Free Republic

A US-born man pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping to train fellow Al-Qaeda agents to carry out bombings in Europe and the United States, after a five-year global investigation, officials said. The targets included European tourist resorts frequented by Americans, as well as US military bases, embassies and consular offices in Europe. "Today's guilty plea brings an end to the long, dangerous career of Christopher Paul, an Ohio native who joined Al-Qaeda in the early 1990s, fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia and conspired with others to target Americans both at home and abroad," said Acting Assistant US Attorney General Patrick Rowan....

Loyalty to Self Over Country by Frank Salvato, Managing Editor Like it or not, the reality is that we live in an extremely self-centered society. If you take issue with this statement just watch how pedestrians enter into crosswalks during rush hour. Ignoring that pedestrians only have the right of way when they are within the crosswalk, today’s bipeds don’t hesitate at all to walk directly in front of moving vehicles, expecting to be protected from trauma by their imagined “right” to occupy a space versus a 4,000lbs vehicle. While this example illustrates how being self-centered – or arrogant...or vacuous...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- When the police got a tip that Bonner Elementary was being hit for the second time in a week, they rushed three squad cars to the school. As they were cordoning off the grounds, the burglars emerged — dashing out a front door and across a field. Norm Kenaiou, a veteran cop, caught one burglar struggling to hop a chain-link fence. The shock came when he spun his suspect around and saw two, doe-like eyes blinking back at him: the eyes of a terrified, 8-year-old girl. Should he read the child her Miranda rights? Handcuff her?...

McCurry doubts Clinton's fitness for office Mike McCurry: "Flabbergasted that he could be so reckless" The former White House press spokesman, Mike McCurry, says he has "enormous doubts" about President Bill Clinton's fitness for office. Mr McCurry told the BBC's Newsnight programme President Clinton's behaviour was "surely reckless" and "contrary to the way you would expect a rational human being to behave". Asked whether he thought Mr Clinton was fit to be president, Mr McCurry, who had maintained his silence on presidential issues since his resignation in October, said: "I have enormous doubts because of the recklessness of his...

A 32-year-old woman from northern Sweden has been indicted on a charge of aggravated rape after forcing another woman at knifepoint to perform oral sex. Accompanied by a male relative, the 32-year-old forced her way into the woman's apartment in Haparanda in January this year. The pair stole 1,000 kronor ($165) from the victim before forcing her into sexual acts which, according to the indictment, were comparable to full intercourse.

Excerpt - LITTLE ROCK - The permanent exhibits at the Clinton Presidential Library could be revamped or entirely changed as the landmark dedicated to the former president's time in office approaches its fifth anniversary, the facility's director said Tuesday. Library director Terri Garner said discussions have begun about how best to showcase Bill Clinton's pursuits since leaving office in January 2001. That could include displays about work done by the William J. Clinton Foundation, which focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention and environmental policy. Then there's also the matter of his wife, Hillary, and her own political career in the years since....

BRUSSELS -- The European Union and the United Nations are very worried, but remain unable to agree on how to act in Kosovo after June 15, Beta news agency says. The ethnic Albanian authorities in Priština say that their new constitution will take effect in the province's entire territory, while the EU intends to deploy its EULEX mission there. However, this mission is not based on any UN Security Council decision, while UN SC Resolution 1244, so far the only document regulating international presence in Kosovo, remains in force. At the same time, there has been no decision to withdraw...

A Virginia law banning a type of late-term abortion is still unconstitutional, even though a similar federal ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the same court’s 2005 ruling striking down the law. The Supreme Court had ordered the appeals court to take another look at Virginia’s statute after the ruling on the federal ban. The appeals court cited a key difference between the federal and state bans on the procedure that abortion opponents call “partial-birth abortion.” The...

A Hardball epic . . . Message to Chris Matthews: when ripping a guest for his lack of historical knowledge, try to avoid making a history mistake of your own in the same segment. It happened on this afternoon's Hardball. After lambasting a guest for not knowing his Neville Chamberlain history, Matthews surmised that the attack on the USS Cole in October, 2000 happened under . . . President Bush. View video here.

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into a Washington-area donor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, investigating whether he illegally reimbursed other contributors. The case is similar to one brought last year against Norman Hsu, a New York businessman who was indicted in November on charges of paying associates for donations to the New York senator. The Clinton campaign ultimately returned more than $800,000 raised by Mr. Hsu, who was also accused of cheating investors out of millions of dollars. The new investigation centers around contributions last year by William Danielczyk, chairman of Galen Capital Corp., a northern Virginia private-equity...

