Free Republic

A Day to Remember http://www.wiseandfrugalgovernment.blogspot.com/ Like every American I remember exactly what I was doing when the second plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I was on the treadmill in my bedroom a little before 6 a.m., watching the stock market open, the futures soaring until a report that a plane had flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 (EST). At that point there was only conjecture; a stray commuter plane the most popular theory. Live shots of the gaping hole and the billows of smoke but still no answers. At...

Binyam Mohammed, who planned terrorist attacks on U.S. cities, has been set free. Let’s imagine we’ve captured a highly trained terrorist al-Qaeda was attempting to embed in the United States, à la Mohamed Atta and company, to carry out mass-murder attacks in American cities. For eight years, our national-security debate in the United States has been divided into two camps on these cases. In the first are those who accept the post-9/11 law-of-war paradigm. They would have that enemy combatant detained for intelligence purposes (and to remove him from the battlefield) until he could be tried for war crimes by...

You know that we are living in scary times. Terrorist groups are metastasizing all over the globe. Al Qaeda has re-established its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hizbullah, Hamas and other radical Islamic groups are gaining strength. You hear this stuff all the time, on television and on the campaign trail. Amid the din, it's hard to figure out the facts. Well, finally we have a well-researched, independent analysis of the data relating to terrorism, released last week by Canada's Simon Fraser University. Its findings will surprise you. It explains that there is a reason you're scared. The U.S. government...

Two days removed from the latest 9/11 anniversary commemorations, I wonder if it’s too much to ask that this anniversary be the last. Are we going to do this every year forever? America loves anniversaries, and the news media find it easier to write stories about them than to report what’s happening, say, now. But the somber, sad, reverent ceremonies every year are not helping America win this battle. We don’t need any more moments of silence or roll calls of the dead. We’ve done it every year for five years now. Enough already. There are those who would like...

Jon Voight Warns Americans To Stay Alert http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2007/04/16/jon_voight_warns_americans_to_stay_alert http://tinyurl.com/2wt2gr 04/16/07 16:30:53 Movie star Jon Voight wants Americans on high alert because he fears another 9/11 terrorist attack is near. The Deliverance star admits he's more than a little nervous about ongoing immigration issues, and fears Americans have become complacent as the sixth anniversary of Al Qaeda's attacks on Washington, D.C. and New York approaches. He tells RadarOnline.com, "I certainly hope we're paying close attention to all those people crossing our borders who might be dangerous to us. We know for sure there are cells in the United States that are...

Surprise is what intelligence is intended to prevent, but on Sept. 11, 2001, our nation was surprised, and the results were tragic. Now the fifth anniversary of those horrific events raises anew the question: Is our nation's intelligence community better prepared to keep America safe? The answer is yes. U.S. intelligence has made major advances since that Sept. 11. First and foremost, we better understand, and are aligned to meet, the threat of transnational terror. Although our enemy is constantly changing and remains deadly, our collectors and analysts are carefully tracking the evolution of al-Qaeda and its ideological allies. Today,...

George Galloway has spoken out in support of Lebanon, saying he believes Hizbollah is justified in attacking Israel. The Respect MP also lambasted media coverage of the war and said the UN resolution means nothing.

The BBC has rejected a call made by an independent panel studying charges of bias in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to change its editorial policies on the use of the word "terrorist" and appoint a senior editor to oversee its Middle East coverage. Using the word "terrorist" to describe attacks on civilians, BBC management argued in a paper released June 19, would make the "very value judgments" it had been asked to eschew. An independent panel in May found the BBC's reporting from Israel did "not consistently constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather,...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The parents of Sept. 11, 2001, hero Todd Beamer, gave "United 93," the controversial movie about the doomed flight their blessing. Beamer's parents recently returned home to Jacksonville after watching a special screening of the movie. David Beamer, Todd Beamer's father, lives in Jacksonville. Todd Beamer was the passenger who yelled, "let's roll" as he and other passengers tried to take down the hijackers on United Flight 93. Some theaters around the country have refused to show the trailer for the film, saying it's just too soon, and too painful to watch. However, Beamer's father and other...

