Free Republic

One of the things I enjoy about this website is the opportunity to educate, edify, and challenge us all to think beyond the obvious. Now I realize some folks are — as we say in the military — “stuck on stupid” and it will take longer to get them with the program. But it is a challenge I accept. So, in that light, I’d like to invite you to scour the annals of American history in order to respond to President Barack Hussein Obama’s recent assertion that Muslims have contributed “to building the very fabric or our nation.” As reported...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate report on the CIA's interrogation and detention practices after the 9/11 attacks concludes that the agency initially kept the secretary of state and some U.S. ambassadors in the dark about harsh techniques and secret prisons, according to a document circulating among White House staff. The still-classified report also says some ambassadors who were informed about interrogations of al-Qaida detainees at so-called black sites in their countries were instructed not to tell their superiors at the State Department, the document says. The 6,300-page Senate report on the CIA's interrogation program has been years in the making....

Analysis: Islamic State advertises war crimes in video By Thomas Joscelyn July 29, 2014 The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that controls significant territory in both Iraq and Syria, has posted an extremely brutal video. While most Muslims were celebrating the end of Islam's holy month, the Islamic State is celebrating mass executions. Warning: Some of the images below are graphic. The Long War Journal is posting these images because they highlight the depravity of the Islamic State and its followers. The Islamic State likely believes that these images will help intimate its opposition into submission and earn new...

Remember back in April, 2007, when then-CIA director George Tenet appeared on 60 Minutes, angrily telling the program host, "we don't torture people"? Remember a few months later, in October, President George W. Bush saying, "this government does not torture people"? We knew then it was not true because we had already seen the photos of Iraqis tortured at Abu Ghraib prison four years earlier. Still the US administration denied that torture was torture, preferring to call it "enhanced interrogation" and claiming that it had disrupted so many terrorist plots. Of course, we later found out that the CIA...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Fusion TV´s Jorge Ramos that part of the reason Hamas hides rockets in schools and civilian areas is "Gaza is small." "I´m not a military planner but Hamas puts it´s missiles, it´s rockets in civilian areas, part of it is Gaza is pretty small and its densely populated," she said as neglecting the question of whether or not Hamas should have rockets in area to begin with.

Thousands attend EID prayer at Toyota Park BY NICK SWEDBERG Correspondent Updated: July 29, 2014 2:08AM Thousands of Muslims filled the field at Bridgeview’s Toyota Park Monday morning for an unusually somber Eid prayer ceremony in the light of heightened hostilities between Israel and Gaza. Volunteers collected signatures for the 5,000 postcards brought to the event. They intend to mail them to President Obama over the latest deaths in recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The postcards, which 10 chapters of the American Muslims for Palestine across the country distributed Monday, demand that the White House intervene in the fighting...

(Language warning) A Taliban fighter caught by U.S troops planting an IED in Afghanistan. Shortly after planting it, he accidentally steps on it.

One man's quest to explain his brother's mysterious jail cell death 19 years ago has rekindled long-dormant questions about whether others were involved in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. What some consider a far-flung conspiracy theory will be at the forefront during a trial set to begin Monday in Salt Lake City. The Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was brought by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue against the FBI. He says the agency won't release security camera videos that show a second person was with Timothy McVeigh when he parked a truck outside the Oklahoma City federal building and...

The people on the Mavi Marmara flotilla were genocidal Jew-hating jihadis, as you can see in the second video above: they were chanting a jihad war cry recalling Muhammad’s massacre of the Jews of Arabia: “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.” See the photos here of their weapons.And now Turkish troops will be accompanying a new jihad flotilla to Gaza. Will they attack Israeli troops?“Turkey to send another Freedom Flotilla to Gaza,” Middle East Monitor, July 26, 2014: The Turkish humanitarian relief organisation (IHH) is currently organising a “Freedom Flotilla II” which will carry humanitarian aid...

