Free Republic

When Islamic State group militants invaded the Central Library of Mosul earlier this month, they were on a mission to destroy a familiar enemy: other people's ideas. Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded around 2,000 books — including children's stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science — into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts. The rest? "These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned," a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing...

Chuck Hagel has only about a week to go on his tenure as Secretary of Defense, and CNN’s Barbara Starr finds out that a man on the verge of retirement doesn’t have a lot of reason to keep his mouth shut. Hagel makes it clear, although still with some caution, that the Obama administration put pressure on him to increase the frequency of releases from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. In doing so, Hagel has handed the new Republican majority on the Senate Armed Services Committee a perfect opening to demand answers on Barack Obama’s efforts to empty...

One of the best 30-or-so minutes on radio since I've been listening beginning in the early 1940s. One caller and one scheduled guest. KSFO Morning Show Podcast It's a four hour show. Pick the 30 January hour 0500 - 0600. The caller (27:30) is a military Afghanistan vet who explains the Taliban in concise and precise language. (Hint: there are two kinds of 'em.) The scheduled guest Jan Morgan (36:20) owns a shooting range in Arkansas who will not permit Muslims as customers. She describes an incident when she did permit 'em but no more.

Al Jazeera’s New York and Washington, D.C. journalists have reportedly received strict orders from Qatari management: please do not use the words “terrorist,” “militant,” “Islamist,” “jihad” and “extremist” in your reporting.

AMMAN/TOKYO - An audio message purportedly from a Japanese journalist being held by Islamic State militants said a Jordanian air force pilot also captured by the group would be killed unless an Iraqi female prisoner in Jordan was released by sunset on Thursday. The message appeared to postpone a previous deadline set on Tuesday in which the journalist, Kenji Goto, said he would be killed within 24 hours if the Iraqi was not freed. The latest audio recording, which could not be verified by Reuters, was posted on YouTube early on Thursday. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a...

At Wednesday's White House press briefing, deputy press secretary Eric Schultz wouldn't call the Taliban a terrorist group, instead referring to it as "an armed insurgency." Video and transcript at link ...

Multiple news sources are now reporting that the US Army is charging Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl -- the American soldier handed over by terrorist hostage takers in exchange for the release of five high-ranking Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay last spring -- with desertion.  This comes as no surprise for those who followed the Bergdahl controversy closely; as Katie reminded us earlier, Bergdahl's platoon mates unanimously spoke out against his actions.  The evidence of his desertion is overwhelming.  Other facts suggest that he may have crossed a line into active collaboration with the enemy.  Despite the fact that the military had drawn negative conclusions about Bergdahl's conduct as far back as 2010...

"I know as Miss USA I can always spread a message of hope and love and peace, and I would do my very best to spread that message to them and everyone else in the world."

The release by Julian Assange's web site Wikileaks of classified documents reveals that U.S. military intelligence discovered chemical weapons labs, encountered insurgents who were specialists in the creation of toxins, and uncovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, Washington, DC officials and the news media have ignored this information.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A story that sounds like a movie script is slowly grinding its way to trial. All of the 29 defendants in the massive corruption case involving suspended State Senator Leland Yee and reputed gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow appeared in federal court Thursday. With so many defendants, lawyers, and documents, the judge is trying to set up a system to manage what could be an unwieldy trial. What makes it even harder is that not everyone's on the same page. The frustration is beginning to show. There are 29 defendants, even more lawyers, a 137 page...

Long War Journal reports that the Obama administration has released Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri from a U.S. prison – not from Gitmo, but from a civilian jail after a federal terrorism conviction. Al-Marri is an al-Qaeda operative who was planted as a “sleeper” in the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed to await instructions on carrying out a second wave of attacks after the 9/11 atrocities – against water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. military academies, and other targets. The Justice Department quietly sprung him on Friday so he could return to his native Qatar, a country the...

As the jihad steps up in intensity and Islamic jihadist Zale Thompson attacked NYPD officers with an axe just weeks ago, de Blasio’s New York may scrub a report on Islamic jihadists because it offends Muslims. De Blasio is setting up New York for much, much more jihad.

