Free Republic

Recent testimony at the Senate Armed Services Committee by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey disclosed that President Obama showed little interest in the September 11, 2012 attack on the US Consulate. “Some 90 minutes into the seven-hour siege I briefed the president with what I felt we knew at the time,” Panetta said. “He didn’t react. He asked no questions. He gave no instructions.” How this sworn testimony should be interpreted in light of Obama’s unsworn assertion that he gave clear directives to “secure our personnel” posed a challenge for Press Secretary...

Moscow Both Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister have lashed out at the West in recent days for pursuing what they regard as naive and incoherent Middle East policies. The critique targets Western backing of anti-dictator rebellions in Libya and Syria, which, as Mr. Putin tells it, only fuels the spreading flames of extreme Islamist insurrection, including the current war in Mali and last week's terrorist strike on a gas complex in Algeria. "The Syrian conflict has been raging for almost two years now. Upheaval in Libya, accompanied by the uncontrolled spread of weapons, contributed to the deterioration of the...

Commentators both left and right agree that Barack Obama's second inaugural speech Monday was highly partisan, with shout outs to his constituencies on the left and defiance of his critics on the right. Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and made brief reference to Abraham Lincoln's sublime Second Inaugural ("blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword"). But there was not much in the way of "with malice toward none, with charity for all." There were more references than in many inaugural speeches to specific programs and policies. One interesting question is what the practical effect...

Obama is indeed the 21st century's Chamberlain. In another disastrous bid for appeasement, he has handed control of North Africa to Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda controls North Africa, it will soon be in position to interdict the Mediterranean through terrorism against shipping. As it builds up, it will then seize control of the Straits of Gibraltar. It already rules the Suez Canal. A bankrupt, islamized and weakened Europe will be in position to do absolutely nothing. Obama will look the other way. On the other end of the Middle East, the major sects of Islam will join to attack...

Once a mob began attacking the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of Sept. 11, officials in Washington, D.C., watched with alarm. Now, new details are emerging about their response to the deadly attack. President Obama and his entire national security team monitored what was going on half a world away. Army Gen. Carter Ham, who was the regional commander for Africa, happened to be in Washington that day. One source familiar with the events said there was a sense of urgency. The consulate was burning, and Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was visiting the consulate with a small...

As we look forward, or not, to Monday's final Presidential debate focused on U.S. foreign policy, it should be a slam dunk for Romney to expose the incomprehensible diplomatic policies of President Obama, Hillary Clinton, D.O.S, Susan Rice, representative to the United Nations, and everyone else connected to United States foreign policy decisions, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA etc. Obama has admitted that, "The Buck Stops Here," and Hillary Clinton has taken full responsibility for the Benghazi attacks with the reservation that there was bad decision making because of the Fog of War. Too bad they never gave W Bush the same tolerance when he...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Hillary Clinton may think that she's taking the hit for Obama, but she isn't. She's always gonna be in the hot seat given her position, but Obama cannot escape this! I don't care what they think. He cannot escape this. His usual defense, "It's Bush's fault," that doesn't work here. So for Benghazi, Obama can't blame Bush. He can't blame the rich. He can't blame what he inherited. He can't blame the Republican majority in the House. He can't blame Bain Capital. He can't blame Romney. He can't blame Hillary. He can't blame anybody. It's all on...

"Fox military analyst Col. David Hunt checked in with us again after the revelation that there were multiple listening posts which heard the cries for help from the US Embassy in Libya and none of them did anything. The State Department says they still do not know what really happened in Libya."

Immediately after the murder of Chris Stevens, America's Ambassador to Libya,I suggested that the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11 could have profound consequences for President Barack Obama,particulary if he failed to take appropriate action against the murderers–the most likely candidates being members of al-Qaeda's new terror franchise in Mali. But with the US presidential contest entering its critical final phase, the Obama administration deftly avoided getting into any controversy over the murder of Mr Stevens and three other members of the consulate staff by leading everyone to believe the murders were not part of an...

In the days following the assassination attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three aides dead it was appalling to watch the Obama Administration's painstaking efforts to deny any connection to radical Islamic terror.   A week later, the White House was forced to admit a connection to al Qaeda after the Director of the National Counterterrrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, testified to a Senate Committee that Benghazi was indeed a "terrorist attack on our embassy" with likely "connections to al Qaeda." The week long contortions and denials by the Administration became even more befuddling when...