Speaking at a high-level security conference in Aspen, Colorado, outgoing US Defense Intelligence Agency head Michael Flynn warned against the dangers of toppling Hamas, saying what may replace the Islamist group could be even worse. “If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably end up with something much worse. The region would end up with something much worse,” Flynn, a lieutenant general, told the conference Saturday, according to Reuters.He warned that with Hamas out of the picture, the Islamic State, or something like the brutal Islamist group ruling over parts of Syria and Iraq, could take its place.Flynn also said...

During the ground offensive IDF soldiers have also exposed a tunnel camouflaged under a bathroom. Inside a house in the neighborhood of Shuja'iyya in Gaza a tunnel shaft was found under the sink, in between the sewage pipes and the cleaning supplies. According to IDF assessments this tunnel was not originally destined to aid terrorists with infiltration to Israel, but was built for a different destination. This is a command and control tunnels which connects between different destinations inside Gaza Strip, in order to enable Hamas activists to hide inside it for longer periods of time, without being exposed to...

Officials have said that more than half of all children initially placed in shelters have gone on to be reunited with at least one parent already living in the United States, and 85 percent of all children have been placed with a close family member.

News / Middle East US Official: Israel Declares 12-Hour Cease-fire in Gaza Saturday OA News Last updated on: July 25, 2014 3:19 PM A U.S. official says Israel has declared a 12-hour-long cease-fire in Gaza for Saturday. The pause in fighting would take effect 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT).

A man believed to have provided the gun used by Boston Marathon bombing suspects to kill a college police officer has been arrested on drug and weapon charges. Stephen Silva made an initial appearance in federal court Tuesday on charges related to heroin trafficking and possession of a handgun with an obliterated serial number.

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept. The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals...

Jul. 22, 2014 - 6:56 - Conservative radio host discusses the comedian's remarks.

Something important is missing from the New York Times's coverage of the war in Gaza: photographs of terrorist attacks on Israel, and pictures of Hamas fighters, tunnels, weaponry, and use of human shields. It appears the Times is silently but happily complying with a Hamas demand that the only pictures from Gaza are of civilians and never of fighters. The most influential news organization in the world is thus manufacturing an utterly false portrait of the battle—precisely the portrait that Hamas finds most helpful: embattled, victimized Gaza civilians under attack by a cruel Israeli military. A review of the Times's...

Clark S. Judge believes Obama's reaction to the tragedy was 'disconnected'. Immediately 'reverted to script' to praise his administration. Former adviser to Ronald Reagan says it confirms 'chaos' of foreign policy.

Two days after repelling an Iraqi military attempt to retake the city of Tikrit, the Islamic State and its allies are said to have overran Camp Speicher, a large base just outside the city that was being used in the failed effort to retake the provincial capital. The Islamic State's Salahaddin Division claimed in an official statement released on Twitter yesterday that it overran Camp Speicher and is in "control of the airport and the base completely." In the statement, the Islamic State claimed it killed "scores" of Iraqi military personnel, including a brigadier general and a colonel. It also...

Miss Conley might have had honeymoon visions of romance, but in reality she was in for a nasty fate. Despite embracing radical Islam, she wouldn’t have been able to erase the self-respect she was raised with in only six months. Many of the abuses the other women in the camp would have been used to, (imprisonment in the house, husbandly beatings, unwanted polygamy and a cheating husband), Miss Conley would have rebelled against. This “rebellion” would have given Terrorist Fiancé even more reason to beat her, starve her, or worse. Miss Conley is in an American jail where she’s not...

If Nouri al-Maliki wanted to dissolve the Iraqi union purposefully, he could hardly be doing a better job. While Kurds fight ISIS in the north — and more effectively than Maliki’s politically purged army has — Maliki accused them of being in league with the extremists even as Kurds mull over whether to just go on their own. Now they want Maliki out, or they’ll be leaving for good: Iraq’s Kurds said Thursday Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was “hysterical� and not fit to run the country, further dimming the prospect of a new leadership uniting to face jihadist fighters.The...