According to the Washington Post, weapons and ammunition are in such short supply at the centers where Iraqi army units receive training to fight ISIS that the trainees are yelling “bang-bang” instead of shooting. Last August, when President Obama announced that the U.S. would undertake a mostly proxy war against ISIS, I would have said that yelling “bang-bang” is the perfect metaphor for his anti-terrorism campaign. Today, whispering “bang-bang” is more like it. Iraq, where trainees lack weapons and ammunition, is the site of America’s most robust anti-terrorist activity. Elsewhere, our efforts are even more pathetic. The Post’s editors write:...

Obama's release of five more Yemeni terrorists from GITMO yesterday, one week after the terrorist attacks in Paris is beyond words. It wasn't outrageous enough that he didn't appear at the anti-terror march in Paris, he had to follow that up with what can only be described as a show of solidarity with Islamic terrorism since Yemen is where the two Kouachi brothers got their weapons training before their brutal attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine. To say the President of the United States is an Islamic extremist let alone Muslim is unfathomable. But how else can his 'no show' or...

The army of Allah received some reinforcements last night, as President Obama’s plan to close the Guantánamo Bay terrorist detention center moved forward. Five Yemeni “detainees” captured in Pakistan were released, leaving 122 left in the Cuba camp. Four will go to Oman, and one will shiver in Estonia until the spring comes. Both nations are welcoming their first Gitmo alumni. Felicia Schwartz of the WSJ reports: "The Pentagon said detainee Akhmed Abdul Qadir was transferred to Estonia, while four others were transferred to Oman. They included Al Khadr Abdallah Muhammad Al Yafi, Fadel Hussein Saleh Hentif, Abd al-Rahman Abdullah...

Five Yemenis held at the Guantanamo Bay prison have been transferred overseas, the Department of Defense announced late Wednesday. Al Khadr Abdallah Muhammad Al Yafi, Fadel Hussein Saleh Hentif, Abd Al-Rahman Abdullah Au Shabati and Mohammed Ahmed Salam were handed over to Oman and Akhmed Abdul Qadir was transferred to Estonia, it said in a statement marking the first movement of detainees so far in 2015. The move leaves 122 prisoners remaining at the Cuba facility. "The United States is grateful to the government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the...

MANILA - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that she is optimistic a peace pact between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will happen before President Arroyo steps down in 2010. Clinton said she believes Mrs. Arroyo is ready to make "difficult decisions" regarding the peace talks with the MILF before the end of her term.

**SNIP** The investigation extended to Yee after an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated Chow's group was introduced to the senator and allegedly persuaded him to trade political favors for campaign contributions. Lim became enmeshed in the case due to his political backing of Yee. According to a 137-page FBI affidavit, Yee introduced Lim to the undercover agent as a man who could secure guns. The agent, the FBI said, had asked Yee to facilitate an arms deal in exchange for more campaign money. The accusations prompted the Philippines government to open a probe into whether Lim had links to...

For a number of years into the Cold War, American presidents were occasionally troubled by the paradox that a democratic United States was supporting right-wing anti-Communist dictatorships abroad. Either Harry Truman, John Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson — or all of them — was supposed to have scoffed, in response to objections, something like the following, “He may be a bastard, but at least he’s our bastard.” That realist cynicism has more or less remained the same. But now the ideology has flipped. Currently, the more that authoritarian thugs abroad position themselves as anti-American, the more that we seem to glamorize...

Opinion: White House Obama's Paris snub wasn't an oversight By Byron York | January 12, 2015 | 4:33 pm The uproar over whether President Obama or another top administration official should have attended the massive unity rally in Paris has obscured an important point about the White House's reaction to the latest terror attacks in Europe. The administration no-shows were not a failure of optics, or a diplomatic misstep, but were instead the logical result of the president's years-long effort to downgrade the threat of terrorism and move on to other things. "The analogy we use around [the White House]...