Free Republic

He is an enemy combatant, so treat him as one. An Iran-backed Hezbollah commander who killed American soldiers in cold blood has been in U.S. custody for four years. Most Americans would see this as a good thing. For the Obama administration, it is a vexing dilemma. This highlights, yet again, why the country can’t afford a second Obama administration. Ali Mussa Daqduq has been a Hezbollah operative for almost 30 years. He is the hardcore. When he joined back in 1983, the “Party of God” (hizb Allah) was just getting its start as Iran’s forward militia in Lebanon, announcing...

Abstract: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il's faltering health has raised concerns about regime stability. Succession rumors have been swirling for years, with Kim's third son, Jong-eun, currently rumored to be Kim's favored choice. But regardless of whether leadership stays in the family or is wrested away by a challenger, a new North Korean leader is likely to keep in place the same belligerent policies--toward South Korea, toward China and Japan, and toward the U.S. If succession does not go smoothly, and if the North Korean regime were to collapse, the ensuing chaos would require immediate action by the U.S. and...

BEIRUT: Salam Hassoun is thrilled by the new flat Hizbullah has built for her to replace the one Israeli bombs destroyed during the 2006 summer war. The war ravaged Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hizbullah stronghold that includes the teeming neighborhood of Haret Hreik, where a mammoth Hizbullah-orchestrated reconstruction drive is under way. The deafening explosions of Israeli bombs have been replaced by the grinding cacophony of earth-movers and cement mixers contracted to rebuild 241 of the 282 buildings destroyed in the bombing. The project, dubbed Waad (pledge in Arabic), has won the heart of Hassoun but has also raised a...

April 03, 2009, 2:00 p.m. Imperial Judiciary Goes GlobalBy the Editors In 2004, the Supreme Court sowed the seeds for a national-security upheaval when it ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that war prisoners held outside the United States had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the justices continued the seismic shift, holding that the right they had invented in Rasul — a right extended to aliens whose only connection to the United States is in waging war against it — was somehow rooted in our Constitution. Thursday, the inevitable earthquake...

SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON: The family of an Algerian national held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo for seven years is delighted he is due to arrive in France next week to start a new life. Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, would be the first non-French citizen from Guantanamo to be taken in by France since President Barack Obama pledged to shut down the prison camp when he took office in January. “I cannot hide the fact I am really happy. Soon, he is going to be freed,” his wife Abassia Bouadjimi told AFP Wednesday from Algeria. “He really is keen to be...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

It looks like Lauria [Fmr. Attny. for Perrella Weinberg in the Chrysler debacle]is feeling the heat from the WH apparatchiks.

French minister in 'boy sex' row Frederic Mitterrand has rejected criticism from the far right France's Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand is facing intense pressure over a book he wrote that described paying for "young boys" in Thailand. The book was written four years ago, before he joined the government, but is back in the headlines following his impassioned support for Roman Polanski. Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on child sex charges. Mr Mitterrand, nephew of late President Francois Mitterrand, is expected to defend himself on TV later on Thursday. Mr Mitterrand has come under attack from right and left....

Mideast: Iran's electoral board eliminated all moderates this week, leaving just eight hand-picked candidates for June 14's clearly rigged election. Two are 9/11-style terrorists and all are hard-liners. The nuclear trigger is next. If you were disheartened by the results of Iran's 2009 election, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "won" a second term amid widespread allegations of fraud and a futile millions-strong "Green Revolution" uprising in protest, the outcome of the next presidential vote looks to be even worse.

a prominent FBI official, Charles McGonigal, was sentenced to a prison stint. He was convicted of conspiracy and bribery involving a Russian oligarch who is known for being an extremely close associate of Vladamir Putin. While this is being widely reported on today there is a very notable omission seen from the various major news outlets covering this sentencing. To set the stage correctly we need to flash back briefly over what we have been told over the past seven or so years. With the rise of Donald Trump in Republican circles, one of the earliest complaints leveled against him...

For decades, the Iranian government has avoided judicial accountability as the No. 1 nation-state sponsor of international terrorism. This will end on November 27, 2020 in Antwerp, when Belgium’s criminal court commences proceedings against senior Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi. In June 2018, as third secretary in the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, Assadi delivered over half a kilo of Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP) to Iranian sleeper agents in Luxembourg. TATP is a high explosive used in bombs, suicide attacks, and improvised explosive devices.The target was a major international gathering near Paris, in support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)....

