Free Republic

The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction." The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.SNIPNewsweek's exclusive report on this secret world...

"The Abedin emails include a mid-August 2009, email exchange in which Band urges Abedin to follow up on a request from Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy to set up a meeting with then-Ambassador to Panama Barbara Stephenson on behalf of lobbyist Amb. Otto Reich, President Reagan’s ambassador to Venezuela who maintained high-level government positions during the tenure of both President George H.W. Bush and President George Bush. In early September, Ruddy then was contacted by State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta S. Jacobson, at the behest of Band and Abedin, in reference to Ruddy’s...

As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

Book Review: Leslie H. Gelb, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy, Harper-Collins Publishers, 2009. by Wayne Lusvardi The 15th century ambassador of the city-state of Florence, Italy, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote: “There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.” Whether Leslie H. Gelb's book Power Rules falls into the first or the second of Machiavelli's three types of intelligence is the question to be...

President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. His strategy is to prevent defeat and to hand the problem off to his successor. As a result, more and more Americans want to bring our troops home immediately, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos and a civil war that could become a regional war. Both are bad alternatives. There is a third way. Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and I have proposed a five-point plan to keep Iraq together, protect America's interests and bring our troops home. Sectarian violence...

Professional critics have decried President Bush’s three-day “delay” in reacting to the tsunami disasters. But if the President used that time to understand the dimensions of the disaster, and to keep the United Nations from controlling relief efforts, every minute was justified. When the UN handles dollars, tens of millions disappear. When the UN handles protection and relief, tens of thousands of people die. Instead of leaving money and authority to the UN, the US created a “core group” with Japan, Australia and India. The lead personnel are the military of those nations. That makes sense, because military units are...

When the stink threatens to make even bureaucrats gag, somebody has to mop up some of the mess.     When a gaggle of special pleaders met the other night in New York to talk about the puddle in the parlor at the United Nations, it wasn't clear whether they were interested in shaping up the U.N. or merely saving the job of Kofi Annan, the bureaucrats' favorite bureaucrat. [snip]What frightened the coterie to action then, and no doubt Mr. Annan yesterday, is the growing sentiment in Congress to do something about corruption at the U.N., or else. [snip]     There was...