Free Republic

SUFFOLK, Va., March 24, 2006 – Can history be wrong? Not exactly, but history can be distorted if data is provided by only one side's perspective. U.S. Joint Forces Command has released an unclassified historical report of military operations conducted in Iraq. The twist is that this historical report reflects the Iraqi civilian and military leadership's perspective of events. "Opinions are not facts; one data point is not a trend, and a group of data points from a single perspective isn't going to convince anyone," said Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, commander of JFCOM's Joint Center for Operational Analysis. So...

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2006 – As more time passes since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans must not forget the lessons of that fateful day - lessons that are being applied today in the global war on terror, President Bush said today in Wheeling, W.Va. "The job of those of us who have been entrusted to protect you and defend you is really to do so in such a way that you feel comfortable about going about your life. And it's fine that people forget the lessons (of Sept. 11), but one of my jobs is to constantly...

3/13/2006 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- “They came to the door dressed as plumbers, claiming they needed to fix a leak,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. James Dozier. But, that was only the beginning of the general’s six-week ordeal as a hostage. He described his ordeal to group of conference attendees here March 10. “I didn’t know at the time that I or any member of NATO was being targeted,” the general said. “Later I learned they had been observing me and other NATO officials for some time.” Italian police officials became aware of some of those surveillance efforts by...

SUFFOLK, Va., March 7, 2006 – While participants in an international experiment taking place here and at 10 sites around the world are looking at ways to improve future coalition operations, their findings are already being applied to coalition efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Joint Forces Command officials explained today. About 800 participants from seven nations and NATO, many of them at the command's Joint Futures Lab here and others overseas, are midway through an experiment designed to promote interagency and intergovernmental cooperation. Multinational Experiment 4, which kicked off in February, is part of a series of international experiments...

2/23/2006 - SEMBACH AIR BASE, Germany (AFPN) -- Security forces in Europe are preparing for deployment to war zones with an up-to-date curriculum. The mission of the 786th Security Forces Squadron’s regional training center, otherwise known as "Creek Defender," is to provide predeployment integrated base defense training for U.S. Air Forces in Europe security forces. The training also prepares command security forces for missions throughout the European Command’s area of operations and other combatant commands worldwide. When previous training became outdated, the staff prepared a concept of operations in October that remedied that situation, said Senior Master Sgt. Patrick Herdman,...

In the weeks after a federal judge ruled Dover's intelligent design policy was unconstitutional, supporters of the concept spent much time pointing out that the court decision had no legal standing outside the school district. Even so, other school boards across the country are heeding the words of U.S. Judge John E. Jones III, who wrote that, "To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science...

Conclusions: 1) No one should have been surprised 2) Katrina wasn't that big (and we should expect more like it) 3) Floodwalls were properly built 4) Anarchy didn't take over 5) Evacuation plans worked 6) Government responded quickly 7) Government subsidies encoured bad land use 8) Energy infrastructure survived

One word I'd like on my tombstone to describe myself for generations to come? President would be a good one.

A comprehensive study just out today theorizes that as many as 14 congressional races and 17 state Assembly races might truly be competitive if the power to draw political maps is removed from the hands of the Legislature. The study comes from the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. But while the authors say competition may be increased, more frequent turnover of lawmakers who hold those jobs may not. You can read the report here. "The ability to achieve a high level of potentially competitive seats," says the report, "is greatly limited" by factors that include the huge power...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2006 – The U.S. military performed admirably as it responded to Hurricane Katrina during the largest, fastest civil support mission in U.S. history - but it needs to do better in the future, according to the Pentagon's chief of homeland security. Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland security, praised the military response to the catastrophic hurricane in an address to civilian leaders who recently visited the Pentagon. The civilians were past participants in the DoD Joint Civilian Orientation Conference that gives business, civic and academic leaders a weeklong immersion into military operations. Within 10 to...

From NationalLedger.com COMMENTARY The Eleven Lessons of Rush Limbaugh By Chris Davis Jan 30, 2006 It has been two long years since I wrote the essay; Rush Limbaugh is "The Passion."  Since, conservatives have reelected President Bush, retained both houses of Congress, and are threatening to reform the out of control Supreme Court of the United States.  These labors have shown that Americans support the conservative ideology, largely because of its guiding principles, not the vehicle behind that ideology. It is the same with Rush Limbaugh.  A little over two years ago, Rush Limbaugh announced his addiction to prescription drugs. ...

