Free Republic

A UN report concludes that the Israeli/Egyptian blockade of Gaza, and similar restrictions in the West Bank, has reduced Palestinian GDP by 30 percent and caused an unemployment rate of over 30 percent. While the blockade has been eased considerably in the West Bank, because the Palestinian government there has helped contain Palestinian terror groups, such is not the case in Gaza, where numerous terror groups continue to try, and occasionally succeed, making attacks on Israel and Egypt. While the UN calls for lifting the blockade, the UN offers no guarantee that the Palestinian terrorist attacks will stop. Thus Israel...

I've been listening to Glenn Beck a lot lately and tend to agree that we are going to have to take Iran out pretty soon. I also agree that war is exactly what those nut-jobs want from us. I completely disagree with Beck's blending his take on end-times prophesy with geo-politics because that is exactly what Mahmoud is doing, and frankly, it is just nuts. Jesus is going to come back whenever He does. There is nothing we can do to affect this either way. The purpose of my vanity is to express my fear that W will try to...

IRAQ'S Saddam Hussein is no more than three years away from developing a usable nuclear weapon, according to the latest assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency in the US. Details of the assessment, obtained by The Australian show the CIA believes Mr Hussein has been able to continue to acquire fissile material in sufficient quantities to build at least several such weapons within two to three years. The CIA believes Iraq has also continued developing its missile program. Nuclear weapons deliverable by missiles would be a deadly risk to all Iraq's neighbours, especially Israel, Kuwait and possibly Saudi Arabia. Israel...