Free Republic

IT'S bad enough that friends of Hezbollah terrorists could trick so many journalists with just a tall story and a rusty Lebanese ambulance. Worse is that some of those journalists seemed so eager to believe this ambulance was indeed wickedly blown up by an Israeli missile fired straight through the big red cross on its roof -- leaving not even a scorch mark. But worst is that even now that this hoax has been exposed, none of the countless writers and commentators who fell for it have admitted to passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists. It is this...

The media war against Israel Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of...

TWO DAYS after Aug. 10 -- when British authorities broke up an alleged plot to blow up multiple aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean -- the "moderate" Muslim establishment in Britain published an aggressive open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair. It suggested that Blair could better fight terrorism if he recognized that current British government policy, especially with regard to "the debacle of Iraq," provides "ammunition to extremists." The letter writers demanded he change his foreign policy to "make us all safer." One prominent signatory, Labour MP Sadiq Khan, added that Blair's reluctance to criticize Israel increased the pool of...

International journalists discuss Lebanon war coverage; NYT bureau chief: Israel 'not interested in Lebanese deaths' A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF were mostly to blame for the way the foreign media covered the Lebanon war. The panel of journalists, largely from the international media, convened to discuss their coverage of the war, at a conference arranged by the Media Line agency's Mideast Press Club. "Journalists' access to the battlefield is controlled exclusively by the IDF," said Simon McGregor-Wood, Chairman of the Foreign Press Association, and Bureau Chief of ABC...

HARRISBURG -- Islamic fascism is the "greatest threat we'll ever face," and Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are the driving forces behind a movement bent on destroying the United States, Sen. Rick Santorum said Monday. He said America needs to aggressively provide access to its oil reserves to decrease reliance on Middle East supplies. In a speech to the Pennsylvania Press Club, the Penn Hills Republican portrayed Iran as a country intent on getting nuclear weapons. "The principal leader of this Islamic fascist movement is Iran," Santorum said. "I believe this is the greatest enemy we will ever face....

What could possibly make the Lebanon situation worse today than it was yesterday? Only yesterday the hapless Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, said that Israel expected the "international community" to take control of Lebanon's border crossings. Peretz's pointless whine was in response to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's statement on Saturday that the new UN force in Lebanon won't either disarm Hizballah terrorists or try to interdict shipments of weapons to Hizballah from Syria. But what Peretz said changed nothing. The Son of UNIFIL force won't do anything to inconvenience Hizballah or its Syrian and Iranian suppliers. But yes, today,...

Years of bargaining with Iran has yielded the exact opposite of what was sought: Iran now seems more determined than ever to join the nuclear club. The UN Security Council's deadline for Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment program passes on Thursday. Tehran has refused to comply. The U.S. and others have signaled they will push for sanctions right after the deadline. Question: Can tough economic sanctions persuade Tehran to surrender its nuclear dreams? Yes, strong sanctions might work. Applied to the right pressure points, economic leverage can squeeze a government where it hurts--in the economy. That pain can translate...

CBNNews.com – WASHINGTON - For now, the Middle East cease-fire agreement brokered by the U.N. seems to be holding up. But can Israel ever live in peace next to a group like Hezbollah? Because Hezbollah is nothing more than a terrorist group driven by one dark goal. As all the rest of the world begins to push Israel towards a cease-fire with Hezbollah, it's a good time to consider if there can ever truly be peace with such a terrorist group. Many people assume since Hezbollah has representatives in Lebanon's parliament, it must be more like a political party than...

Fauxtography Defender's Faux News Turns out that Greg Mitchell, the Editor & Publisher editor who has been attacking the blogosphere like a rabid ferret for pointing out the bogus news from the Middle East, has first-hand experience with staging news. (Hat tip: Confederate Yankee.) Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts,...

An Arab nation with ties to 9-11 has pledged a major endowment to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, even as the Washington-based nonprofit group insists it receives no foreign support. The United Arab Emirates recently announced on its official government website that it has set up an endowment serving as a source of income for CAIR. The amount of the funding is undisclosed, but sources say it will be enough to help CAIR finance the construction of a new $24 million office building and a planned $50 million public-relations campaign aimed at repairing Islam's -- and the UAE's -- image...

