Free Republic

MaxUrderer wrote: You know what would be even BETTER? If we hadn't invaded a Iraq and destabilized the entire regime in the first place. If we had treated 9/11 as what it WAS, a crime, had caught the perpetrators and brought them to justice, and had left the evil but stabilizing dictator in place as we've done in Saudi Arabia. So no, John, Iraq was neither a "victory" nor a "war". It was a mistake. And it will NEVER be Obama's fault. It'll ALWAYS be Bush's fault. To summarize Conservative sentiment regarding Iraq: "That idiot Obama didn't fix our incredible...

It really couldn't have been easy to find people like Jen Psaki and Marie Harf. They are two of most unintelligent twits to ever represent the face of the United States government. That has to be it. It is simply impossible to imagine a person of even borderline intellect not bursting out laughing when Obama directs them to say this to the press: "We cannot kill our way out of this war." "We can help them [Muslim countries] build their economy so they can have job opportunities for these people." We can't kill our way out of this war? The...

INDIANAPOLIS – A New York man who's among six Bosnian immigrants accused of funneling money and military supplies to terror groups in Iraq and Syria was arrested in central Indiana in early February. FBI spokeswoman Wendy Osborne said Friday that 26-year-old Nihad Rosic of Utica, New York, was arrested Feb. 6 outside of a business in Plainfield, just southwest of Indianapolis. Federal prosecutors indicted Rosic, two Illinois women and three people from St. Louis County on Feb. 5. Rosic was arrested the same day President Barack Obama visited Indianapolis, but Osborne says it was "entirely coincidental." A federal magistrate later...

Barack Obama wants us all to simmer down about Iran. He wants Senator Bob Menendez, a fellow Democrat, and the donors he represents to butt out of the sanctions debate. He wants Republicans to quit crying wolf about IranÂ’s nuclear weapons program. He wants the media to stop hyping terror threats. He wants the American people in the dark about the secret correspondence heÂ’s had for years with IranÂ’s supreme leader. He wants John Boehner to be mindful of protocol. And most of all, he wants Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop questioning his accommodationist approach to Tehran. With...

Show availability of Iran for al Qaeda training, plotting. This week, prosecutors in New York introduced eight documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as evidence in the trial of a terrorism suspect. The U.S. government accuses Abid Naseer of taking part in al Qaeda’s scheme to attack targets in Europe and New York City. The files do not support the view, promoted by some in the Obama administration, that bin Laden was in “comfortable retirement,” “sidelined,” or “a lion in winter” in the months leading up to his death. Some of the key revelations in the newly-released...

Imagine it is 1942 and Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt has just announced a series of appointments to his inner circle and the then Democrat infected Congress did the same. Now imagine the word “Nazi” before the names of each of the people they appointed. Imagine these people actually being certified Nazis instead of certified Muslims: John Brennan, current head of the CIA: Nazi/Muslim; Obama top advisor Valerie Jarrett: Nazi/Muslim born in [Germany] – Iran where her parents still live; Leading Democrat pretender to the presidency, Hillary Clinton’s top advisor, Huma Abedin is a Nazi/Muslim whose mother and brother are...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Best Applause Line: “We need a leader who will stand with Israel,” said the governor of Wisconsin. Crickets: Describing, early in his remarks, his longstanding interest in the founding fathers. Red Meat: Mr. Walker spoke at length about his record as governor and made broad references to foreign policy touchstones like Israel, Iran and the fight against Islamic terrorism. Toughest Question: From a heckler, who shouted about workers’ rights. But Mr. Walker turned it to his advantage, joking that protesters had followed him from Wisconsin. Entrance Song: “Coming Home,” by Avenged Sevenfold, a heavy metal band out of Southern California....

FULL TITLE: Hillary Clinton’s Top Aides Knew from First Minutes that Benghazi Was a Terrorist Attack, E-mails Disclose From the very first moments of the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides were advised that the compound was under a terrorist attack. In fact, less than two hours into the attack, they were told that the al-Qaeda affiliate in Libya, Ansar al-Sharia, had claimed responsibility. These revelations and others are disclosed by a trove of e-mails and other documents pried from the State Department by Judicial Watch...

Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North spoke at a tribute to the U.S. military and veterans at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., on Feb. 26, 2015. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) – Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North said on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., during a tribute to the U.S. military and military veterans that those who serve their country need a leader who knows the enemy they are fighting to defeat. “They need a commander-in-chief who knows our enemy and knows how to win. You can’t even say the...

