Free Republic

We all know we are fighting an enemy which Pres. Bush dubbed the “Axis of Evil.” But there is another enemy. It is the blending of reality with fantasy, truth with falsehood. Of course this is nothing new but it seems to be climbing to new heights in the ongoing media blitz of the political campaign to again place a democrat in the highest office in the land. For instance, the phrase the media immediately grabbed onto from the whole 9/11 Commission’s report: “Lack of Imagination.” This is the reason 9/11 happened? If this were true, we should have artists...

Foreign policy was expected to be at the center of this year's duel between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. Kerry, in accepting the Democratic nomination on Thursday, raised expectations by admitting that America was "a nation at war." Nevertheless, Kerry's speech of more that 5,200 words devoted only around 500 words to foreign-policy in general and the war against terrorism in particular. Even then, Kerry used those words for sloganeering. Kerry's speech revealed a man who, though vaguely conscious that the world has changed, prefers to assume that it has not. "The world tonight is very different from the...

Al Felsen, left, who served most of World War II as a prisoner of war, talks on Friday about his experiences with George Timmons and Brig. Gen. Warner Sumpter. Sumpter presented Felsen with a Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal and the Philippines Defense Medal. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review)FORT HUACHUCA - For more than three years in the 1940s, Al Felsen suffered under the brutality of Japanese guards in a number of camps after he was captured in the Philippines. Felsen has been trying for years to receive a Purple Heart Medal for the wounds he received while a prisoner of war....

Listen to Michael Bowman's report (RealAudio) Bowman report - Download 278k (RealAudio)   Condoleezza Rice The United States is blasting Iran's decision to resume constructing machinery designed to enrich uranium, a process that can be used to generate weapons-grade nuclear material. White House spokesman Scott McClellan says Iran's decision to resume building centrifuges can only heighten international concerns about its nuclear program. Speaking with reporters en route to a NATO summit in Turkey, Mr. McClellan said Iran's failure to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency and to stop all enrichment-related reprocessing activities reinforces U.S. concern.For the Bush administration, those...

Dear Maariv Newspaper Editor, Please Publish... The following is a translation of a letter written in the Online Forum of one of Israel's major newspapers, Maariv, by a female reader named  Rachel. The letter was in response to the major online headline about The Bodies of the Six Soldiers that had died in a Gaza security offensive and how their remains had been defiled by the Palestinian terror groups. See: Palestinians Parade Israeli Soldiers’ Remains (DEBKAfile) (05/11/04) http://www.debka.com/article_print.php?aid=843 This letter  may be one of the most popular letters ever written in this widely read forum receiving unanimous and unequivocal...

Dozens of internal United Nations audits of the troubled oil-for-food program in Iraq were routinely shown only to the U.N. official now at the center of an international scandal over kickbacks from the regime of Saddam Hussein, a congressional investigator said yesterday. Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, told a House hearing that U.N. auditors had refused to release the internal audits to GAO investigators probing the scandal that poured an estimated $10.1 billion from secret oil sales and inflated contracts into Saddam's coffers under the U.N. program. "We sure asked for...

<p>In the last few weeks, CNN has suffered a series of embarrassing incidents calling into question its news judgment and ability to meet the most basic standards of fairness in reporting on Israel. CNN boss Ted Turner made the following statement about the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "I would make the case that both sides are engaged in terrorism," he told the Guardian newspaper. Although Mr. Turner subsequently apologized for suggesting that Israel was behaving this way, the damage had been done.</p>

The main mantra of the Democrats heading into the 2004 Presidential Election is that the United States is “going it alone” in Iraq. The claim is that we would be better off if our effort were “multinational,” which means giving a veto power to national “friends” like the French. But a brief look at the history of World War II demonstrates that this claim is false. This is one more instance when I want to jump through the TV screen, grab the reporters by the throat and demand of them, “Don’t you know where to find a library? Can’t you...

<p>A blogger on the official John Kerry campaign Web site has offered a telling insight into the Kerry campaign in her account (since removed) of a December campaign party.</p> <p>"We had 200 guests eating, drinking, and watching the MoveOn documentary 'Uncovered,' featuring Joseph Wilson and Rand Beers from the Kerry campaign," wrote blogger Pamela Leavey, describing a Kerry event that did not include Mr. Kerry himself. "When Theresa Heinz-Kerry arrived, she handed me a pin that read in the center: 'Asses of Evil' with 'Bush,' 'Cheney,' 'Rumsfeld,' and 'Ashcroft' surrounding it."</p>

NEUSCHWABENLAND: The Lost Colony Seal of the German Antarctica Expedition     There have always been tales floating around that the Germans were involved in some kind of plot to claim Antarctica as a territory, or at least use it for some kind of research or base for military operations. Little is known of these strange expeditions, but they did in fact take place. Available information is scanty, so if you know anything about this or other subjects on this site, please see the Contributors Wanted page.     The very first German Antarctic expedition was carried out in 1873, under Sir...

