Free Republic

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker used an Israeli businessman to evade American sanctions in Iraq while collecting a debt from Saddam Hussein. According to a report by WorldNet Daily reporter Aaron Klein, Baker hired Nir Gouaz, president of Caesar Global Securities in Israel, to collect a debt from the Hussein regime in 1998. Baker is a senior partner at the Houston-based law firm, Baker Botts, which made some $30 million in fees from the deal which the Israeli businessman mediated. Gouaz said the Iraqi regime owed some $1.65 billion to the Korean Hyundai Engineering firm for a series...

IRBIL, Iraq -- The Iraq Study Group's recommendations will accomplish nothing in Iraq. Its expressions of "gratitude" to those of us Iraqis who fought on the battlefield for freedom and liberty ring hollow. The report ignores our accomplishments, dreams and sacrifices in favor of a concern for those whose ultimate goal is the destruction of democracy. Our federal constitution, which the majority of the Iraqi people voted for, is treated flippantly, as though it were a negotiable document rather than the hard-fought result of lengthy negotiation among those willing to participate in the new Iraq. Further, the study group's approach...

NYYRC December Political Forum Thursday, December 14 Time: 7:30pm - 9:30pm Location: The Grand Hyatt New York, 109 East 42nd Street, in the Alvin Room, which is located on the Conference level Our Guest Speaker: Max Boot Max Boot is a Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is also a weekly foreign-affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, and a regular contributor to The New York Times, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications. The award-winning author and former editorial page...

A collapse of the Iraqi state would be catastrophic -- for the people of Iraq, for the Middle East and for America's strategic interests. We need a new political and military approach to head off this impending disaster -- one crafted with bipartisan congressional support. But Baker-Hamilton isn't it. Our objective should be a large-scale U.S. military withdrawal within the next 36 months, leaving in place an Iraqi government in a stable and mostly peaceful country that does not threaten its six neighboring states and does not intend to possess weapons of mass destruction. The courage and skill of the...

While the White House remains wary of the proposal to talk with Iran, Tehran sources tell TIME that the regime believes such talks are in the country's best interest...

According to leading Islamists, the Iraq Study Group’s (ISG) recommendation for a Jewish withdrawal from Palestine, an American surrender in Iraq, and acquiescence in Iranian and Syrian hegemony in the region provides a blueprint for the final push toward Mohammed’s dream of universal Islam. “A small group of mujahedeen has brought the so-called superpower to its knees,” said bin Laden lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahiri. “It should be clear that Allah is supreme. The unbelievers can surrender peacefully, as the Iraq Study Group advises. Or they can die painfully as we sever their heads from their bodies.” Abu Nasser, of the...

"THE MONKEES THEME" GET THE MUSIC HERE -- http://www.olsoncomputers.com/prime/MIDIs/Alphabetical/m/ -- (scroll down to monkees-da.mid) There they are...all over D.C. They had been the co-chairmen of the ISG The new Surrender Monkeys...Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton About what they have written, the mocking has just begun All the Islamofascists...have liked what they've read Some are still not believing that they want us dead The new Surrender Monkeys...Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton About what they have written, the mocking has just begun The new Surrender Monkeys...Baker and Hamilton About what they have written, the mocking has only begun From his grave,...

Next week, the Baker-Hamilton Commission will make its recommendations on U.S. Iraq policy, and Congress will begin hearings on defense secretary nominee and Cold War realist Robert Gates. Both events will reflect the failings of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. But even as a grudging acceptance of reality takes hold in Washington, the architects of the war are urging that we double down on the losing bet in Iraq. Amid spiraling sectarian violence, the leading advocates of invading Iraq seem now to have centered on an explanation for how their idea has driven that country to blood-soaked disaster: deposing...

'Today' continued this morning its campaign of promoting the Baker-Hamilton recommendations. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell left little doubt as to her inclinations with this mini-editorial in the guise of a report:"Americans might well be asking today after all the high-profile summits this week on two continents 'is the administration any closer now to an exit strategy for Iraq?'"Noting that "time is running out and options limited," Mitchell wanted to know whether President Bush is "ready to change policy before events overtake him?" She then launched into a description of the policy changes to be proposed by the Baker-Hamilton...

The Baker/Hamilton Commission has a chance to dramatically reshape our thinking about American foreign policy, if only it will ask the right question. They should follow the guidance of one of the last century's most brilliant thinkers, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein asks an apparently straightforward question: what do all games have in common? He ties himself in mental knots trying to get the answer, but nothing works. Finally he realizes that the question was posed wrongly. It should have been: Is there anything all games have in common? That's the real question (and the real answer is...