Free Republic

When the US stumbled out of Vietnam 30 years ago, a void seemed to open up for a world which, for good or ill, had become used to a controlling American hand. The US had suffered a great defeat, in part self-inflicted, in the process betraying an ally, and American will and rationality had been drawn down to the lowest levels. Yet the consequences for the region where the war had been waged were surprisingly limited. The dominoes did not fall, or rather, when they eventually did, they fell the other way as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were to some...

One of Bush's concepts on the War on Terror is to replace those governments that harbor and grow hate with democracies. It's an important concept, one that recognizes that in order to kill the weed of murder and torture you have to pull it up by its roots. The new seeds, planted well, will flower into the type of free flowing information that'll pollinate the brains of young and old alike. I know, I know. It sounds like some fairy tale. But recent polls taken in Islamic countries show a sudden drop in support for Bin Ladin accompanied by an...

President Robert Mugabe's regime has directed national parks officials to kill animals in state-owned conservation areas to feed hungry rural peasants - a move that could wipe out what remains of Zimbabwe's impalas, kudus, giraffes, elephants and other species. The directive is a major blow to efforts by conservationists to try to rehabilitate the wildlife sector which was devastated after Mugabe ordered his supporters to invade and confiscate white-owned farms in 2000. The chaotic farm invasions saw party militants storming into conservation areas - both private and state-owned - to slaughter animals. Unscrupulous South African hunters also joined in the...

Brasil has the technology, the uranium, and has expressed in the past its aspiration to start a nuclear program. In Cuba, the evil¹s son (castro) has always desired to destroy the US with nuclear weapons. The evil¹s son installed missiles with nuclear heads in the past, and although he had to dismantle them, those served him to perpetuate the assassin regime for already 47 years by forcing the US to pact with the URSS and Cuba and guarantee no intervention. The son of the Havana¹s pimp, who carries the same name of the father (fidel), not by coincidence is a...

Americans are so busy keeping up with events in the Middle East that we do not realize how much things have been changing in our own "neighborhood." That would be a grave mistake on our part because – in the long run -- the Caribbean and South and Central America are as important to our national interest and even to our winning the War on Terrorism. A Latin America led by Cuba's Castro and Venezuela's Chavez and Brazil's Lula appears ready to plunge that continent back into the mayhem and socialism that made life there so miserable. Given that the...

TBILISI, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - The Government of the Future public movement, led by Georgy Maisashvili, has joined the opposition Coordination Council. Standing at its cradle were the Georgian Labor Party, led by Shalva Natelashvili, and the public movement, Forward, Georgia!, with Irakly Batiashvili at the head. Dominating the Coordinating Council agenda are demands for an extraordinary parliamentary election and a change of government by constitutional ways, reports the Novosti-Georgia news agency. Government of the Future leaders intend, starting next week, to contact spokesmen of foreign legations in Georgia. Maisashvili, on his part, plans to meet US and European...

"Virtually no one in Washington expected such a snowballing of events following Iraq's elections," recently explained the deputy editorial editor of the Washington Post, Jackson Diehl. Said another way, virtually no one in Establishment D.C. expected things would snowball the way Bush had predicted. Still, reports Diehl, the evidence is obvious: "Less than two years after Saddam Hussein was deposed, the fact is that Arabs are marching for freedom and shouting slogans against tyrants in the streets of Beirut and Cairo--and regimes that have endured for decades are visibly tottering. Those who claimed that U.S. intervention could never produce such...

I’ve never before used a long quote from anyone who has, in Dave Barry’s words, the IQ of a kumquat. But there are exceptions to every rule. The following appeared on an exceptionally paranoid website known as the Democratic Underground. See for yourselves that this quote is typical of DU. "The Iraq vote is making me sick this morning "All the media keeps talking about is how happy the Iraqis are, how high turnout was, and how ‘freedom’ has spread to Iraq. I had to turn off CNN because they kept focusing on the so-called ‘voters’ and barely mentioned the...

BAKU, December 7 (Itar-Tass) -- The United States is ready to assist Azerbaijan in the entry to the World Trade Organisation, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a message to Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev on Tuesday. The US administration supports the final abolishment of the Jackson-Vanik amendment in Azerbaijan, the message said. Powell pledged that the US government will continue negotiations on abolishing this amendment in Azerbaijan as this Caucasian republic meets international standards on the freedom of emigration. The US secretary of state praised highly close cooperation of the countries. Powell noted that the real symbols of...

The current UN cannot live without the United States. We pay about a quarter of its budget and for what? To have us slapped down by a group of bloodthirsty dictators who hate our system of government? To have human rights abuses investigated by a committee composed of the worst human rights violators on the face of the earth? To have UN people run for cover as soon as the situation gets tough in Iraq? For the life of me I can't figure out any benefit to staying in the UN.

There is a new reality in the world - American power. It was used to achieve a swift victory in Iraq, as it had been in Afghanistan. The question which arises, is whether it is now poised to make itself felt elsewhere in the world. The policies have already been laid out. They comprise the war on terror which President Bush declared soon after the 11 September attacks, and the effort to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction to so-called rogue states. Doctrine of pre-emption There is a doctrine which goes along with this: Pre-emptive action. We are...

China arrests US resident for espionage Saturday, December 21, 2002 China yesterday said it had arrested missing exiled democracy activist Wang Bingzhang, a permanent US resident, for espionage, six months after he disappeared. A spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security was quoted as saying Wang was also facing charges of engaging in "violent terrorist activities" in southern Guangdong province. He was formally arrested in Guangdong on December 5, Xinhua said. "The state security department had verified that Wang, starting in the early 1980s, had struck up contact with Taiwan’s espionage organization, which paid him as he collected and stole...

South China Morning Post September 18, 2002 SECTION: News; Pg. 11 LENGTH: 462 words HEADLINE: Poison banned at food firms after tragedy BYLINE: Bill Savadove in Tangshan BODY: Jiangsu province issued an urgent order yesterday banning all food companies from using rat poison and insecticides to kill pests. The Yangtze Evening Post reported that companies involved in the production, transport or sale of food had been ordered to prevent contamination and guarantee food safety, or face punishment. The move came as authorities announced the arrest of Chen Zhengping for allegedly spiking a rival's food products with rat poison, leading to...

MOSCOW In the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, a personality cult envelops the country's first and only leader, President Saparmurat Niyazov, or as he is better known there, Akbar Turkmenbashi, the Great Leader of All Turkmen. There is a city called Turkmenbashi, as well as Turkmenbashi streets, mosques, factories and airports. The president's portrait appears on the country's money, on banners and posters, on bottles of vodka and packets of tea. A golden statue of him atop a 75m arch in the capital, Ashkhabad, rotates so that his arms always point to the sun. Now the time has come for...