Free Republic

In the heart of the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, a city over 5,000 years old lay dormant beneath the sands. Thanks to excavations led by an international team, this ancient city is about to be reborn in the light of the present. Led for over ten years by Italian archaeologist Gabriele Rossi Osmida, this research has revealed the existence of a mysterious culture: the Oasis Civilization. These cities, spread along an ancient trade route between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, bear witness to a refined and organized people, connected to the other great cultures of the time: Mesopotamia, Elam, and the Indus...

Archeologist says Central Asia was cradle of ancient Persian religion Fri Mar 18, 6:24 PM ET Science - AFP ATHENS (AFP) - The mysterious Margianan civilisation which flowered in the desert of what is now Turkmenistan some 4,000 years ago was the cradle of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, Greco-Russian archeologist Victor Sarigiannidis claimed here. He said the theory would provoke controversy amongst his fellow archeologists, but said his excavations around the site of Gonur Tepe have uncovered temples and evidence of sacrifices that would consistent with a Zoroastrian cult. The religion was founded by Zarathustra, a Persian prophet...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - President Bush continued on Sunday to defend both the legality and the necessity of the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, and he denied that he misled the public last year when he insisted that any government wiretap required a court order. "I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking, and that's what we're doing," Mr. Bush told reporters in San Antonio as he visited wounded soldiers at the Brooke Army Medical Center. "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again if they can," he said. "And we're going to...

"This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America, and I repeat limited," Bush said before flying back to Washington... "If someone from al-Queada is calling you, we'd like to know why."