Many of the Axis of Weasel nations (e.g., France, Germany, China, Russia) have agreed to forgive Iraq's enormous $120 billion mountain of foreign debt. But wait, according to talking heads like Madeleine K. Albright, we've alienated all these dear "friends:" The White House has acted as if it doesn't care what others think, and the country is paying the price for its mistake. Read Madeleine's essay, if you have the stomach for it. She points out that some opinion polls show dropping support for the U.S. in nations like Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey. All's I...

'Dear Leader' [KIM JONG IL] Blusters in Saddam's wake By RICHARD HALLORAN FOR THE STRAITS TIMES INTELLIGENCE agencies from Seoul to Singapore would pay dearly for the answer to perhaps the most intriguing question in Asia arising from the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq: What does the 'Dear Leader' of North Korea, Mr Kim Jong Il, like Saddam a charter member of United States President George W. Bush's 'axis of evil', think of this turn of events?The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), through which the hermit kingdom communicates with the rest of the world, was defiant several days...

Poor Baby Axis of WeaselBarred from Iraq Contracts By Andrew L. Jaffee, December 10, 2003 Home   Search   Forum   Terms The U.S. today barred Axis of Weasel countries (like Russia, Canada, France, and Germany) from bidding on $18.6 billion in contracts for rebuilding Iraq. These countries all opposed the U.S.-led coalition's liberation of Iraq. It seems only reasonable for U.S. taxpayer money to be spent on countries that support the U.S. in bringing democracy to the Middle East. French, Canadian, Russian, and German soldiers aren't being killed in Iraq now. Remember how vociferously these countries defended Saddam? Why should they be rewarded for...

Silicone breast implants (SBIs) are back. A Food and Drug Administration committee recommended last week that the implants be available to women who want them. The real story, though, may be the stealthy efforts of some personal injury lawyers to prevent FDA approval. Based on new evidence of connections between activists and lawyers, it appears that the lawyers might be surreptitiously using anti-SBI activists to scare the FDA and public about SBIs. The SBI controversy is the poster child of 1990s junk-science fueled tort litigation. That decade saw personal injury lawyers generate about 170,000 plaintiffs, now in the final stages...

BLOODY COST OF PEACE: Jewish activist witnesses horror of terrorism SCOTT FROST , Staff Writer 08/20/2003 Abe Greenhouse will never forget the bloodshed. The Rutgers University student will never get used to the sights he encountered during his one-month peace mission to Israel. He will never get used to the looks on children’s faces at the scene of violent acts generated by social and civil unrest in a tiny land shared by nearly 5 million Jews and 4 million Arabs. Yesterday, however, it was the look on faces of Orthodox Jews praying at the scene of another terrorist attack in...

I have it from Japanese news sources this morning [7/15] (In Japanese from Yomiuri News at the designated URL link here, tomorrow, Asia Time) that the Hankyoreh News' (S. Korea) reporters reached the UN Mission of North Korea in New York City and interviewed one of the leading DPRK representative there, Mr. Han.[The article is in Japanese.] The headline is "Nuclear Weapons Are A Necessity For Us To Prevent An American Attack Upon Our Country".The nuclear blackmail threat was revealed by the North Korean UN representative today in the following context (my "Freepranslation" from the original Japanese language article...

6/12/2003 - BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFPN) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said June 12 that American officials may stop attending NATO meetings in Belgium because of a law that allows "spurious" suits accusing American leaders of war crimes. Rumsfeld said the United States will withhold any further funding for a new NATO headquarters building here until the matter is resolved. He spoke during a press conference following the NATO defense ministerial. The problem stems from Belgium's Universal Competence Law. Under this law, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, U.S. Central Command chief, has been charged with war crimes for his actions in...

WE ALL KNOW what the Axis of Weasels has done. They have bent over backwards to arm, finance and provide diplomatic cover for America’s enemies in the War on Terror. The question is why have they done it? Many theories abound. Some say it’s about money – lucrative corporate contracts and euros-for-oil deals with Middle Eastern despots. Money surely plays a role. Yet the hatred many Europeans harbor toward America appears to transcend greed. Its roots lie deep in the fascist ideology which, in large measure, seems to drive the European Union. With no America to hate, Europeans would have...

Title: "North Korea`s Fear of US Military Capability Conducive to Peaceful Resolution" Dong-A Ilbo Daily Newspaper(Seoul) MAY 16, 2003 21:38 Korean Time (S. Korean) President Roh Moo-hyun May 16 said that, in the wake of the Iraq war, the North Korean leadership is increasingly concerned over the military capacity of the US, and which he think might be conducive to achieving a peaceful resolution of the US-North Korean nuclear standoff. The President made the remark in an interview with the US PBS broadcasting network when host of the TV program Jim Lehrer asked him the question of whether the increased...

WASHINGTON: India's National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra has proposed an alliance between the United States, India and Israel, among other democratic countries, to meet the threat of terrorism.In an address at the American Jewish Community Annual Dinner here on Thursday, Mishra said such an alliance would have the political will and moral authority to take "bold decisions in extreme cases of terrorist provocation" without being distracted by diversionary arguments like "root causes."Preventive measures like blocking financial supplies, disrupting networks, sharing intelligence, simplifying extradition procedures can only be effective through international cooperation based on trust and shared values, he added.The idea...