Border Patrol agents are dropping off undocumented immigrants at bus stations and now at airports. Some said those who crossed illegally into the U.S are able to purchase plane tickets and board flights without a picture I.D as required for everyone else. National Border Patrol Council said while they are unaware of immigrants boarding planes without identification in the Rio Grande Valley. A union representative out of the Laredo sector told us that it is happening in Laredo and it’s happening quite often. We spoke to National Border Patrol Council #2455 in Laredo, and what they told us was shocking....

I've been caught asking myself the same question many times this week. "Does our President believe in terrorism?" No, I'm not asking if he personally believes in the use of terrorism, or the ideology of terrorism, or the effectiveness of the weapon of terrorism. Some of my critics are already condemning me for not asking that question from the start. And as well intentioned as some are who would hold those positions, I feel a need to break things down into even more succinct pieces. Does President Obama believe in terrorism's existence and imminence in the days we live this...

Partly blaming unrest in the Middle East on President Barack Obama, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Saturday that Obama has not spoken firmly and forcefully on Israel’s behalf and that the country no longer trusts it has the full support of the United States because of him. The Republican governor’s remarks came as Israel targeted civilian institutions with suspected ties to the militant organization Hamas and declared it would step up its bombardment of northern Gaza. Israel says it is acting in self-defense against Hamas rockets. …

Roof Knocking is the Israeli military's tactic of phoning Palestinians it is about to bomb. Before the Israeli Military bombs your house, it is not uncommon for many Gaza Strip residents to get a phone call. Can you imagine getting such a phone call, knowing it's serious, knowing they literally have got your number and have viewed within via drones? It happens a lot in this part of the world. Sawsan Kawarea, a resident of Khan Younis, said she was in her home earlier this week when the phone rang. She answered, and on the other side was 'David', who...

An Egyptian cleric formerly known as the "preacher of the revolution" during the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak warned Egyptian television viewers this week that Muslim Brotherhood sheiks have issued a fatwa permitting "anal jihad" for terrorists far from their wives, which is exactly what it sounds like.

An ongoing lawsuit has pried loose new records linked to a family of Sarasota Saudis who left home in a hurry just before 9/11. It was Halloween night, 2001. The horrors of 9/11 were still fresh on the the minds of Americans. At a time when everyone was on edge, the sight of a man disposing documents in a dumpster behind a Bradenton storage facility aroused suspicion. Summoned to the scene, Manatee County sheriff’s deputies confronted the man, who had a Tunisian passport. According to FBI records, authorities searched the dumpster and found “a self-printed manual on terrorism and Jihad,...

Four NATO troops have been killed in a suicide attack in Afghanistan’s Parwan province, the ISAF confirmed. The blast also killed two Afghan policemen and at least 10 civilians, local police said. Some reports say the NATO soldiers killed in the attack were from the Czech Republic. Earlier Ziaul Rahman Sayedkhili, a senior police officer in the eastern province of Parwan, said the blast had killed six NATO servicemen. He said a joint ISAF-Afghan force was deployed to the village of Qalandar Khil to investigate a rocket attack on a military base, which happened two days ago, and was targeted...

Cable News Network has sued Blaine County seeking information from a 1999 police investigation involving the family of Bowe Bergdahl, the Wood River Valley soldier who spent five years in captivity of the Taliban. CNN says the report from the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office is subject to disclosure under Idaho public records laws. Sheriff Gene Ramsey has twice denied the network's request. The lawsuit was filed June 25 in District Court. A hearing is scheduled at 2 p.m. July 21 before District Judge Robert J. Elgee.

