Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2006 – The Defense Department unveiled the Quadrennial Defense Review today, charting the way ahead for the next 20 years as it confronts current and future challenges and continues its transformation for the 21st century. The 92-page report, sent to Congress beginning today, represents "a common vision of where we need to go and what we need to do," Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary for policy, told Pentagon reporters today. The report was driven, managed and authored by senior leaders throughout the department, from Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Amid tight security and a sea of green and yellow flags, Palestinians turned out in large numbers Wednesday for their first parliamentary election in a decade — a historic vote integrating Islamic militants into politics and determining the future of peacemaking with Israel. One exit poll suggested the ruling Fatah Party had likely won the most votes, with the Islamic militant group Hamas a close second, according to an exit poll conducted by the West Bank's An Najah University. A pollster who spoke on condition of anonymity because the results were to be officially announced...

Today, President Bush Addressed Members Of The Veterans Of Foreign Wars On Progress On Our Strategy For Victory In Iraq. The President discussed the political, security, and economic elements of the strategy for victory in the central front of the War on Terror, what has been achieved, the challenges faced at the start of 2006, and what the American people can expect to see in the year ahead. The Political Component Of Victory In Iraq: In The Past 12 Months, Iraq Has Undergone A Political Transformation That Is Virtually Without Precedent. Iraqis have completed three successful nationwide elections, voted for...

The recipe for success: get happy and you will get ahead in life · Feeling good 'is cause, not effect, of achievement' · Same principle applies to nations, academics claim Kate Ravilious Monday December 19, 2005 The Guardian (UK) Happiness, rather than working hard, is the key to success, according to research published today. Cheerful people are more likely to try new things and challenge themselves, which reinforces positive emotion and leads to success in work, good relationships and strong health, say psychologists. The findings suggest that happiness is not a "feel good" luxury, but is essential to people's well...

Iraq Closing Borders Ahead of Election By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago Iraqi soldiers hold election campaign posters for the Iraqi National list carrying pictures of the head of the list, Shiite secular leader and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi while receiving released prisoners in Baghdad, Iraq Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005. Voting begins Monday in hospitals, military camps and even prisons across Iraq, launching the process to choose a new parliament that the United States hopes can help quell the insurgency so U.S. forces can begin heading home. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) BAGHDAD, Iraq - Voting begins Monday...

Two senior Army analysts who in 2003 accurately foretold the turmoil that would be unleashed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq offer a bleak assessment in a new study of what now lies ahead in that bloodied land. They advise, however, against setting a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal - unless Washington finds the situation "irredeemable." A timetable "is an excuse for allowing the system to collapse," the Army War College's W. Andrew Terrill and Conrad C. Crane write. Political pressure is building in Washington for a concrete plan to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq. On Tuesday, on the eve...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issued a stern warning Saturday about the continuing U.S. role in Iraq, saying "there are no good options at this point and the worst days may be ahead of us." Albright, secretary of state under President Clinton, said the March 2003 invasion of Iraq has led to a series of misfortunes that should have been anticipated. "Instead of winning friends for America, it has poisoned our relations with many countries in the Mideast and the Muslim world," Albright told a conference on the role of citizens in shaping the...

WEAPONS designed to fire "electric bullets" into crowds are being developed for police and border protection agencies in the US. The Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, the domestic equivalent of the defence agency DARPA, has launched an "innovative less-lethal devices for law enforcement" programme to radically expand the capabilities of electric shock weapons. Existing stun weapons, such as the Taser, typically fire a pair of darts trailing current-carrying wires to shock the target, with a maximum range of about 7 metres. The HSARPA programme aims to develop wireless weapons that can be used over greater distances in spaces such...

WASHINGTON – For very different reasons, Republicans and liberal Democrats found themselves together last week protesting Hillary Rodham Clinton's effort to stake out ground in the political center. But the New York senator holds such a dominant position in the jockeying for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination – even 2½ years before the first caucus – that she has been able to brush off the early attacks from both her right and left. When Clinton appeared in Columbus at the annual meeting of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett hurried to the scene to make sure...

Seventeenth-century Islamic brassmakers were far ahead of European peers, engineers sayContact: Kurt Pfitzer kap4@lehigh.edu 610-758-3017 Lehigh University Archaeometallurgists announce findings after four-year study of astrolabes Manufacturers of brass astrolabes in 17th-century India were two centuries more advanced than their European peers, says a doctoral student at Lehigh University who just completed a four-year study of astrolabes. Brian Newbury, who earned a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering in May, said the high zinc content in astrolabes fabricated in Lahore (now in Pakistan) proves that brass made there in the early 1600s was produced by a co-melting technique that was not...