A top Texas law enforcement agency says border security organizations have apprehended several members of known Islamist terrorist organizations crossing the southern border in recent years, and while a surge of officers to the border has slowed the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants, it’s costing the state tens of millions of dollars. In a report to Texas elected officials, the state Department of Public Safety says border security agencies have arrested several Somali immigrants crossing the southern border who are known members of al-Shabab, the terrorist group that launched a deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya,...

The Transportation Security Administration said it is unlikely to detect and unable to extinguish what an FBI report called “the greatest potential incendiary threat to aviation,” according to a classified document obtained by The Intercept. Yet despite that warning, sources said TSA is not adequately preparing to respond to the threat. Thermite — a mixture of rust and aluminum powder — could be used against a commercial aircraft, TSA warned in a Dec. 2014 document, marked secret [PDF here]. “The ignition of a thermite-based incendiary device on an aircraft at altitude could result in catastrophic damage and the death of...

The Transportation Security Administration said it is unlikely to detect and unable to extinguish what an FBI report called “the greatest potential incendiary threat to aviation,” according to a classified document obtained by The Intercept. Yet despite that warning, sources said TSA is not adequately preparing to respond to the threat. Thermite — a mixture of rust and aluminum powder — could be used against a commercial aircraft, TSA warned in a Dec. 2014 document, marked secret. “The ignition of a thermite-based incendiary device on an aircraft at altitude could result in catastrophic damage and the death of every person...

ecurity: A video by Somalia's al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group warns Minnesota's Mall of America may be a repeat of a 2013 mall attack in Kenya. The Second Amendment may be our best defense against terrorism. The immense Mall of America in Bloomington would indeed make an inviting target for jihadists intent on martyrdom. Its 520 stores, the most of any mall in the world, attracts 40 million people annually and is a global tourist destination. It's as inviting a target and as much of an iconic symbol of Western capitalism and culture as was the World Trade Center on Sept. 11,...

Three New York City men were arrested today on charges they allegedly conspired to join ISIS in Syria, while also trying to carry out attacks on the terror group's behalf in the United States, the authorities said. The men had planned to travel to the Middle East and had also pledged to launch attacks in this country, including one on President Obama or planting a bomb in Coney Island, Brooklyn, federal officials said. Federal officials said Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, where he was attempting to board a flight to...

Do you really feel, by his own words and actions, that this President truly loves this nation? The President of the United States is now claiming that in order to win the fight over terrorism we must sit down and actually address their grievances? Maybe if we find terrorists jobs they will stop killing? The media are the problem not ISIS? Climate change is the biggest threat to the United States today? White House Press calls their own comments “too nuanced” for average Americans to understand? The president has no issue labeling Christians as the problem in the crusades, but...

The public has grown more supportive of the U.S. fight against ISIS, as about twice as many approve (63%) as disapprove (30%) of the military campaign against the Islamic militant group in Iraq and Syria. Last October, 57% approved and 33% disapproved. The possibility of sending U.S. ground troops to the region is more divisive, although the idea draws more support than it did four months ago. Currently, about as many favor (47%) as oppose (49%) sending U.S. ground troops to fight Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria; in October, 39% favored the idea and 55% opposed it. The new...

Is the U.S. jury trial system fair?  Is it efficient?  Does it arrive at the truth (most of the time)? Yes, yes, and yes. So when a federal jury in New York found the PLO and PA liable for damages for six acts of terror in Israel, and awarded survivors $218.5 million, why is it going to be so difficult to pay the plaintiffs their due? The six attacks between 2002 and 2004 during the second Palestinian uprising killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more, including Americans. The incidents cited in the civil lawsuit included bus bombings and a bombing...

However, if we're going to have a proper understanding of what really and truly is an existential threat to the West, to our western traditions of broad-based liberty, free inquiry, and the rule of law, then we need to face the facts about this alien tradition that seeks to destroy our own. For an in-depth study of these myths about Islam that we are told by the apologists and revisionists, see my online book Ten Myths about Islam in which I address ten of the most common falsehoods perpetuated by those who seek to make Islam seem palatable, and even...

Minnesota state Rep. Tony Cornish says the al-Shabaab threat against the Mall of America should be enough to motivate mall owners to drop their “no guns” policy so citizens can protect themselves. Mr. Cornish, a Republican who also chairs the House Public Safety Committee, said the Mall of America has interpreted state concealed carry laws incorrectly, and he’s intent on challenging them for it, a local CBS affiliate reported. “This is completely ridiculous. The complete opposite of what they should be doing,” he said. “If we’re threatened with an attack, the last thing you want to do is disarm...

