Free Republic

The protests of civil liberties organizations about the Patriot Act, interrogation techniques, warrantless wiretaps, and other measures the government has used to prevent terrorist attacks, have been more of a philistine bray then a well-considered criticism. Civil liberties groups, both liberal and conservative, have invoked the specter of a police state. For example http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19866825&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

Yes, there’s cake, and true to the degenerate spirit of the event, it’s cut with a scimitar. Israel’s planning to hit the local bureau of AJ with sanctions as punishment, but I don’t see why. Israel made this possible. Olmert might as well have been named on the invitations as an honorary co-host.Say this much for the decision to free him, though: Outside of Hamas’s kiddie death-porn pageants, you won’t find a neater example of jihadists and their “moderate� Arab sympathizers reveling in their own cretinism than the celebrations they’re having for this turd. It’s propaganda gold, albeit at an...

A Palestinian in a mechanical digger has rammed traffic in west Jerusalem, injuring at least 10 people before being shot dead. A bus and a number of cars were hit during the incident. Some cars were crushed and one was turned on its roof. Witnesses say an armed civilian first shot at the driver, before he was killed by border police. Three weeks ago a Palestinian man went on a deadly rampage in a heavy vehicle in Jerusalem, killing three Israelis. The BBC's Paul Wood in Jerusalem says it is thought the 2 July attacker was simply a disturbed man...

Overshadowed by the news of Israel’s trade of live Lebanese terrorists for dead Israeli soldiers was no less important news about Israel’s arrests of six Al Qaeda-linked Israeli Arabs charged with plotting to shoot down President Bush’s helicopter earlier this year. Two of the suspects were from towns—Nazareth and Taibe—within pre-1967 Israel; the other four were from East Jerusalem. The former two, in other words, were full Israeli citizens with voting rights and so on. Although full Israeli citizenship has also been available to East Jerusalem Arabs since Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war, all but a few...

Obama to Israel: Put Terrorism in Context Washington, D.C. (July 22, 2008) -- The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) issued the following statement today: "Senator Obama in Jordan today said that terrorism makes 'Israelis want to dig in and simply think about their own security regardless of what's going on beyond their borders.' What Senator Obama fails to recognize is that the safety and security of its citizenry is the primary obligation of a country's leadership. In essence, Senator Obama is asking Israelis and the American Jewish community to put terrorism in context. Senator Obama continues his rhetoric of moral equivalence...

The son of Egyptian and Palestinian parents who raised their son on a steady diet of anti-Western mantra, the Holy blessings of the act of martyrdom, and other radical Islamic virtues, Khadr was captured by U.S. troops far from his Toronto home.....

According to new sources, Barack Obama will be meeting with Palestinian officials in Ramallah during his current Middle East Tour. After visiting with Israeli officials, Obama will be escorted by Israeli defense forces until security is handed over to...

Croatian Terrorist Paroled after 30 Years NEW YORK — A Croatian terrorist has been granted parole after serving 30 years in prison for hijacking a jet and planting a bomb that killed a New York City police officer. Zvonko Busic was the leader of a group that commandeered a TWA flight as it left La- Guardia Airport in 1976 in an attempt to draw attention to Croatia’s struggle for independence from communist Yugoslavia. The five separatists took the plane to Montreal, London and Paris before authorities shot out its tires and persuaded them to surrender. Their claim to have explosives...

Today another part of that building in ruins named "official version of 3/11" has collapsed: Without Mastermind The sentence of the Supreme Court endorses, for the three masterminds that the Office of the Public Prosecutor had accused, the acquittal regarding the charges that had been issued to them in that sense. Mohamed the Egyptian, who during a long time appeared as the top ideologist of the attack, is not even condemned for belonging to an armed band, since the Egyptian already is being judged for that charge in Italy. Hassan El Haski, another one of "masterminds" presented by the Office...