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday said the United States has made "serious mistakes" during the Iraq war that have led to the rising violence the country now faces. "We made some serious mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad," Powell told a crowd of thousands at the McCormick Place conference. "We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and . . . it got out of control." Now, American troops must "stick with the people of Iraq" until order is...

A few days ago, I posted a translation of a document culled from the captured Iraqi documents that the US found during Operation Iraqi Freedom. This particular memo, dated March 17, 2001, comes from a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force and requests a list of volunteers from all units under his command for suicide attackers. The memo explicitly explains the targets for these terrorist attacks, as the original translation from Joseph Shahda shows: The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of...

NEW YORK - A federal judge Friday upheld the police department's practice of randomly searching subway riders' bags, saying the intrusion on people's privacy is minimal while the threat of a terrorist bombing is "real and substantial." Police tightened security in the nation's largest subway system in July after the deadly terrorist attacks in London's underground. "The risk of a terrorist bombing of New York City's subway system is real and substantial," U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said. The New York Civil Liberties Union had challenged the searches, arguing that riders were being subjected to a pointless and unprecedented...

Just Breaking announcement on FOX. No more info at this time.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) today issued the following statement regarding the attacks in London, England: "Today the American people stand with our friends in Britain, as they have stood with us in many of our darkest hours. "The terrorists attack those who stand for freedom and tolerance, as we in the U.S. experienced in the starkest terms on September 11, 2001. "Now, as then, America stands against these cowardly attacks on innocent people, and we will not falter in our efforts to rid the world of this ideology of hatred. "Our thoughts are with the victims and their...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting for later Thursday when it was expected to pass a resolution condemning the London terrorist attacks, an official said. Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, the council president for July, requested the meeting soon after the four blasts rocked London, his spokesman said. Police officials say at least 33 people were killed in the explosions. The spokesman, Theodossis Demetracopoulos, said the council would probably pass a short resolution condemning the attacks. Britain has one of five permanent seats on the 15-member council. Similar resolutions were passed after the Sept....

If it looks like a dog, smells like a dog and barks like a dog, it probably is a dog no matter how its owner tries to disguise it. Or, as Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo,, recently observed "There is a little more lipstick on this pig than there was before, but it's most certainly the same old pig." THe "pig" referred to by Tancredo is a bipartisan immigration reform bill introduced on May 12 by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. The bill, if passed, would clear the way to allow many of the estimated...

Fewer terrorist attacks in 2004, more warnings In contrast to the drop in casualties from suicide bombings, the number casualties from kassam rocket and mortar attacks rose sharply. Daniel Koren 24 Jan 05 17:02There were fewer terrorist attacks, but more warnings in 2004. Israel suffered 15 suicide bombings last years, down from 26 in 2003. The decrease in suicide bombings, which frequently cause heavy casualties, also led to a sharp 45% drop in the number of deaths, from 214 in 2003 to 117 in 2004, and to a 41% drop in the number of wounded, from 1,004 to 589. In...

In a movie that's being described as "the feel-good al-Qaida date flick of 2005," Bush-hating actor Sean Penn will star as a suicidal hijacker who tries to crash a commercial airliner into Bush's official residence, the White House. The Penn presidential assassination movie is fiction, of course, as clearly indicated by the title: "The Assassination of President Nixon." Still, Penn's decision to make a film that parallels the only part of the 9/11 attacks that wasn't successfully executed (thanks to the brave passengers aboard United Flight 93) has even Bush-hating Hollywood nervous. "It was very hard to find distribution for...

State Department Tried to Stop Airing of Bin Laden Tape WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department on Friday urged the government of Qatar, which finances Al-Jazeera, not to broadcast a videotaped speech by Osama bin Laden, a senior State Department official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the State Department spoke to officials in Qatar before Al-Jazeera showed a portion of the tape. In it, the al-Qaida leader said the United States can avoid another attack if it stops threatening the security of Muslims. The request to the Persian Gulf government, which is considered an ally...

CNN special reports on 9/11.