Free Republic

Reporters on Wednesday pressed the Biden administration on intelligence suggesting that Russia was eyeing Wednesday to attack Ukraine as the day drew to a close in Kyiv without any signs of an incursion. Recent reports pointed to Feb. 16 as the day Russian forces would likely launch an incursion into Ukraine, but instead the tense military and geopolitical standoff continued. NBC News’s Kristen Welker asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the intelligence at Wednesday’s briefing. “What do you make of the fact that at this point — it is now darkness in that region — there hasn't been...

Today at 3 pm, one of the thirteen service members tragically killed in Afghanistan will be traveling through Fairfax County. A police motorcade will escort the hearse with two helicopters above. Anyone who wishes to show their respect is asked to be present on the overpasses along the route: I66E to 495S

As the Taliban reconquers Afghanistan, producing bloody scenes of reprisals and desperate attempts to get on some of the last planes out of the country, the blame game is operating at full tilt. Who’s responsible for all this? It can’t be America’s fault writ large—a colossal tale of imperial hubris and corruption that left an already war-wracked Afghanistan in shambles while our homeland slipped further into disrepair and authoritarianism. No, that would imply that America is not exceptional; that all of us have some penance to perform for what’s been wrought in our name. Another enemy is needed. For the...

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban captured two major Afghan cities, the country’s second- and third-largest after Kabul, and a strategic provincial capital on Thursday, further squeezing the embattled government just weeks before the end of the American military mission there. The seizure of Kandahar and Herat marks the biggest prizes yet for the Taliban, who have taken 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals as part of a weeklong blitz.