The Marine Corps is charging two of its own in connection with a theft ring that involved the stealing of secret files on potential terrorists. The widening investigation already has produced one conviction. Both Marines were called back to duty at Camp Pendleton and charged in late June with breaking military law, though the charges were not announced until yesterday. Gunnery Sgt. Eric L. Froboese and Master Sgt. Reinaldo Pagan, both reservists, were charged as part of a probe into the mishandling and compromise of classified information, the Marine Corps said. Pagan is charged with dereliction of duty and orders...

Immigration and National Security by Michelle Malkin The following is excerpted from a speech delivered at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on May 20, 2008, in New York City. Michelle Malkin, a columnist for Creators Syndicate since 1999, has also worked at the Los Angeles Daily News and the Seattle Times. A graduate of Oberlin College, she blogs on michellemalkin.com and is founder and co-editor of hotair.com. In 2002, she published Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. WE ALL KNOW what happened on September 11, 2001. But how many of us...

Karachi Kids by: Robin Beshear, July 21, 2008 California-born Muslim Imran Raza takes Americans behind the doors of the radical madrassa Jamia Binoria in his upcoming documentary, The Karachi Kids. The film focuses on the story of two American boys from Atlanta who were sent by their Islamic father to the Taliban-affiliated madrassa in Pakistan. The film takes place over a four-year time period, showing the progression of brainwashing that happens at these madrassas. At the beginning of the film, the boys are eager to go back to America and be with their families. By the end, they want to...

Coalition special forces teams, likely the terrorist hunter-killer teams of Task Force 88, have captured a Hezbollah Brigades propaganda specialist during a raid in New Baghdad. The propaganda specialist was positively identified by his wife after the raid, and he later admitted to his role in seeding websites with attack videos

BEIJING - Three separate bus explosions killed at least three people and injured 14 in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Monday, media said, amid a security clampdown ahead of next month's Beijing Olympics. The causes were not immediately clear, but the blasts came within a matter of hours of each other in the capital of Yunnan province and less than three weeks before the Beijing Games, which China has warned could be a target of terrorist attacks. An explosion on one bus happened at the Panjiawan stop at 7.10 a.m. and the second blast was nearby, the official...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

Last year the Phoenix police department handed 359 extortion-related kidnapping cases, Sgt. Phil Roberts said. The ransom demands in these cases can range from $50,000 to $1 million, he said. Excerpt, read the rest of the related news article here. Click here to watch the video from KPHO news.

One recurring question that has been at the forefront of most intelligence agencies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al-Qaida on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon just 1 mile outside Washington concerns the ongoing efforts by terrorist groups to acquire weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and mostly nuclear. Each of the NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons comes with a certain advantage and disadvantage -- for the terrorist, that is. Of the three sorts, biological weapons are quite possibly the easiest to safely reproduce in a lab, assuming one knows what to do. A...

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

Al Qaeda in Israel? Say it isn't so! Israel Matzav:Six 'Israeli Arabs,' two from the north and four from 'east' Jerusalem, have been arrested and indicted for allegedly setting up an al-Qaeda cell in Jerusalem. One of the six - a student at Hebrew University - has been charged with attempting to assassinate President Bush during his visit here in May. The thing about the Israelis is that it seems that they know how to arrest guys like this, just not keep them locked up.

Al Qaeda continues to grow its network and expand its capabilities in northwestern Pakistan, US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The peace agreements have given the Taliban and al Qaeda time and space to re-establish their networks, which pose a threat not only to Pakistan, but the West as well.

BEIJING: Chinese authorities have replaced top police and security officials in the Muslim dominated Xinjiang province, which is the hotbed of separatism and political violence. They have also closed down 41 "illegal" places of worship. These places of worship were used as training ground for conducting a "holy war", Chen Zhuangwei Chen, the police chief of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province, said.

I dedicated my book, What’s The Matter With California, to a retired United Airline pilot named Ray Lahr, “a true Californian and patriot”—and with good reason. Today, the tireless World War II vet and his intrepid attorney, John Clarke, are all that stand in the way of the successful execution of the single most astonishing cover-up in American peacetime history. What makes this whole event so astonishing is that TWA Flight 800 went down with 230 good souls on board in full view of literally hundreds of eyewitnesses on Long Island’s affluent south shore. Even more astonishing, although 270 of...

