Free Republic

.....news reports of Sunni tribes in Anbar cooperating loosely with the Baghdad government against al-Qaeda,and expedited U.S. military assistance and intelligence, gave reasons for hope. But then came Sunday’s news conference by Secretary of State John Kerry. Although the secretary spoke about the dangers of al-Qaeda gaining ground in Iraq and the countermeasures the United States was taking,he stated no fewer than four times that this fight was not ours but the Iraqis’. This,combined with an immediate denial of a suggestion that no one is even making—that the United States put troops on the ground-undercuts all the good commitments he...

Over at the American Enterprise Institute, Dan Blumenthal offers an odd little essay called “Why It’s Still A Unipolar Era“: "The current fashion in foreign policy argumentation is to explain that America is in decline, particularly relative to Asia… The new declinists have a point—the raw numbers are impressive. But power is about much more than raw numbers. It is the most elusive concept in politics. It usually cannot be measured accurately until it is used."

TO THE EDITOR: Watching John Kerry's acceptance speech on television, I came to the conclusion that it was the most fundamentally dishonest act that I had ever witnessed. The basic assumption of his speech was that the majority of the American people would not know about his actions after returning early from Vietnam or the fact that he had voted against every defense measure and weapons system that we now depend on in our war against terrorism. However, the most sickening factor to me was that he cloaked himself in a false mantle of patriotism and love for our flag....