Free Republic

Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter. Bergdahl on June 20, 2009 crawled underneath a wire at his fire base with water, food, a change of clothes, a knife and a cell phone. He called his unit the day after he deserted to tell his unit he deserted… Bill, we lost 14 soldiers, killed, searching for a deserter. He left his unit in combat. It’s non-arguable… We don’t know yet if he joined the Taliban or not. But, there’s no question he deserted.

The Pentagon on several occasions had ground-level intelligence on where ArmySgt. Bowe Bergdahl was being held captive at various times — down to how many gunmen were guarding him — but special operations commanders repeatedly shelved rescue missions because they didn’t want to risk casualties for a man they believed to be a “deserter,” sources familiar with the mission plans said. Commanders on the ground debated whether to pull the trigger on a rescue several times in recent years, according to one of the sources, a former high-level intelligence official in Afghanistan, who said the conclusion each time was that...

The White House on Tuesday defended its controversial swap of Taliban detainees for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.... Regardless of the circumstances, we still get an American soldier back if he's held in captivity," Obama said. "Period. Full stop."

Clinton allies pressured Dems on Benghazi By: Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer May 21, 2014 08:02 PM EDT Hillary Clinton’s world was so worried about a Republican investigation of the Benghazi attacks, they sent a message to House Democrats: We need backup. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly considered boycotting the panel, an idea that Clinton supporters feared would leave the potential 2016 candidate exposed to the enemy fire of House Republicans. So Clinton emissaries launched a back channel campaign, contacting several House Democratic lawmakers and aides to say they’d prefer Democrats participate, according to sources familiar with the...

Link only. This is a problem with my personal computer, but the link will take you to the story.

Al-Qaeda financier Yasin Kadi has reportedly been making multiple trips to Turkey and meeting with senior government officials there. As Shoebat.com reported in 2012, Kadi is also a founder of Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This is the same institution where Saleha Abedin – the mother of close Hillary Clinton aid Huma Abedin – serves as Vice Dean.Turkey’s support for Islamic terrorism is becoming more obvious as evidenced by the report below. In addition to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s embrace of Hamas leaders, al-Qaeda financier Kadi is apparently in Erdogan’s good graces. One month after the 9/11/01...

Homeland Insecurity: The IRS is diligent to a fault when it comes to vetting conservative groups applying for nonprofit status. But it's out to lunch when vetting employees posing security risks. While the Internal Revenue Service was investigating Tea Party patriots in the run-up to last year's presidential election, it dispensed with basic background checks and hired a convicted Islamist traitor as a high-level official. Mohammad Weiss Rasool, whom the FBI busted last decade for tipping off an al-Qaida terrorist suspect, reportedly now works for the deputy IRS chief financial officer as a financial management analyst, drawing a lucrative salary...

The Kremlin is breaking out in laughter over the response by President Obama and members of his administration to Russia’s moves in the Ukraine, charged former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton in a radio interview Sunday. Stated Bolton: “When you hear President Obama or members of his administration call on outsiders to leave the resolution of the problem of Ukraine to the Ukrainians themselves, they must break out laughing at that in the Kremlin.” “They are never going to sit back and let that happen. And that’s what you see happening right now,” he said. Bolton was speaking on Aaron Klein’s...

SNIPPET: "Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg is among four people who have been arrested on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences, police have said. Mr Begg, 45, who was held by the US authorities for almost three years, was arrested earlier with two other men and a woman in the West Midlands. He was detained on suspicion of attending a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas." SNIPPET: "Mr Begg was arrested in Hall Green in Birmingham. The other people arrested - a 36-year-old man from Shirley, a 44-year-old woman and her son, 20, both from Sparkhill - are being...

VideoPresident Obama says he supports gay college football player Michael Sam. While being interviewed by retired NBA player Charles Barkley, Obama spoke about how other athletes have put their careers on the line in order for others to get ahead. Anthony Mason reports.

Leaders? Where are they? For years the late Col. David H. Hackworth warned about self-serving, porcelain princes in leadership positions not acting as leaders but as political hacks seeking only to enhance their own career. Leadership, at best, is granted lip service but rarely practiced in the rarefied air of the military hierarchy. After all, one public faux pas can be a career ender. If Patton were around today he would have been purged at once from the U.S. Army by its porcelain princes. “Truth is, America’s military has always had plenty of ‘good men.’ What it seems to lack...