It has become fashionable to look to the lessons of the peace process in Northern Ireland as holding insights for other areas of conflict in the world. However, this has been done in an uncritical way, often more focused on contemporary agendas than on the core realities unique to the region, which do not necessarily translate elsewhere. In some instances, the willingness of a state to negotiate might encourage the terrorists to believe that their opponents are ready to concede – even when this is not the case. In June-July 1972, for example, top IRA operatives were flown to...

It has become fashionable to look to the lessons of the peace process in Northern Ireland as holding insights for other areas of conflict in the world. However, this has been done in an uncritical way, often more focused on contemporary agendas than on the core realities unique to the region, which do not necessarily translate elsewhere.

<p>At the stroke of midnight July 8, the Denver Water Board closed the road over Dillon Dam in Summit County, Colorado, citing security concerns. The board’s decision, which was implemented without advance notice to local governments and citizens, has not been well-received. It has sparked protests by enraged residents and has even prompted officials from Summit County, three affected towns nearby and the local fire and rescue department to file suit in state district court in a bid to force Denver Water to reopen the road.</p>

In a few moments, we'll open this up to a discussion, but first I'll make a few comments about some of the emerging threats that we face in the 21st century, and offer some ideas about how we can face those threats. It's time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll retain a strong deterrent. But we'll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy. We'll negotiate with Russia to achieve deep reductions in both our nuclear...

Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee accused of killing an American soldier during a firefight in 2002, is seen both sobbing and angry in the seven and a half hours of poor quality video issued by his lawyers. Khadr, 21, describes mistreatment at the hands of American guards. But his main complaint, of damaged eyesight, dates from the shoot out with a US patrol in Afghanistan. In one segment he repeatedly cries: "Help me." Khadr, who played in Osama bin Laden's private compounds as a child, was 15 when he was arrested and 16 when the Canadian agents were granted access...

Speaking at a Town Hall Meeting in New Mexico today, July 15, 2008, Sen. John McCain vowed to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice for his crimes against America . . . (see video) This is the kind of grit and determination we need in a President. John McCain has the resolve and strength to do what he says he will do. This is the McCain who needs to keep showing up at every appearance on the campaign trail, and on television.

Colombian military intelligence used the Red Cross emblem in a rescue operation in which leftist guerrillas were duped into handing over 15 hostages, according to unpublished photographs and video viewed by CNN. What seems to be part of a red cross is seen on a bib worn by a man involved in the rescue in this official image. Photographs of the Colombian military intelligence-led team that spearheaded the rescue, shown to CNN by a confidential military source, show one man wearing a bib with the Red Cross symbol. The military source said the three photos were taken moments before the...

By Jerry Markon and Ben Hubbard Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, July 15, 2008; Page B01 A Saudi-funded academy in Fairfax County used textbooks as recently as 2006 that compared Jews and Christians to apes and pigs, told eighth-graders that these groups are "the enemies of the believers" and diagrammed for high school students where to cut off the hands and feet of thieves, a Washington Post review of the books has found. Saudi officials acknowledged that the textbooks used at the Islamic Saudi Academy had contained inflammatory material since at least the mid-1990s but said they ordered revisions in...

Recent attacks are a troubling sign innocents aren't off-limits MEXICO CITY — Many Mexicans have long shrugged off the violence shaking their country by telling themselves it only affects those involved in the narcotics trade and corrupt law enforcement officers. But innocent civilians, once considered largely off-limits, now find themselves increasingly targeted. In the past five days, two attacks in the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa claimed the lives of perhaps more than a dozen people with no apparent connection to the drug trade — including at least four teens, a 12-year-old girl and a father-and-son team of university accounting...

Over the years I have read stories on FR about reports of muslim males buying huge numbers of pre-paid cell phones, often triggering calls to law enforcement. While I don't generally discount reports from local media outlets (remember the OU bombing?), it seems crazy that this would be going on with nary a peep from other sources. Here is my odd story about this. ~3 months ago I was in New Orleans, and purchased a prepaid cell phone at a story on Royal street almost at canal (quarter-side). The store proprietors were obviously muslim, don't know if pak. or arab....

