Free Republic

NO REST FOR THE WICKED The War Party never rests. No sooner is the war in Kosovo "ended," and the sky cleared of NATO's bombs, then war clouds immediately begin to gather on the horizon. "In Africa or central Europe" intoned Clinton on the occasion of his visit to a Macedonian refugee camp, "we will not allow – only because of differences in ethnic background or religion or racism – people to be attacked. We will stop that." This underscores the quintessentially leftist nature of the new imperialism: the United States is now embarked on an international holy war ...

Rudy was on Letterman - says he's going to form an exploratory committee to run for Senate in Arkansas; Rudy has a web site www.RudyYes.com.

Paris, Friday, June 25, 1999EU Official Urges Action to Prevent a Total Serb Exodus From Kosovo By Alan Friedman International Herald TribuneROME - The European Union needs to take ''a strong initiative'' to avoid a total exodus of Serbs from Kosovo, while coordinating its work with NATO forces in the region, according to Emma Bonino, the activist European commissioner whose responsibilities include humanitarian affairs. Miss Bonino called upon Romano Prodi, the European Commission's president-designate, ''to craft a political vision in which all Balkan nations are invited to join the EU, a vision which can foster stability and a democratization ...

Proud to be Un-American   Proud To Be Un-American by George Szamuely New York Press 6/23/99 Russia's seizure of Pristina airport was its first armed confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. History will record this as the act that signaled the start of the Second Cold War. During the First Cold War, I was staunchly on the side of the West. This time around I will be just as staunchly on the side of Russia. For today it is Russia that is upholding civilized norms, the sanctity of international law and the sovereignty of nations ...

Paris, Friday, June 25, 1999Blair's Latest Deadline For Ulster Is Eliciting No Sign of CompromiseBy Tom Buerkle International Herald TribuneLONDON - Since he committed his government to the peace process in Northern Ireland two years ago, Prime Minister Tony Blair has frequently resorted to setting deadlines in order to concentrate the minds of the province's Catholic and Protestant leaders and increase the pressure for compromise. But with one of the biggest deadlines looming less than a week away, there was no sign of compromise to be found Thursday as British and Irish officials prepared for an intense round of ...

The senior commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which signed a disarmament agreement with NATO, carried out assassinations, arrests and purges within their ranks to thwart potential rivals, say current and former commanders in the rebel army and some Western diplomats. The campaign, in which as many as half a dozen top rebel commanders were shot dead, was directed by Hashim Thaci and two of his lieutenants, Azem Syla and Xhavit Haliti, these officials said. Thaci denied through a spokesman that he had been responsible for any such killings. Although the United States has long been wary of the Kosovo ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Taipei Will Join Anti-Missile Plan, Taiwan Tells Beijing TAIPEI, Jun 24, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui said Thursday Taipei would join US theatre missile defensive (TMD) plans as long as Beijing's ballistic weapons were perceived as a threat. "It is unreasonable to ask us not to come up with self-defense counter-measures while we are gravely threatened," Lee said in meeting with Karen House, head of the Dow Jones group's international division. More than 100 Chinese ballistic missiles have been deployed along the southeast coast of China facing Taiwan, according to ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Chan: Hong Kong Was Not Used By China To Steal US Military Secrets CHICAGO, Jun 24, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Hong Kong's top civil servant rejected as "totally unfounded" here Wednesday allegations that Hong Kong was being used by China to acquire sensitive US technology. "These allegations are totally unfounded," Anson Chan, Hong Kong's Chief Secretary for Administration, told a business conference here. A US congressional panel led by Republican Christopher Cox said in a report published last month that Beijing took advantage of Hong Kong's less restrictive export controls to ship stolen ...

Paris, Friday, June 25, 1999UN Must Balance Its Idealism With Global RealityBy Ramesh Thakur International Herald TribuneTOKYO - If the United Nations did not exist, would we invent it? The UN Charter was signed in San Francisco on June 26, 1945. Today international organizations, with the United Nations at their core, touch our daily lives in many ways. Had the UN founders been told that their creation would still be intact at the dawn of the new millennium, embracing virtually the entire international community, they would have felt pride and satisfaction. Yet their vision of a world community equal ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: HK To Fight U.S. Moves To Restrict Hi-Tech Exports HONG KONG, Jun 24, 1999 -- (Reuters) Hong Kong said on Thursday it would intensify efforts to fight U.S. legislation that aims to restrict exports of high-technology goods to the territory. "The Hong Kong government will, of course, try to lobby against it," a government spokeswoman said. She was speaking after the U.S. Senate approved a bill sponsored by Republican Senator John Ashcroft threatening to impose controls on the export of high-tech goods to Hong Kong. If the U.S. House of Representatives passes the bill, ...