The National Park System has a budget of $2.6 billion, much of it raised by concession and attendance fees. Even if it were entirely taxpayer-funded it would represent only .00068 of every federal dollar in our $3.8 trillion budget. Nonetheless, hardball-playing White House strategists have made it the most conspicuous instrument of pain inflicted by the federal shutdown.**snip**Will someone please ask Interior Department Secretary Sally Jewell, the former private executive from Seattle, why she is allowing her department’s most popular agency to play the shutdown goat? Surely the deployment of rangers as scolds and punishers — for the infraction of...

When I first saw this story, I assumed that it almost had to be a hoax. After the previous incidents with veterans and the added expenditures involved in closing open spaces to keep veterans from paying their respects to the Honored Dead one would assume that even a novice politician would move to staunch the bleeding. But instead, it seems that the White House is doubling down, as reported at The Weekly Standard. Via William Jacobson, NBC’s affiliate in Washington, D.C. reports that police ordered tourists and Vietnam war veterans who were visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to leave...

October 5, 2013 Shutdown Theater: Lord Obama Moves Against Florida and the Fish of the Sea If the feds aren't "working," there will be no chartered fishing. Obama is wrecking the Florida fishing industry now. Thursday back in South Florida, a day after limits for the National Institutes of Health made headlines, it was the fear of food drying up and a prohibition on fishing in waters of Florida Bay that took center stage.Charter guides received a message from the National Park Service this week informing them that they are not permitted to take clients fishing in Florida Bay until...

President Barack Obama is once again warning House Republicans that he will not negotiate over a debt-ceiling increase, even as the U.S. government moves closer to its borrowing limit. Obama called Speaker John Boehner Friday night to reiterate his hard-line stance. The Ohio Republican’s office said the president called to say “he wouldn’t negotiate with him on the debt limit.” “Given the long history of using debt limit increases to achieve bipartisan deficit reduction and economic reforms, the speaker was disappointed but told the president that the two chambers of Congress will chart the path ahead,” a Boehner aide said...

A controversial Homeland Security advisor who was recently promoted to senior fellow is a self-declared Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi supporter. Mohamed Elibiary, who was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council by then-Secretary Janet Napolitano in 2010, tweeted Thursday that his appointment was renewed and his position elevated: Mohamed Elibiary @MohamedElibiary I'm honored to be reappointed to Secretary's Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) and promoted to Sr. Fellow position @DHSgov #Service 12:38 PM - 12 Sep 2013 Elibiary’s tenure on the advisory council created controversy almost from the start. About a year after his appointment, PJ...

President Obama demanded Saturday that Syria take “concrete actions” proving it will surrender its chemical weapons as American and Russian negotiators moved closer to an agreement. “If the current discussions produce a serious plan, I’m prepared to move forward with it,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “But we are not just going to take Russia and Assad’s word for it. We need to see concrete actions to demonstrate that Assad is serious about giving up his chemical weapons.” Just to be sure, he said he would keep American destroyers and other forces in the region...

Last week Stratfor noted that Obama's Bluff would be interpreted as showing "our weakness" by the Russians and Iran...This week we see that Obama's Folly has been driven by the likes of Samantha Powell UN Ambassador who was too busy attending her husbands talk at an IRISH COMEDY FILM FESTIVAL to return to the UN debate on SYRIA...This is the way Obama plays politics....Having dumb women in National Security for political purposes is finally having the effect it deserved.. Before the House Votes on Syria it should demand all the data and info it asked for benghazi, the IRS, and...

New documents obtained through the federal Freedom of Information Act about Anwar al-Awlaki reveal that his banking activity and other links to several 9/11 hijackers were known to the FBI weeks before he was invited to lunch at the Pentagon during an “outreach” to Muslims. The documentation was obtained by Judicial Watch, the government watchdog agency that investigates and reports on government corruption. “The more we learn about Anwar al-Awlaki, the more questions arise not only about his activities before and after 9/11, but also about the al-Qaida operational and support network still active in the United States,” said Judicial...