Why has the Obama administration tied itself in knots over what to call Islamic terrorism? We know the president has rejected the term in favor of "violent extremism," ordering his administration not to refer to Islamic terrorists like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as Islamic. "No religion is responsible for terrorism," Obama declared at the recent White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism. And yet in the same speech, Obama uttered the word "Christianity" once, "Judaism" once, "Buddhism" once -- and "Islam" or "Muslim" 52 times. If a listener did not know better, he might think there was...

Al-Shabab terrorist on propaganda video seeking to inspire lone-wolf attacks on malls, including the Mall of America in Minnesota. Homeland Security Chief Jeh Johnson warned that a Somalia-based terrorist group is encouraging “independent actors” to carry out attacks in Western countries, with the Mall of America in Minnesota among the specific targets, but he failed to mention that the U.S. continues to import hundreds of high-risk Islamic refugees from Somalia every month. The U.S. State Department’s refugee-resettlement program has placed more than 100,000 Somalis into U.S cities and towns since the early 1990s – all of them Muslims hand-selected...

A federal jury has found the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization liable for attacks that occurred in Israel more than a decade ago. The plaintiffs, who U.S. citizens, were awarded more than $218 million. The amount could be tripled under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act.

Some time after 9/11, several pieces of an elaborate puzzle came together for the first time and created a stunning picture of the complex planning that went into the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Unfortunately, those pieces came together much too late. Over the past couple of years, National Terror Alert has featured several seemingly unrelated news events and stories, all with a common thread… A potential terrorist threat to our nations children and schools. With each news story it appears that the planning of a new attack, one with potentially horrific consequences, could be in the...

The White House Summit on Combating Violent Extremism ended last week with much politically correct discussion, but no definite plan on how to combat violent extremism, and certainly no willingness to define it. We use common definitions so family members, colleagues, and other nations understand whatever it is we wish to communicate in whatever form we believe is best, whether in words, music, signs, or symbols. Common and easily understood definitions are essential when conveying simple or complex concepts. Even though I spent my formative years in rural Illinois, I do believe I understand the difference between violent extremism and...

The Obama administration’s swap of five Taliban leaders held at Guantanamo Bay for accused Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl may have doomed any hope Kayla Mueller’s family had for working out a deal with ISIS, the murdered aid worker’s family said in an interview. Carl Mueller told NBC in an interview that aired Monday that he and his wife thought they could win his daughter’s freedom with a $6.2 million ransom payment, although he acknowledged the Arizona family faced a daunting task in raising that much money. But when the White House agreed last year to trade Bergdahl, who had been...

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — February 22, 2015 … The Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, upon seeing a terror attack take place on the streets of Jerusalem rushed the terrorist and wrestled him down to the ground. The Islamic terrorist attacked an Orthodox Jewish man, stabbing him in the stomach. The Mayor, who was not armed, subdued the terrorist, a 18-year-old Arab teen, with the help of his bodyguard. Barkat told reporters that he was walking to his office when his guards spotted the attack. “We saw a terrorist with a knife standing and looking for the...

A new video from Al Shabaab purportedly shows the terror group calling for an attack on Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minn. According to Fox 9, the mall is one of three similar targets the terror group specifically names, including West Edmonton Mall in Canada and the Oxford Street shopping area in London. The video purportedly shows 6 minutes of graphic images and the terrorists celebrating the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed more than 60 people.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top homeland security official urged shoppers on Sunday to be “particularly careful” in visiting the Mall of America, a sprawling shopping center outside Minneapolis, after it was targeted for a terrorist attack in a video posted by a radical Islamist group. “If anyone is planning to go to the Mall of America today, they’ve got to be particularly careful,” the official, Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, said on CNN.

So, you think the Ku Klux Klan and the Spanish Inquisition are bad? So do we, but... Put the Numbers in Perspective More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined. (source) Islamic terrorists murder more people everyday than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last 70 years. (source) More civilians were killed by Muslim hijackers in two hours on September 11th than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. (source) Islamic extremists massacred more Iraqis on a single day in June, 2014 than the number of...

In Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, President Obama previewed his address on violent extremism by saying that, “Our campaign to prevent people around the world from being radicalized to violence is ultimately a battle for hearts and minds.”President Obama could not be more correct in this statement.However, he also nearly half the world’s countries, intellectuals, journalists, and bloggers face a constant threat of punishment if their works are deemed blasphemous or insulting to religions or moral standards. In some nations where blasphemy and apostasy laws are taken most seriously such as Pakistan and Iran, these crimes carry extreme penalties like lifetime...

