Free Republic

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Jul 25, 2007 — Standing with blood pouring from a deep gash in his head, two eyes nearly swollen shut and a broken nose, Richard Hupper was "almost zombie-like" as David Yates asked him questions about what happened inside a restroom at Farquhar Park Sunday. People were screaming as parents frantically grabbed their children when Hupper stumbled out of the restroom covered in blood, Yates said. Yates used his cell phone to call York County 911 to request police and ambulance for a man who was brutally beaten when he left an outdoor concert by the York Symphony to use...