Something very big is going on in the Middle East. This is not about an inflammatory film or a political assassination in Libya. Rather, recent events confirm that throughout the Muslim world, radical Islam is on the march. The radical Muslims have figured out a much better strategy than the Al Qaeda strategy of the past decade. Instead of terrorist acts aimed at directly wounding the “far enemy,” namely the United States, Islamic radicals are using democracy and public protest to defeat the “near enemy,” namely their own autocratic governments, and seize power. Remarkably President Obama seems to be responding...

If you weren't already uncontrollably furious over the debacle in Libya that led to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy personnel, this is likely to send you over the edge.  From Breitbart News: In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Fox News military analyst Colonel David Hunt laid the blame for the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the Benghazi, Libya American mission on Hillary Clinton and the State Department:"The State Department just allowed our guys to get killed. If you approve no bullets in guns for the mission security guards...

GOP pins Jimmy Carter on Barack Obama By: Glenn Thrush September 13, 2012 06:39 PM EDT When the going gets tough, Republicans get Jimmy Carter. Republicans and their surrogates spent much of Thursday pinning the Carter kick-me sign on Barack Obama, portraying the current commander-in-chief as a Carter-esque wimp unwilling to challenge Islamist militants raging outside U.S. consular buildings in Libya, Yemen and Cairo. Crazy-gluing the 44th president to the 39th has been a favorite Republican pastime for years. Carter is the brand name for fecklessness, indecision and weakness in the Oval Office. But up until now Mitt Romney, running...

This report just broke from an Arabic site called “Lebanon News.” The Arabic Lebanon News (Tayyar.org) is the number one Lebanese online news site (ranked number eight of all sites in the nation) and has significant coverage throughout the Arab world. What follows is the rough Google Translation of the site’s report on the Ambassador’s gruesome murder: Sources AFP that “the U.S. ambassador to Libya was raped sexually before killing by gunmen who stormed the embassy building in Benghazi last night to protest against the film is offensive to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh),” The sources said that “Ambassador was killed...

Man, he really nails it!!!! Bravo, sir!

--Aftermath and Cover Up of the Shootdown-- Qaddafi had escaped clean and clear from the aerial assassination attempt. He would live on, the penultimate survivor, until Libya’s “Arab Spring” of 2011. France would never speak publicly about the events of that night. Italy too would choose a policy of silence [...] The Dark Story of Itavia Flight 870 On the night of June 27, 1980, Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 (a DC-9 registered as I-TIGI) departed Bologna, Italy, en route to Palermo, Sicily. On board were 77 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants. Of those, 64 were adult passengers, 11...

A timeline of yesterday's events shows that it took the Obama administration 16 hours to disavow a statement posted on the US Embassy in Cairo website. It appears that the administration's failure to correct the embassy and the doubling down by embassy staff 13 hours after the statement was published prompted Mitt Romney's curt comments about the administration's response. Here is a partial timeline of events. All times are Eastern Standard Time (EST), 6 hours earlier than Cairo time. 5:50AM - Cairo Embassy publishes a statement on its website which rejects those who "abuse" free speech. This is a reference...

Wednesday morning, Americans awakened to learn that Muslim fanatics had attacked the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt and the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya killing American Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. My first reaction (after thinking about how “peaceful” Islam is) was, “Where were the Marine guards? How many fanatics did they kill?” I doubt that we will hear about any brave Marine guards killed in the attack or the hundreds of fanatics they sent to Paradise. Maybe we have heard nothing because the Marines were ordered not to fire. If so, someone has blood on his...

Drudge highlights part of the story that the LA Times, of course, does not. The president was updated throughout the evening, and notified late Tuesday that Stevens was unaccounted for. Obama learned Wednesday that Stevens was confirmed dead Wednesday morning, the official said. Man needs his rest. He's in Vegas right now. You can't do Vegas right if you're short of sleep. By the way, the media is all dutifully reporting the Obama line: That while he is jetting his ass off to Las Vegas, "it's not a day of politics as usual" (via Mark Knoller) and that his Political...