Even Chris Matthews acknowledged that the liberal explanation for terrorism as poverty is a complete fantasy. No tingles here! In addition to ignoring the true identity of the enemy, Obama is using his ideology to tell him what their motivations are instead of common sense and evidence. Isn’t this guy supposed to be the smartest guy ever?

Man, don’t you love how Obama and his soft-brain disciples have made Christians out to be fish-stickered, bug-eyed equals to incensed Islam? If you were to accept what the White House says about Christians you’d think the Church is chomping at the bit to chop off some heads of unbelievers. Yep, if you were to believe the barf belched out by the BS brokers on the ludicrous Left, you’d stagger away stupid with the belief that there is little disparity between caring Christians and militant Muslims. As a matter of fact, you probably would be bamboozled into believing that Islam...

[VIDEO] One of the many controversial aspects of American Sniper was Chris Kyle’s father’s brief speech about sheep (people living their lives in a state of vulnerability), wolves (those who prey on the vulnerable), and sheepdogs (those who protect the vulnerable). For Kyle’s father, and for many of us, the question goes to one of core identity. How do you choose to live? I first heard the “sheepdog” speech almost 20 years ago, when my mentor in the practice of law (a Marine captain) told it to me over lunch when I was barely out of law school. I thought...

American and European citizens and journalists are spurring jihadi violence by protesting the arrival of Muslim populations into their societies, President Barack Obama declared Thursday. “We’ve also seen, most recently in Europe, a rise in inexcusable acts of anti-Semitism, or in some cases, anti-Muslim sentiment or anti-immigrant sentiment,” Obama told a Feb. 19 audience of U.S. and foreign officials and advocates, who met to discuss ways to minimize jihadi violence. Peaceful criticism of Islamic culture is bad, he suggested. ”When people spew hatred toward others — because of their faith or because they’re immigrants — it feeds into terrorist narratives....

The White House is holding a summit this week titled “Countering Violent Extremism,” but you won’t hear them using the words “Islamic extremism”—and that’s on purpose. Why won’t the Obama administration identify the dangerous ideology that is responsible for many of the world’s terrorist groups and threats? Islamic extremism is a clear and present danger to both the U.S. and the international community, and to deny the fact that religion is at the core of Islamic extremism is to deny the nature of the enemy. ISIS, the most notorious and dangerous Islamic extremist group today, does not hesitate to invoke...

Right now, there isn’t a terrorist group out there capable of killing thousands of Americans with a 9/11-type attack — but it’s possible one could get the weapons to shoot down an airliner. That was the dire warning the former acting director of the CIA gave Tuesday to the NYPD.

Editor's note: Bob Morrison coauthored this piece.The increasingly desperate attempts of the Obama administration to figure out what motivates ISIS and other Islamist terrorists are wearing thin. Now, even liberals think this administration has lost the bubble.Take State Department Spokeswomen Jen Psaki and Marie Harf as two examples. They daily put us in graver danger by their juvenile responses to serious questions. Marie Harf was at pains to name the KONY rebels in East Africa as examples of Christian terror groups. So we shouldn’t single out Islamists, she was arguing.KONY is about as Christian as Hungary’s Nazi-led Iron Cross in WWII or our...

After reading and listening to all the upset coming from the Left over Rudy's assessment of the President of the United States, it struck me - how different things would be if Barack Hussein Obama had been America's Mayor instead of Rudy. Rudy Giuliani is still on the job, serving as America's Mayor. Below is a quote about Mayor Giuliani and his actions after 9-11 (written in the NYT - in an otherwise typical NYT's hit piece) on September 21, 2007: "Political leadership is an uncertain alchemy, an admixture of the symbolic and substantive and the visceral. In times of...

ihad Enclaves: With names like Islamberg and Mahmoudberg, some 22 of what the FBI calls "enclaves" have been established across the U.S. by a group linked to a Pakistani militant group called Jamaat ul-Fuqra. The specter of 21 Christians being murdered "on the shores of Tripoli" in Libya where U.S. Marines first encountered Muslim forces — the Barbary pirates — and threats by the Islamic State against Rome show how President Obama's "JV team" has metastasized as a global threat. And, yes, it can happen here. The Islamic State is encouraging attacks on infidels in the West like the one...

Our country is on the brink of Islamization as it is pushed on us by the Obama Administration and the enablers who support it. Left wing activists in our high schools and universities are working hard to undermine the foundations of individual liberty, responsibility and Christian ethics upon which this country is based. How can the United States trust a President who stood before the United Nations and said that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam?” Slander of the prophet will not be tolerated? And what of the followers of that prophet who...

