Free Republic

As a private citizen over the past year, Vindman watched the slow Russian buildup along Ukraines borders and, he said, became concerned about how Kyiv would support and sustain a long conflict. Vindman and his twin brother Yevgeny, also an Army officer, were born in Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. as children.Since the invasion last year, the Biden administration has approved hundreds of Bradley fighting vehicles, Strykers, Humvees, mobile howitzer systems and now Abrams tanks for shipment to Ukraine. But those machines must be taken from Ukraine to Poland or other NATO countries for major repairs, costing Ukrainian forces...

Jennifer Williams, a foreign service officer and aide to Vice President Pence who testified in the House impeachment inquiry, has asked to leave her post early. Politico reported Thursday that Williams, who is on detail from the State Department, plans to leave her position in Pence’s office early in order to join Central Command. Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short subsequently told The Hill in a statement that Williams had requested an early departure from her role, set to end in March, and that the office is “evaluating her request.” “Jennifer Williams, a State Department employee detailed to the Vice...

House Democrats on Saturday released a transcript of closed-door testimony from career foreign service officer and Vice President Pence staffer Jennifer Williams. Williams was among the officials on the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. She is also one of the only witnesses who has testified that has firsthand knowledge of the exchange. During the famed July 25 call, the president asked his foreign counterpart for a favor: He wanted Kyiv to open anti-corruption investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who was employed by Burisma in the Obama era....

Christmas, as everyone knows, commemorates the birth of Jesus and is a major religious celebration for Christians around the world. But what many people don't know is that Jesus is an important figure in Islam, too, even though most Muslims don't celebrate Christmas (though some of us, especially American Muslims, do). In honor of the holiday, here are six things you may not know about the role of Jesus -- and his mother, Mary -- in Islam: ...

Almost overnight, the Islamic State sent its enemies reeling—and turned U.S. policy in the Middle East upside down. As troubling as the Islamic State’s successes are for U.S. officials, there is one person for whom they are even more troubling: Ayman al-Zawahiri. Although the Al-Qaeda leader might be expected to rejoice at the emergence of a strong jihadist group that delights in beheading Americans (among other horrors), in reality the Islamic State’s rise risks Al-Qaeda’s demise. When Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi rejected Al-Qaeda’s authority and later declared a ca­liphate, he split the fractious jihadist move­ment. The two are...

ast Monday, I had 60 followers on Twitter. Today, I have more than 4,300. Not to brag or anything, but that’s more than Benjamin Wittes; more than Bobby Chesney; more than Jack Goldsmith; more than my boss, Daniel Byman. But here’s the problem: A healthy number of them are Islamic extremists, including no small number of supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A lot of them live in Saudi Arabia. And some of them want to marry me. The reason is a single tweet. Early last week, the hashtag “#MuslimApologies” began trending on Twitter. The hashtag...

The little-known group at the center of the Turkey-Russia crisis Updated by Jennifer Williams on November 24, 2015, 2:50 p.m. ET @jenn_ruth jennifer@vox.com Jennifer R. Williams: How do you think this incident will affect Turkish-Russian relations? Henri Barkey: Until recently, the Turks and the Russians had succeeded in compartmentalizing their differences over Syria. Because they're on opposite sides: Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Turks have tried to do everything they could to overthrow Assad, and Russia has done everything they could to keep Assad in power. But it didn't affect the relationship between [Turkish President Recep...