, any American citizen deemed to be a “terrorist” or someone who pals around with terrorists. This past May, Federal Judge Katherine B. Forrest blocked that provision, as reported on June 7th at RT.com, Last month Judge Forrest ruled in favor of a group of journalists and activists [who] filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of Section 1021 of the NDAA,...

... Obama will celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan by hosting an iftar (ifta) dinner Friday night at the White House.

Prof. Anna Geifman’s 2010 book Death Orders examines mass political terrorism in pre-revolutionary Russia as a precedent for today’s Islamist terrorism. Geifman’s study of the Russian communist terror that prepared the 1917 revolution has enormous value for students of contemporary Islamist organizations. A common sociology links the Russian terrorists and the Islamists: Russia’s “urban populace swelled from around 9 million people in the mid-19th century to about 25 million in 1913, with inhabitants of most major Russian cities increasing four- or five-fold,” leading to a “breakdown of social values.” All of Europe experienced political upheaval associated with urbanization; but, “Less...