Fresh back from a trip to the Middle East, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-Ariz., discuss what lessons the U.S. can learn from the violence in Iraq as it prepares to leave Afghanistan.[video]

<p>"The crisis now gripping Iraq and the Middle East was not only predictable but predicted — and preventable. By looking the other way and unconditionally supporting and arming Maliki, President Obama has only lengthened and expanded the conflict that President Bush unwisely initiated. Iraq is now a failed state, and as countries across the Middle East fracture along ethno-sectarian lines, America is likely to emerge as one of the biggest losers of the new Sunni-Shiite holy war, with allies collapsing and radicals plotting another 9/11."</p>

Baghdad (AFP) - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the enigmatic self-proclaimed "caliph" of a state straddling Iraq and Syria, is increasingly seen as more powerful than Al-Qaeda's chief. The leader of the powerful Islamic State (IS) militant group was on June 29 declared "caliph" in an attempt to revive a system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In a video posted online on Saturday, purportedly the first known footage of Baghdadi, he ordered Muslims to obey him during a Ramadan sermon delivered at a mosque in the northern militant-held Iraqi city of Mosul.

Newser) – You might think that giving a green light to Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis and allegedly fraudulently submitting 660,000 other background checks without actually completing them would prevent you from getting future government contracts. But you'd be wrong, because the Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $190 million contract to US Investigations Services, the Wall Street Journal reports. Why? Because USIS hasn't actually been suspended, and, as one immigration official explained, unless there is such a suspension in place, "by law and policy, we have to go with the lowest bidder." USIS isn't barred, the Office of...

... Now the ISIS killers are slaughtering them. -excerpt- The Sahwa's decision to ally with us was the primary contributor to the calming of central Iraq from 2007-09. Without the Sahwa, I suspect the outcome of the vaunted military "surge" would have been vastly different. The number of Iraqis in the Sahwa movement grew into the tens of thousands, as U.S. forces' outreach to small groups of armed men evolved into larger circles of family members, friends and tribal groups. " -excerpt- Still, the goal of our office was to find ways to foster life after the fight with the...

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."

[Subtitle]"After Northeast Philly’s Michael Strange was killed in Afghanistan in 2011, his father, Charles Strange, went on a quest for answers. It’s a journey that’s brought him face-to-face with Congress, the military bureaucracy, the NSA, a lawyer who believes Barack Obama is a Muslim, and the very dark heart of America in 2014." ***** "They had a whole long list of concerns, but most of them can be boiled down to one word: vulnerability. In reading about how the helicopter went in and went down, the families saw how vulnerable their loved ones had been. They were vulnerable, it seemed,...

An apparent suicide bomber blew up a section of a Beirut hotel on Wednesday, killing one and severely injuring several Lebanese security officers involved in a raid on the hotel in search of terrorists believed tied to Islamic State of Syrian and al-Sham (ISIS), officials said.

A gang of men attacked an American student while he was drinking in the street - grabbing a glass bottle from his hands and smashing it over his head, a court was told. Francesco Hounye, 23, from Florida, had been in Britain for just three days when he was set upon by the men while he was walking home with a friend in Shadwell, east London. Shaleem Uddin, 20, Shadhat Hussain, 19, Kamrul Hussain, 22, and Massom Rahman, 22, targeted Mr Hounye when they saw him swigging from a bottle of Jagermeister. (VIDEO) They then chased him, beat him, and...

As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continued its advance toward Baghdad this weekend, the group released a new video that shows that it has a wide reach far outside the borders of Syria and Iraq. On Sunday, ISIS militants took overtook the majority of Anbar province, giving the group control of most of Iraq’s western border. The group advanced quickly, with four towns in the province falling in just two days and Iraqi soldiers fleeing before ISIS arrived. The fall of Anbar, Iraq’s larger province, now gives ISIS the platform to launch an assault against Baghdad. Secretary...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-Qaida-inspired militants who have violently seized territory in Iraq could grow in power and destabilize other countries in the region, President Barack Obama said. The Iraqi public will ultimately reject the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the extremist Sunni group threatening Iraq's government, but the group still represents a medium- and long-term threat to the United States, Obama said. "We're going to have to be vigilant generally. Right now the problem with ISIS is the fact that they're destabilizing the country," Obama said, using a common acronym for the group. "That could spill over into...

