Free Republic

The Qataris, and their ruling al-Thani family, are slavers, narcotics traffickers, and financiers of international terrorism. They also happen to be America’s closest ally under Obama. When analyzing the foreign policy interventions of the Obama administration with respect to the Middle East, it is hard to reconcile their respective approaches Libya (2011) and Iraq (2014). In 2011, Obama justified the military action to remove Muammar Gaddafi on the basis of anticipated genocide by the Gaddafi regime. Speaking at the National Defense University on March 28, 2011, Obama explained “I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves...

On Friday, August 1, I awoke to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio 1 World News report that went more or less like this: “Israel has broken the ceasefire.” Then over to a reporter on the ground. “Israel is firing mortar rounds into Gaza…in response to rocket fire.” And so began another day of media reportage. We are now hearing about the strong arm tactics of Hamas that is affecting the reporting of news from Gaza. What has happened to the fourth estate?

President Barack Obama was halfway out the door, joking with his counterparts in the press that he had not yet been wished a happy birthday, when a chorus of uniform questions from the assembled reporters forced him to address the recent admission that CIA Director John BrennanÂ’s intelligence agency had improperly spied on the Senate.On Thursday, the CIA admitted that intelligence operatives tapped into computers linked to staffers with the Senate Intelligence Committee in March. Those computers contained documents pertaining to an ongoing investigation into the agencyÂ’s Bush-era enhanced interrogation techniques. The report, which is set to be declassified,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the United States did things that were wrong and crossed the line. He says, quote, "we tortured some folks." Obama is commenting on a Senate investigation into the CIA's interrogation techniques.

The UN's top human rights official again condemned Israel for its military actions to stop Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, accusing the Jewish state of “deliberately defying International Law... in a way that may constitute war crimes.” Navi Pillay told reporters following yet another "emergency" meeting of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council that Israel was not doing enough to protect civilians. "There is a strong possibility,” said the known Israel critic, “that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes.” Among the UN’s long bill of particulars against the beleaguered Jewish state...

The unintended consequences of military intervention are nearly impossible to predict. ___ "Islamist militants armed with antiaircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades stormed a lightly defended United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya," The New York Times reported on September 12, 2012. " The attack, which killed the American ambassador and three staffers, would ultimately reveal that the CIA was running a secret mission out of Benghazi. Ross Douthat: The worst-case situation has not come to pass in Libya itself. But thanks to the ripple effects from Colonel Qaddafi’s fall, it’s well on its way to happening in nearby Mali. Not...

The head of the independent U.N. commission on Syrian war crimes said Friday that commanders of the Islamic State extremist group are “good candidates" to be put on a confidential list of alleged perpetrators. Brazilian diplomat and scholar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said the al-Qaida breakaway group, which now controls a swath of north and eastern Syria, has carried out public executions, crucifixions and other “gross human rights violations.” […] He said the list includes people who are “criminally responsible for hostage-taking, torture and executions;” heads of Syrian intelligence branches and detention facilities where detainees are tortured; military commanders who target...

An assortment of rabidly anti-Israel public figures, including seven Nobel Peace Prize winners, have called for an international arms embargo on Israel for its "war crimes and possible crimes against humanity" in Gaza. The statement came in a letter published in Britain's The Guardian on Friday.

“Once again, this Council fails to address the situation in Israel and in the Palestinian territories with any semblance of balance. There is no mention of indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas into Israel or the tunnels used to cause mayhem.” It is good to see someone from the Obama Administration actually speaking the truth about Israel. “U.N. launches probe into alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza,” by Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles, Reuters, July 23, 2014 (thanks to Kenneth): GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) – The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may...

Geneva-The United Nations’ top human rights official, Navi Pillay, said Wednesday that there was a “strong possibility” that Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes with indiscriminate attacks on civilians during more than two weeks of fighting with militants in Gaza. Opening a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Ms. Pillay called for an investigation and accountability to end the cycle of violence. Ms. Pillay cited Israeli airstrikes on civilian homes in Gaza and the shelling of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital two days ago, which killed four people, as examples of actions that suggest...