There’s little doubt that most of America’s leaders would benefit from intense psychiatric care. Lobotomy, anyone? You really know the world is wonky when top-level US Government officials like Marie Harf, the State Department’s deputy spokesperson, suggest that America is unable to stop terrorism and that instead we need to examine the “root causes” that create this turmoil in the first place. Harf stated that, “We cannot kill every terrorist around the world, nor should we try.” Why not? I’m reasonably certain that ISIS is taking a polar opposite view and would be delighted to kill each and every non-believer...

According to the uninformed or intentionally misleading, moderate Muslims follow a peaceful religion and are presumed to be like any other group of reasonable, law-abiding, freedom-loving folk. But there is ample evidence to show that moderate Muslims might also represent jihad lite. “Moderate” may describe the kind of Muslims the Obama administration is importing from places like Syria who have had “minor” associations with terrorists. Or perhaps they are American Muslims who believe that drawing a parody of Mohammed should be a criminal offense, with some saying the person should receive the death penalty. In any case, if there’s a...

ISIS is planning to use Libya as a “gateway” to Europe and has raised the possibility of storming southern European cities to cause “pandemonium” or closing international shipping lines in the Mediterranean Sea. This according to documents released by ISIS supporters and propagandists and obtained by the Quilliam Foundation, a Britain-based think tank that focuses on counter-extremism. The purported ISIS documents, obtained and reviewed by WND, received widespread news coverage. However, some of the more sensational possibilities described within the pages were largely overlooked. The documents indicate ISIS views Libya as not just fertile ground for a headquarters but as...

"Could this argument be any dumber?" That's how I began a column over a month ago in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. My point was that by making it an ideological priority to deny the Islamic nature of Islamic terrorism, the White House was in fact encouraging people to talk more about terrorism and Islam, not less. It's a simple fact of human nature that if you deny the obvious, you invite people to debate the obvious. If you don't believe me, walk into a bar and insist that Michael Jordan didn't play basketball. Or proclaim that we...

Top U.S. counterterrorism officials say they worry a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees who are looking to come to the United States after escaping the brutal war in Syria. "It's clearly a population of concern,” the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, went further, saying it would be a “huge mistake” to bring refugees from the conflict to the U.S. – even as an estimated 4 million children, women and men have been forced to flee Syria and another 7 million have been...

It looks like there is no sense and order in what ISIS folks are doing while they are terrorizing people and burning them alive, stone them to death, kill captured soldiers or simply women and kids. But spreading terror and pure fear makes lot of sense in terms of strategy, especially in already „chaotic“ times and territories where they are trying to advance. Terror is a psychological game.

Militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) seized a university in the Libyan city of Sirte, a faculty member and residents said, days after a video showed them staging a convoy parade. Islamist militants have made inroads into parts of the North African oil-producing country, exploiting a power vacuum created by a violent struggle for control between two competing governments. Also read: Exclusive: ISIS chief Baghdadi in new pictures The incident came after the coalition of Islamist militias in control of the capital Tripoli known as Fajr Libya (Dawn of Libya) said they were sending armed units...

Can better urban planning help prevent terrorist attacks? The idea sounds fanciful, even disrespectful to victims of extremist violence. But officials in Paris, still reeling from last month’s deadly terrorist attacks on a satirical magazine and a kosher deli, are putting some hope in a plan to re-zone the city and annex the notorious inner suburbs, or banlieues, where the terror plot was born. In what would be perhaps the greatest redesign of Paris since Baron Haussmann laid out its famed boulevards in the mid-19th Century, the “Métropole du Grand Paris” would attempt to bring the poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods...

A Muslim prayer was recited at the start of the second day of the White House summit on “Countering Violent Extremism,” but no other religious text was presented during the portion of the event that was open to the press. Imam Sheikh Sa'ad Musse Roble, president of the World Peace Organization in Minneapolis, Minn., recited a “verse from the Quran” following remarks by Obama administration officials and Democratic members of Congress. “In translation those verses of the Quran mean ‘Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption in the land, it’s as if he has slain mankind...

Islamic State leaders are convinced their organization's sensationally barbaric execution videos serve two distinct but, from their calculated perspective, useful purposes. Purpose one: The murder videos are recruiting ads. IS leaders believe the videos visually demonstrate their undeterrable will to kill in order to secure and expand radical Islamist power. The videos apparently persuade young, alienated Muslim men. Best guesses indicate IS has attracted from 20,000 to 40,000 European, North American and Asian Islamist volunteers. IS videos leverage al-Qaida's dark psychological insight. Al-Qaida connected the Muslim world's angry, humiliated and isolated young men with a utopian fantasy preaching the virtue...