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- New York businessman and prominent Democratic fund- raiser Hassan Nemazee was indicted Monday for allegedly defrauding three banks out of $292 million in loans. Nemazee, 59 years old, was charged with aggravated identity theft and three counts of bank fraud in the indictment. Each bank fraud count carries a term of up to 30 years in prison. A lawyer for Nemazee didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Nemazee, who was involved in various presidential campaigns and once served as finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was initially charged criminally in August related...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank: Venezuelan flags and portraits of President Hugo Chavez have been flying high during protests in the West Bank against Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. The Venezuelan president’s decision on January 6 to expel Israel’s ambassador from Caracas – the only country apart from Mauritania to take such a step – has made the left-wing South American leader a hero to Palestinians. Hamas has welcomed Chavez’s “courageous decision,” while Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, urged Arab states to follow the Venezuelan president’s example. Chavez on Saturday accused Israel of being the “murder arm” of the...

IRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania's main opposition Democratic Party made a criminal complaint against Prime Minister Edi Rama Monday, accusing him of illegally funneling $80,000 to U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign in 2012 in return for a photograph of the two men together. The Democrats brought the case to the Prosecutor General's office, saying Rama — who was then the opposition leader — paid the money in violation of U.S. and Albanian laws to gain access to a campaign event in San Francisco in October 2012. Last week Bilal Shehu, 48, a U.S. citizen of Albanian origin, pleaded guilty...

Iran Threatens to Flood Gaza With 'Millions' of Iranian Fighters Head of Iranian government's Basij paramilitary force claims 'millions' of volunteers have applied to fight in Gaza and Syria. By Mark Langfan First Publish: 11/19/2014, 2:14 PM Reuters The head of Iran's Basij paramilitary force has claimed it is raising an army of "millions" to flood Gaza and Syria to support Tehran's allies. Fars, Iran’s semi-official newspaper, reported that that Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Commander the Basij paramilitary force, as saying: "Millions of Basijis (volunteer forces) are ready in Iran to be dispatched to Syria and Gaza and they...

A retired US Navy SEAL has interrupted a live television interview about Donald Trump and the war in Iran to call for the release of Australia's most decorated soldier, who was arrested over alleged war crimes. Ben Roberts-Smith, 47, will face court on Wednesday after being charged with two counts of the war crime of murder and three counts of aiding or abetting the same charge. The maximum penalty for the charges is life imprisonment. The Victoria Cross recipient, who spent the night in custody, is accused of murdering unarmed civilians while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, as...

One of Australia's most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested and is expected to be charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.The Victoria Cross recipient was arrested at Sydney Airport's domestic terminal after a flight from Brisbane this morning.The former special forces soldier's arrest comes after a mammoth defamation trial against Nine Newspapers that in 2023 ended in a court finding that on the balance of probabilities, allegations he was responsible for, or complicit in the deaths of four detainees in Afghanistan were substantially true.There have been no findings of guilt against Mr Roberts-Smith to a...

Both CNN and the Washington Post reported yesterday that the Iranian regime is plotting to kill President Trump. Jewish World Review has posted the Washington Post story in accessible form here. Intelligence concerning the plot derives from a human source and is apparently unrelated to the attempted assassination of Trump over the weekend.NRO’s Jimmy Quinn quotes Rich Goldberg’s tweet on the rationale for such an operation: “Donald Trump is an existential threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The regime knows maximum pressure will return.”The incompetence of the Secret Service presents something of a national security crisis. The Post drily...

Philosophers and poets have argued for at least three millennia about who is more valuable. Poets claim they tell tales that inspire men to do things they would otherwise never accomplish. But philosophers argue that this requires the acceptance of obvious fantasies, thus leading men away from the truth. Judging by what Attorney General Eric Holder has been asking Congress and the American people to believe regarding what and when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious, we think he is telling tales that lead away from the truth. Fast and Furious is the Justice Department program that allowed thousands...

Lockerbie bomber: Lord Mandelson faces new questions over Libya links Lord Mandelson faced fresh questions over his links to Libya last night following the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber. By Andrew Alderson, Patrick Hennessy and Colin Freeman 22 Aug 2009 The Business Secretary denied that the Government had done a deal to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, who was convicted of the 1988 terrorist atrocity that claimed 270 lives. However, his claims were contradicted by Saif Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, in a conversation with Megrahi as the pair flew home from Glasgow. In a transcript...