ANBAR Iraq (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader condemned U.S. intervention in Iraq on Sunday, accusing Washington of seeking control as Sunni insurgents drove toward Baghdad from the Syrian border and consolidated positions in the north and west. The statement by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the clearest statement of opposition to a U.S. plan to dispatch of up to 300 military advisers in response to pleas from the Iraqi government and runs counter to speculation that old enemies Washington and Tehran might cooperate to defend their mutual ally in Baghdad. "We are strongly opposed to U.S. and other intervention in Iraq,"...

More than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed in major accidents around the world since 2001, a record of calamity that exposes the potential dangers of throwing open American skies to drone traffic, according to a year-long Washington Post investigation. Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned in myriad ways, plummeting from the sky because of mechanical breakdowns, human error, bad weather and other reasons, according to more than 50,000 pages of accident investigation reports and other records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act.

Was George W. Bush wrong about the Iraq War? Because of recent events, some in the media have taken pot shots at the former U.S. President by claiming the younger Bush, and not President Obama, is responsible for an unsuccessful “mission accomplished.” In a related report by The Inquisitr, with the ISIS in Iraq having found Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons stockpiles, some people are saying that George W. Bush was right to have pushed for the Iraq War since the original stated goal was to prevent terrorist groups from getting their hands on any WMD materials. Of course, people say...

As for Obama’s foreign policy plan it really is quite simple…by shaming America in the world’s eye he hopes our collapse will surely follow. But least we forget that Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s driving force and allegiance was clear right from the start…never hidden from view but one people chose to ignore…from the his book “The Audacity of Hope” page 261…“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” Sadly, those words say it all…and sadly he has done just that.

CAIRO - An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed death sentences against the leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and at least 182 of his supporters, judicial sources at the court told Reuters. The court's decision came two months after it referred the case against Badie and hundreds of others to the state's highest religious authority, the Mufti, the first step towards imposing a death sentence. They were charged over violence that erupted in the southern Egyptian town of Minya in July in the aftermath of the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood member, after...

Already swamped by domestic and foreign crises, Obama finds that even his self-proclaimed successes are at risk. That's just about the last thing he needs now. Of all the things to rise up and bedevil President Obama again, Iraq seemed to be low on the list. But now the White House must live with the reality that, almost three years after the war was declared over, American blood could be spilled anew in a conflict that could readily escalate. Obama's announcement that up to 300 military advisers would be sent to Iraq marks a brutal moment in a brutal stretch...

Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney StrongerAmerica.com Dear Friend, We stand, right now, at a critical moment in the life of our nation. The policies of the last six years have left America diminished and weakened. Our enemies no longer fear us. Our allies no longer trust us. Empty threats, meaningless redlines, leading from behind, retreat, and "engagement" with rogue regimes have put America on a path of decline. Threats to America's security are on the rise. Al Qaeda is resurgent, establishing new safehavens across the Middle East, including in Iraq, where President Obama withdrew all American forces with no stay...

[This is] what ISIS would like to happen, in their ideal world. Their ideas on this front are derived from late "al-Qaida in Iraq" founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's thoughts on creating "a vast war inside Islam" that would ultimately eradicate all Shiites: ...for Zarqawi and his network, savagery—particularly when directed at other Muslims—was the whole point. The break between ISIS and al-Qaida over the former's brutality is well-known; Wright's piece puts it in context of the two groups' views of history. Al-Qaida was fighting the West; ISIS is fighting Shiites, and a vengeance that goes back more than a thousand...

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...

Terror Group ISIS Declares Guns Illegal in Parts of Iraq They Control June 16 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post isis If you’re a terror group attempting a coup of an unstable country what’s the last thing you want to see? Probably citizens gathering and taking up arms against you. You may be able to scare some uniformed members of Iraq’s military who may not believe in their cause anyway, but eventually enough people are going to get fed up, organize, and fight back. ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) looks like they are attempting to nip...