WITH SAMUEL ALITO ABOUT to be confirmed, it's time to take stock of this particular episode in the making of a justice, the nation's 110th. Bear in mind that Alito was not President Bush's first choice to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor. The estimable John Roberts was, but when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, Bush decided to redesignate Roberts for the center seat. That meant finding another nominee for O'Connor's seat.As it happened, Bush surprised the world by naming White House Counsel Harriet Miers. The Miers nomination proved a major blunder. Bush had opted for a person he knew well who...

The latest poll is not good for the Democrats. I am not talking here of the one showing George Bush's approval rating inching up. I'm talking about the recently released Harris Poll showing John Wayne, one of the most popular movie stars of 2005. The one thing he and the Democratic Party have in common is that they are both dead. Wayne was the quintessential anti-Democrat. Everything he stood for - from support for the Vietnam War to antipathy to the '60s and '70s counterculture - was in consonance with GOP positions. More important, though, his iconic man-on-horseback image has...

Now that the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito are over, what did we learn? That a nominee for the high court won’t answer questions he’s not supposed to answer? Or that liberals will then use those non-answers as a public rationale for opposition? We did learn (again) that televised Senate Judiciary Committee hearings featuring the questioning of a nominee have outlived their usefulness, if such usefulness ever truly existed. We also learned (again) what the left values and opposes in a judicial nominee. We learned that they hold results to be more important than old fashioned notions...

Lessons from Lincoln By Joseph Knippenberg Last month, I made the argument that the debate over the Bush Administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping would ultimately be resolved politically, not legally or judicially. The question, I argued (following John Locke), was whether “the public good” was better served by a rapid and unencumbered response to new intelligence, or by strict adherence in all instances to legal procedures. When this occurs, the ultimate safeguards of our liberty reside in the character of those acting on our behalf, and in the capacity of our political system to rein them in—either through the legislative...

OXFORD Street department store Selfridges is onto a winner with clueless punters who are after an iPod as a fashion accessory. It is charging them £100 for a 40 minute lesson on how to use their new iPods, when Apple will do it, round the corner for free. A Selfridges spokeswoman said the courses were one-to-one "iPod Survival" sessions and follow questions from its dimwitted customers on how to use iTunes, installing and deleting videos, creating playlists and downloading Podcasts. The courses are given either in-store or on a home visit. Selfridges knows its customers, well. Last year it set...

PARIS. -- The French have had two months to sort out the lessons of last fall's riots in predominately Muslim neighborhoods. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin says the rioting was caused by racial bias, lack of business opportunity and insufficient education for immigrant children. He vows tax breaks for business, better education for immigrant children and tougher enforcement of antibias laws. For this conclusion, the French media, more left-wing than the American press, praised him. The founder and leader of France's Front National (FN) party, 77-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen, has reached the opposite conclusion, as might be expected of a...

For conservative lawmakers taking stock of the 2005 legislative year, two important lessons stand out. Whether they learn from them could determine the extent of their successes in 2006. Lesson No. 1: Some of the staunchest liberals in Congress appear desperate to secure either the outright repeal or a temporary mitigation of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Created in 1969, the AMT was designed to extract tax payments from a miniscule number of millionaires (then a mere 155) whose aggressive use of tax deductions and other legal techniques to shelter income erased their entire tax liability. Overwrought class warriors of...

Disasters: Searching for Lessons From a Bad Year John Bohannon No doubt about it, the 12 months since the last Breakthrough of the Year issue have been an annus horribilis. Three major natural disasters--the 2004 "Christmas tsunami" in the Indian Ocean, Hurricane Katrina on the U.S. Gulf Coast, and the Pakistan earthquake--left nearly 300,000 dead and millions homeless. In Pakistan, the disaster is still unfolding as winter engulfs the devastated communities. Insurance companies classify such events as "acts of God": misfortunes for which no one is at fault. But in their aftermath, many scientists are pointing out that natural disasters...

It's not uncommon these days to hear talk of "lessons" learned in Vietnam and their application to current U.S. conflicts. Unfortunately, most observers have ignored the uniqueness of the Vietnam War, picking and choosing the lessons learned there with little regard for their application to the present. This is particularly true with the current buzz over the "clear and hold" concept, which has gained popularity in some circles. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice invoked it during Senate testimony in October, and columnist David Ignatius reported in his Nov. 4 op-ed that many Army officers are reading historian Lewis Sorley's book...