How can Israel have peace if it’s unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation?’ asks White House Mideast chief, Phillip Gordon, in a blistering Tel Aviv speech. Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank is wrong and leads to regional instability and dehumanization of Palestinians, a top American government official said Tuesday in Tel Aviv, hinting that the current Israeli government is not committed to peace. In an unusually harsh major foreign policy address, Philip Gordon, a special assistant to US President Barack Obama and the White House coordinator for the Middle East, appealed to Israeli and Palestinian leaders...

Islamic fundamentalists abducted the freelance reporter in August 2008, and she was released 460 days later. Just months after surviving the ordeal, she established a non-profit to provide education to girls in Somalia. "The fact that they know about the work I'm doing now," she said. "That I have chosen compassion, that they could see that they didn't break me — that's the best justice I could have." A Hollywood production company announced last week that it bought the rights to Lindhout's bestselling memoir, "A House in the Sky."

The bodies of three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped in the West Bank earlier this month have been found north-west of the city of Hebron, the Israeli Defense Forces confirmed today. "Following extensive searches in order to retrieve the three abducted teens ... three bodies were discovered in the area north-west to Hebron, north of the community of Telem," the IDF said in a statement. "The bodies are currently going through forensic identification. The families of the abducted teens have been notified." An emergency cabinet meeting has been called for 2:30 p.m. ET, and an announcement could come during or...

An Army veteran who served alongside Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the long-captive soldier was deeply frustrated with the mission and had lodged false allegations that their unit had carried out atrocities. Bergdahl “didn’t understand why we were doing more humanitarian aid drops, setting up clinics, and helping the populous instead of hunting the Taliban,” former Spec. Cody Full told lawmakers during a hearing on the exchange of Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “He wanted to hunt and kill.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Taliban released Bergdahl to U.S. Special Operations forces May 31 after he had...

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Full Title: ISIS butchers leave 'roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers': Battle for Baghdad looms as thousands answer Iraqi government's call to arms and jihadists bear down on capital The full horror of the jihadists’ savage victories in Iraq emerged yesterday as witnesses told of streets lined with decapitated soldiers and policemen. Blood-soaked bodies and blazing vehicles were left in the wake of the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS fanatics as they pushed the frontline towards Baghdad. They boasted about their triumphs in a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the...

A spokeswoman for the State Department referred to the Taliban operatives released from Guantanamo Bay as part of the deal to retrieve Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl as "gentlemen." In a Monday afternoon appearance with Andrew Mitchell on MSNBC, Marie Harf, the deputy spokesperson at State and an alumna of the Obama campaign, argued with Mitchell over the question of whether or not Congress should have ben notified about the exchange before it occured. Noah Rothman at Hot Air documents the conversation, and near the end of the interview, Harf defends the deal against questions about whether or not the Taliban operatives...

The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.” On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems. But the unit — Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company in the First Battalion, 501st Regiment — might well have remained indistinguishable from scores of other Army platoons in...

An Obama administration official has floated the idea that Bowe Bergdahl was justified in deserting his platoon in Afghanistan and joining the Taliban over disagreements with the platoon's leadership. Brandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a series of tweets Wednesday evening in which he speculated that Bergdahl deserted over bad leadership of his platoon and that is why his fellow soldiers were smearing him."Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)"" What if he grew...

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) is accusing its former chief, Oleksandr Yakymenko, of being behind an arms smuggling plot that it busted on May 25. In the operation, 73 crates of weapons were seized that were shipped by sea from Sevastopol in Russia-occupied Crimea to Berdyansk district in Zaporizhya Oblast. Yakymenko, who is wanted by authorities for mass murder during EuroMaidan, couldn’t be reached for comment, and he is believed to be hiding out in Russia where he has given interviews to Russian media. [....] Ex-President Viktor Yanukovych appointed him the nation’s top spy on Jan. 9, 2013. He was the...