A WATCH list of suspected and known terrorists, compiled by the US authorities, has ballooned and contains more than one million names, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said today. The ACLU said it derived the figure from a Justice Department report on the FBI's Terrorist Screening Centre, which consolidates terrorist watch list information. The centre "had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month", according to a report by the Justice Department Inspector-General, the rights group said. "By those numbers, the list...

Three men accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic planes have admitted to conspiring to cause explosions. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain also admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance by making videos threatening bombings. Two other defendants, Ibrahim Savant and Umar Islam, also pleaded guilty to the public nuisance charges. The Woolwich Crown Court jury has yet to rule on conspiracy to murder charges which the five and three others deny. The men deny two charges, which have been amended, of conspiracy to murder between 1 January and 11 August 2006. One specifies the attacks would...

TAMPA - A former University of South Florida student will be sentenced today for holding a rifle at a shooting range for less than three minutes. Karim Moussaoui was convicted in April of a federal weapons charge of possessing a firearm in violation of his student visa. The Moroccan native and engineering student had gone to the Shoot Straight Tampa shooting range with a friend, Youssef Megahed, last summer and posed for pictures holding a .22-caliber rifle Megahed had rented. Because Megahed is a legal, permanent resident of the United States, he was allowed to posses and rent the weapon....

Contents Article 1 “Seven Questions: Twilight of the Arab Moderates,” an Interview of Marwan Muasher, Foreign Policy, Web Exclusive, June 2008. Marwan Muasher was at the forefront of efforts to bring peace to the Middle East in the 1990s. Now, the former Jordanian foreign minister has a message for his fellow Arab moderates: Reform, or be wiped off the political map. His new book, The Arab Center, is a firsthand account of his own experience and the efforts of the Arab center to bring about a peaceful end to the Arab-Israeli conflict over the last 20 years. This center is...

China Executes Two Uyghurs 2008-07-11 Authorities in Xinjiang execute two Uyghurs for alleged terror links. Fifteen others are sentenced. CORRECTS AND CLARIFIES TRIAL DATE AND CHINESE LEGAL PROCEDURE. WASHINGTON—Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have executed two ethnic minority Uyghurs and sentenced 15 others for alleged terrorist links, according to local sources. Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imin were originally handed death sentences by the Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court on Nov. 9, 2007, according to a Nov. 11, 2007 report by China's official Xinhua news agency. Referring to them by their Chinese names, Xinhua said Muhetaer Setiwalidi and Abuduwaili...

Moments after boarding US Airways Flight 300 for Phoenix, Michael McCombie, a 3M sales rep from Santa Clara, Calif., jotted a note and handed it to flight attendant Terri Boatner: "6 suspicious Arabic men on plane, spaced out in their seats. All were together, saying '... Allah ... Allah ...' cursing U.S. involvement w/Saddaam before flight. 1 in front exit row, another in first row 1st class, another in 8D, another in 22D, two in 25 E & F." The men in question were six Muslim imams, or prayer leaders, returning home from a conference in Minneapolis. Within minutes of...

Islamists have it all over everyone else in the art of intimidation using freedom in western civilization as a weapon in the battle to rule the world. One reason this practice has been successful is that civilized societies cannot comprehend a doctrine so pervasive in its goal to take over the world that so many non Muslims are unwilling to accept that we are in a war of different worlds. The threat is not extra terrestrial; it is a real threat by real people. To followers of Islam there is but one goal; replace all other religions and governments with...

BEIRUT, July 11: Lebanon ended weeks of wrangling on Friday and formed a unity government in which Hezbollah and its allies hold effective veto power, as agreed under a deal that ended a paralysing political conflict in the country. The decisive say granted to the former opposition led by Hezbollah, an ally of Damascus, shows that Syria has succeeded in wrenching back some political leverage in Lebanon, where it was the main power broker until its troops left in 2005. The birth of the government, the first under newly elected President Michel Suleiman, should close a long political crisis that...