All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us A jawa video spoof on Beirut Fauxtography.

TONY BLAIR’S peace mission to the Middle East appeared in jeopardy last night after Hezbollah declared that the Prime Minister would not be welcome in Lebanon because of his support for Israel during the war. A senior member of Hezbollah’s politburo has told The Times that Mr Blair should stay away from the country because he was “up to his ears in the blood of Lebanese women and children”. British officials are confident that Mr Blair would be welcomed by the government of Fouad Siniora, the Prime Minister. But Hezbollah, which has emerged as the real force in the country,...

What if there are ten million and one? Religion of Peace Update from CNN, with thanks to Doug: Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA's bin Laden unit, says bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to "use nuclear weapons against the United States ... capping the casualties at 10 million." "He's had an approval, a religious approval for 10 million deaths?" I asked him. "Yes," Scheuer responded.

Lebanon, a nation invented in 1920 by the Maronite Christians with the collaboration of France, an imperial power that, together with England, redistributed the territories seized from Turkey. The Lebanese (using a precedent later utilized by Israel) created not a tribal monarchy like the rest of the Arab territories but a modern republic that defined itself, though not in so many words, as an entity voluntarily different from the Islamic world...Obviously, the dream of the Maronite Christians fades as the country turns Islamic under the demographic weight of the Muslim population, which already has amply surpassed the Christian presence. Add...

Kenney jumps on Liberals for Mideast commentsCTV.ca News Staff August 22, 2006 The Conservative government is lashing out at comments made by Liberal MPs who were on a fact-finding mission in Lebanon and suggested Canada should be more open to talking to Hezbollah. Tory MP Jason Kenney, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, said the comments are nothing less than a sign of support for terrorist groups. "Their idea of a balanced approach is one where Israel is always wrong," Kenney told a news conference on Tuesday. "This represents a totally irresponsible approach to foreign security policy." Liberal MP Borys...

A traffic stop in Detroit has led to serious suspicion , police said . Detroit police officers pulled over a vehicle near Atkinson and Second streets on a traffic stop. When officers questioned the driver, the man said he was from West Africa. In the trunk of the vehicle, police found license plates from different states, identifications cards and Arabic literature, Local 4 reported. The man was taken in to custody on a traffic violation. Police will not comment on the items found in the vehicle, but did say they are working with federal authorities.

DEARBORN - Dearborn is one of 39 cities — and the only one in Michigan — hosting a Freedom Walk on Sept. 11 to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Dearborn has joined cities nationwide to pay tribute to victims, survivors and their families, as well as past and present military men and women. Mayor Michael A. Guido met Tuesday afternoon with Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs and the architect of the America Supports You program. America Supports You is an outreach program launched by the Department of Defense to recognize citizens' support...

In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic. Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for...

Why this man should give us all nightmares By ANN LESLIE 23:44pm 22nd August 2006 Iran's president Almadinejad: Threatened to wipe Israel off the map Why shouldn't Iran have nuclear weapons? We have them, so has America, France, Russia, Israel, China, Pakistan, India and possibly North Korea. So why make such a fuss about Iran? After all, we gulped, but then decided to accept Pakistan's and India's nuclear bombs. Why? Because we recognised that their bombs are, essentially, a continuation of the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine which, as a deterrent, kept us from nuclear Armageddon throughout the Cold War. In...

Proposed rules of engagement for an expanded U.N. force in southern Lebanon would allow troops to open fire in self-defense, protect civilians and back up the Lebanese army in preventing foreign forces or arms from crossing the border, according to a U.N. document obtained Tuesday. The 20-page draft was circulated to potential troop-contributing countries last week by the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which is trying to get an additional 3,500 troops on the ground by the end of next week to strengthen the 2,000 overstretched U.N. peacekeepers already there. The rules of engagement for the expanded force —...