Hundreds of ethnic Albanians in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, have protested against Serbia's plans to hold elections in Kosovo on Sunday. The protesters said the United Nations' interim Kosovo mission (Unmik) and the Kosovo government were responsible for failing to use their powers to prevent the elections from going ahead. During Friday's protest, the demonstrators dumped rubbish in front of the UN mission and government buildings. Albin Kurti, leader of the Self-determination Youth Movement, said the rubbish symbolised what the protesters thought of the Unmik and government decision to ignore the polls. The Serbian government, which staunchly opposes Kosovo's move, is...

Perhaps some insiders (or those unwillingly part) of the Clintonistas’ administration realized that what we (the USA) were doing was just not right - and so the award/medal could not be called/designated in more accurate terms as the “Re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate” Medal… So better to have sent in the Girl Scouts - as things would have ended up basically the same as they have, except perhaps with less loss of innocent life. Anyway, it’s is also off of my uniform forever. My only desire is that in some very small way it may help people to become aware...

The Kosovo debacle continues to haunt Western governments, especially the U.S., and has already exacerbated a number of conflicts in Turkey, China, Spain, and the Caucasus regions. The illegal recognition of Kosovo's "independence" by mostly Western nations (less than 40 out of 192) has encouraged terrorists that they can successfully alter the borders of sovereign nations via force. Though the Kosovo case is called "special" by many Western foreign policy "experts," in reality, it is the tremendous misreporting and censorship of the Serbian side of the tragic Yugoslav civil wars which condoned and justified mistreatment of Serbians that is unique...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

That Hillary Clinton has apparently found success in talking tough about foreigners and sinking to Bush-like "politics of fear" only illuminates how little American foreign policy has been seriously debated in the Democratic presidential nominee race, and how little voters know or remember about Bill Clinton's international legacy. Against the background of Hillary Clinton's repeated claims to cosmopolitan experience, her scores of foreign stopovers (not unlike the travels of Laura Bush) and her meetings with a lot of world figures, the record of the 1992-2000 period bears more scrutiny than it is getting, beyond the NAFTA flip-flop. This is nowhere...

Early Elián Gonzalez raid was planned BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA Before the forced removal of Elián González from his relatives' home in Little Havana eight years ago, federal agents had another plan to return the child to his father in Cuba. But an order from Washington canceled it at the last minute. According to statements by James Goldman, then head of operations for the U.S. immigration agency in Miami, federal agents had been instructed to seize Elián during a meeting in Miami Beach with his grandmothers at the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, then-president of Barry University, in January 2000....

The UN has spent an estimated €33 billion ($53 billion) for its mission in Kosovo since 1999. This corresponds to €1,750 ($2,800) per capita, annually -- or 160 times the average yearly per capita aid for all developing countries combined. Nevertheless, UNMIK isn't wanted by everyone here. The streets to UNMIK headquarters in Pristina have been known to be blocked by protest banners reading: "No access. Criminal zone." Stickers are affixed to some traffic lights in the city, displaying "No to EUMIK" when the lights are red and "Independence" when they turn green. At the Strip Depot café, a philosopher...

There has actually been a sharp increase of planned attacks involving Balkan actors - as in Istanbul, Turkey, in November 2003. The March 20 arrest of five Wahhabi Muslim radicals in Bosnia indicates the continuing threat of terrorism in, and from, the Balkans. The men were reportedly planning to carry out attacks against Catholic churches on Easter in addition to the obvious religious significance here, the event is also important as all of the aspiring terrorists were homegrown. As with a similar arrest in late 2005, also involving native Bosnian extremists, it shows that the radicalizing effect of foreign mujahedin...

A South Side teenage mother who authorities said no longer wanted a baby because she couldn't go to parties was held on $600,000 bond Wednesday on charges that she drowned her 5-month-old daughter in a bathtub earlier this month. Rozlynn Rodgers, 19, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in the April 4 death of her daughter, Makalah, at their home in the 7800 block of South Ingleside Avenue. She later told authorities that she drowned the child because she no longer wanted to be a mother, officials said. Rodgers told police "she didn't want to be a mom anymore because...

Will Media Remember Gore's 1994 Tie-breaking Vote Mandating Ethanol? By Noel Sheppard | April 22, 2008 As the international disaster of ethanol begins taking its toll across the planet -- and, maybe more important, as press outlet after press outlet finally begins recognizing it -- will media remember that Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate requiring this oxygenate be added to gasoline? After all, regardless of recent reports blaming ethanol for world hunger problems, rising food costs, and increased greenhouse gases, it seems highly unlikely green media will want to tie any of these problems...