[Arab racism against Jews even inside Israel] Fear of calling a terrorist a terrorist Ha'aretz, Israel - Jul 7, 2008 If justifying the murder of innocents because they belong to a certain hated group is not abject racism, I'd like to know what is. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999795.html

As Commander in Chief of America’s Armed Forces, the President bears the central responsibility for the security of the United States. In an era in which nuclear weapons are proliferating to rogue nations and even terrorists, he or she may have to respond very quickly to a crisis situation. We therefore propose an addition to the traditional Presidential debate: a public crisis management exercise in which the candidates will have to make real-time responses to realistic threats to the United States. The exercise should include impartial and competent advice from military, law enforcement, and emergency management leaders (such as generals,...

'WIRE' LAW FAILED LOST GI 10-HOUR DELAY AS FEDS SOUGHT TAP TO TRACK JIMENEZ CAPTORS IN IRAQ By CHARLES HURT, Bureau Chief October 15, 2007 WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence officials got mired for nearly 10 hours seeking approval to use wiretaps against al Qaeda terrorists suspected of kidnapping Queens soldier Alex Jimenez in Iraq earlier this year, The Post has learned. This week, Congress plans to vote on a bill that leaves in place the legal hurdles in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - problems that were highlighted during the May search for a group of kidnapped U.S. soldiers. A...

WASHINGTON -- Twenty-five years ago this week, an intelligence report crossed my desk warning that Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon's Bekka Valley were preparing a major attack. Two months prior -- April 18, 1983 -- a Hezbollah truck bomb had exploded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 and wounding another 120. With this grim event in mind, we launched an "all-source" effort to determine the nature of the planned attack, the timing and the target. We failed. At 6:22 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983, the killers carried out their assault. A single terrorist in a Mercedes truck...

An Ogden, Utah, woman said she discovered a spider in her home that she believes to be a species native to Iraq and Afghanistan. Lynnelle Carson said she caught the alleged camel spider in the living room of the home she recently moved into with her family, the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported Thursday. I was working in the living room around 2 a.m. and I looked down and thought, 'Hey, there's a camel spider, I've got to catch that,' Carson said. Carson said she learned to recognize the species, which can grow to up to 6 inches long and can...

This article originally appeared in the Washington Post this past weekend, and should make it abundantly clear to our nation's leaders as well as to our citizens, that our nation has serious reasons to be concerned about terror cells operating in the United States. After the attacks of September 11, the President kept repeating the mantra that "We are fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them over here!" As I often pointed out, I believe that we already have them "over here!" The report notes that terror suspects arrested in the far-flung corners of the world...

Sniffer dogs trained to spot terrorists at railway stations have been blocked from coming into contact with Muslim passengers “in order to be sensitive to Islamic religious beliefs,” according to a report for the United Kingdom’s Transport Department. Under the Islamic faith, dogs are deemed to be “unclean.” It is acknowledged that banning the dogs would severely restrict the effectiveness of efforts to prevent a repeat of the July 2005 bus and railway bombings that killed over 50 people. “We realize that the knee-jerk reaction is that security must take priority over religious dogma,” said Duncan Dimsdale, spokesman for the...

Suspected Shiite militiamen have begun using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops. U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year. The latest reported rocket-propelled bomb attack occurred Tuesday at Joint Security Station Ur, a...

Not trying to be spammy here, but has anyone else seen this film? I just watched it and strongly believe that it should be required viewing for every American, lest we forget exactly who and what we're up against. From the website: "Obsession - Radical Islam's War Against the West is a new film that will challenge the way you look at the world. Almost 70 years ago, Europe found itself at war with one of the most sinister figures in modern history: Adolf Hitler. When the last bullet of World War II was fired, over 50 million people were...

Two Israeli Beduin from the Negev town of Rahat were charged Wednesday with plotting terrorist outrages over the internet with al-Qaida members overseas and marking out civilian and military sites in Israel for attack. The suspects were named by police as Taher Abu Sakut, 21, and Omar Abu Sakut, 22. They were arrested in late May and early June in a joint Israel Police-Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation. An indictment was filed against them on Wednesday in the Beersheba District Court, accusing them of membership in a terror organization, aiding the enemy during a time of war and transferring...