The national defense budget could be cut by nearly a quarter and still leave the United States military in shape to take on all likely threats and fulfill its role in the war on terrorism, says Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. Furthermore, the United States is outspending the rest of the world at an astounding rate. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in 2003: Total U.S. defense expenditures were $404.9 billion, an amount exceeding the combined defense expenditures of the next 13 countries and more than double the combined defense spending...

U.S. Forces Conduct Raids in Mosul Sun Jan 16,11:48 AM ET By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces carried out a series of raids in Iraq's troubled northern city of Mosul, the military said Sunday, as American and Iraqi authorities scramble to prepare for elections there in the face of mass resignations of polling staff and police. A Bradley Fighting Vehicle was damaged Sunday in the city when an explosion occurred as a U.S. convoy passed by, witnesses said. It was unclear whether there were casualties. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged that the security...

Specter to Lead Key Panel as Industry Ally Hatch Steps Down In the final few weeks before the 2004 election, lobbyists for high-tech, entertainment and civil liberties interests were crammed into an icy room in the Dirksen Senate office building, trying to hammer out a bill that would have put Internet song-swapping networks like Kazaa and eDonkey out of business. It was a controversial measure on a difficult topic, and could have easily been lost in the end-of-year shuffle. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) was the lead sponsor of the measure and had ordered the warring...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

WASHINGTON (CSM) - For George W. Bush, the defining issue of this campaign is the war on terror. For John Kerry, the most important foreign-policy issue is nuclear nonproliferation and access to weapons of mass destruction. In both cases, these are issues closely linked to events and developments in a broad crescent of Islamic countries stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. It means that whoever wins the presidency, America's relations with the Muslim world are going to sit high on the agenda. The Bush administration receives good marks from many officials and experts both in the United States and overseas for...

Why isn't Kerry way ahead? Most liberals think those stupid heartland voters just don't get it By VIN SUPRYNOWICZ REVIEW-JOURNAL Sunday, October 24, 2004 I was reminded why I usually don't bother with the canned PBS "Washington Week" program when I accidentally tuned it in last Sunday. (OK, I found it shamefully riveting -- like slowing down to inspect the carnage of a traffic accident.) In an attempt to assemble an even-handed panel to discuss how George Bush and John Kerry did in the debates, host Gwen Ifill and her tax-funded PBS producers assembled four folks, one each from The...

With the presidential election only 13 days away, Eyewitness News 4 and SurveyUSA asked some of you whom you'll vote for on November 2. You told our pollsters at SurveyUSA that, if the election for President were today, George Bush would defeat John Kerry by an 11% margin here in Arizona. Our exclusive, scientific poll shows Bush's lead dropped 3 percentage points in the past 2 weeks. Still, Pollster Joe Shipman says Bush has maintained a double-digit lead in Arizona since July. As you might expect, Republicans like the numbers. Democrats don't. Sue Walitsky, Arizona Communication Director for the Kerry-Edwards...

Bush ahead in swing states, will defeat Kerry: Karl Rove Thu Sep 23, 1:03 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will defeat his Democratic rival, John Kerry, in the November 2 election because he is leading in the polls in the key US swing states, the president's top political adviser said in an interview. Karl Rove, who has a Machiavellian reputation as a political mastermind, said in an interview with The Washington Times that many states "that were expected to be in close contention are floating out of contention" and into Bush's camp. With the US...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fifty days out from the US presidential election, the rhetoric is becoming nastier between George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites), as the US president's lead appears to be solidifying. Kerry slammed Bush's campaign tactics, saying he "will say anything and do anything to get elected and hold on to power" in an interview in the Monday edition of Time magazine. Kerry was especially angered over a barrage of television ads aimed at discrediting his Vietnam War service, which are widely credited with the downward slide in his polling numbers. "I think...

Euphoria today, but difficulties lie ahead By Phil Reeves 15 December 2003 It was a euphoric day, and rightly so. But for all the celebrations, it does not change the hard fact that many political obstacles still lie ahead. Chief among them is the task of creating a transitional Iraqi government which will allow President George Bush formally to declare an end to the US occupation while keeping some US troops in Iraq, their presence ensured by an agreement with the new US-sponsored administration. The Americans and their allies have set a target date of 1 July for a handover...