Paris, Friday, June 25, 1999America Is Wise to Smooth Russia's Ruffled Feathers By Flora Lewis MOSCOW - It sounded like kiss-and-make-up time again when President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin met in Cologne. Mr. Clinton told Russian television that their agreement on Kosovo would ''reflect credit on the leadership and greatness of Russia and the Russian people.'' He said that he found the evidently ailing Mr. Yeltsin ''strong, clear, alert, vigorous,'' and went out of his way to ''clarify my country's position and our commitment to a strong, successful, democratic Russia.'' Mr. Clinton added, ''We genuinely want the ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: Report: US Military Aircraft Join Warships In Ban From Hong Kong HONG KONG, Jun 24, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Beijing has reportedly refused permission for United States military aircraft to land in Hong Kong, joining a ban on US warships ordered after NATO's bombing of China's Belgrade embassy. The South China Morning Post Thursday quoted US Consul-General Richard Boucher as saying "one or two" landing applications had been knocked back, together with a series of requests for ship visits. An unnamed US Consulate spokesman told the Post a navy P-3 Orion was denied ...

Paris, Friday, June 25, 1999Appealing to the Kosovo Serbs to Stay Is IrresponsibleBy Anna Husarska International Herald TribunePRISTINA, Kosovo - One of the strangest collateral results of the NATO bombing is that, unexpectedly, Slobodan Milosevic and Bill Clinton are speaking with one voice. They and many others are appealing to Kosovo Serbs not to leave the province, and are calling back those who left. Since neither Belgrade nor Washington found it appropriate to hear the Kosovo Serbs before, this is a new shift in attention. It means that all sides of the successive Balkan wars in this decade are ...

STRASBOURG, Jun 24, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The Russian envoy on the Balkans, Viktor Chernomyrdin, appealed Wednesday for a stronger Security Council to enable the United Nations to stand up to regional pressures. "We cannot allow the U.N. role to be weakened," he said in a speech to the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly which was debating the situation in Yugoslavia. If not strengthened by reforms, "the U.N. could follow the undesirable path taken by the League of Nations, which proved unable to deal with the rigid, egotistical stance of numerous European powers and collapsed under the weight ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: China Ignores Kosovo Warcrimes, Hits Out At NATO BEIJING, Jun 24, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) China Thursday played down increasing reports of atrocities in Kosovo, but took the opportunity to again attack NATO over its bombing campaign which Beijing opposed from the start. "The truth (about atrocities) can only be known after serious, objective and just investigation," foreign ministry spokesman Zhang Qiyue said. "However one thing is very clear. US-led NATO (...) carried out 78 days of bombing ... as a result of which many innocent civilian people died or were injured, many ...

While our president sends our military forces into battle in Yugoslavia,in what he claims is an effort to free the people of Kosovo from oppression, we sit and wonder how much of this fight is an honest attempt at humanity and how much is the 'wag the dog' theory. It is a sorry state of affairs when the so-called leader of the free world is such a liar that we can hardly believe a word that proceeds out of his mouth. We have to question his motives at every turn,we have to doubt his intentions and consider the semantics of ...

While our president sends our military forces into battle in Yugoslavia,in what he claims is an effort to free the people of Kosovo from oppression, we sit and wonder how much of this fight is an honest attempt at humanity and how much is the 'wag the dog' theory. It is a sorry state of affairs when the so-called leader of the free world is such a liar that we can hardly believe a word that proceeds out of his mouth. We have to question his motives at every turn,we have to doubt his intentions and consider the semantics of ...

Republicans Crush Dems 17-1 By LIBBY QUAID Associated Press Writer BOWIE, Md., (AP) -- Democrats gave up eight unearned runs in the top of the first inning, enabling their Republican colleagues to take home a 17-1 blowout Thursday night in the annual baseball game among members of Congress. GOP pitcher Steve Largent struck out eight batters for his fourth win and the 25th victory for Republicans in the 38 years of partisan play. ``This was the biggest margin, but it wasn't the most exciting,'' Largent, a former wide receiver for the Seattle Seahawks and now an Oklahoma congressman, said as ...

Bush on Abortion: More Bad News Governor Bush continues to make it clear that as a candidate for the Republican Party nomination he intends to move away from a pro-life position. He started nearly two weeks ago by refusing to commit to appointing only pro-life judges to the federal courts saying that he had "no litmus test." Then Bush, who claims to be a strict constructionist on the Constitution, refused to state whether he believed that Roe v. Wade-one of the worst cases of judicial activism-was incorrectly decided. Yesterday, the other shoe dropped when the governor refused to commit to ...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU, JUNE 24, 1999 20:59:22 ET XXXXX FREAK: RARE CLOUD -- WITH POSSIBLE WARNING -- SEEN OVER COLORADO High-flying clouds of ice crystals were spotted in the sky over Colorado Tuesday night, the first time they've been seen this close to the equator. The cloud clusters are common closer to both poles of the Earth during the summer. They had never been spotted in the U.S. south of North Dakota. "This could be a signal that something is happening to our upper atmosphere," Gary Thomas, a professor at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and ...