Free Republic

In 1987, after he was exonerated of corruption charges, former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan issued the classic plea of the wronged man: "Which office do I go to get my reputation back?" Whichever office it is, Ahmad Chalabi may want to apply there as well. The leader of the Iraqi National Congress has been the most unfairly maligned man on the planet in recent years. If you believe what you read, Chalabi is a con man, a crook and, depending on which day of the week it is, either an American or Iranian stooge. The most damning charge is...

Ever since Ronald Reagan proclaimed in his 1981 inaugural address that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," leaders at all levels of government, Democrats and Republicans alike, have been outsourcing as much work as possible to the private sector. This is generally a good idea, but when it comes to the military, this trend may have gone too far. Peter W. Singer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of "Corporate Warriors," estimates that there are 20,000 to 30,000 civilians in Iraq performing traditional military functions, from maintaining weapons systems to guarding supply...

Soaring oil prices -- crude is more than $55 a barrel and unleaded gasoline more than $2 a gallon -- are not much of an economic or political issue. Yet. In absolute terms, today's prices are still half of the 1970s peaks, and the U.S. economy depends much less on petroleum than then. (Computers run on electricity, not gasoline.) But imagine what would happen if al Qaeda hit the giant Ras Tanura terminal in Saudi Arabia, where a tenth of global oil supplies are processed every day. Prices could soar past $100 a barrel, and the U.S. economy could go...

I first became aware of Thomas E. Woods Jr.'s Politically Incorrect Guide to American History when the New York Times Book Review took note of its rise on the paperback bestseller list and described it as a "neocon retelling of this nation's back story." A neocon retelling? What would that be, exactly? Curious to find out, I cracked open The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. It gets off to a slow start with a recitation of civics-text nuggets. Bet you didn't know that the Constitution "established three distinct branches of government — executive, legislative, and judicial — and provided...

My book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History has received far more attention than I ever expected. Once the book hit number eight on the New York Times bestseller list, the Times’ editorial page condemned it without actually showing where its arguments were mistaken; several weeks later, to my surprise, the Times published a favorable profile of me. The controversy surrounding the book has reached at least two other continents: Brazil’s Folha de S. Paulo, with the highest circulation of any newspaper in Latin America, published a full interview with me, as did a major Catholic newspaper in Ireland....

Our awe at the bravery of the Marines and their Japanese adversaries should not cause us to overlook the stupidity that forced them into this unnecessary meat grinder. Selective memories of World War II, which record only inspiring deeds and block out all waste and folly, create an impossible standard of perfection against which to judge contemporary conflicts.

It is hard to pick up a newspaper these days without reading about Army and Marine Corps recruiting and retention woes. Nonstop deployments and the danger faced by troops in Iraq are making it hard for both services to fill their ranks. The same goes for the National Guard and Reserves. Just to stay at their current sizes, the Army and Marines are shoveling money into more advertising, extra recruiters and bigger enlistment bonuses. And yet it's clear to everyone (except President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) that the U.S. military is far too small to handle all...

It has become a cliche to call Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh the greatest investigative reporters of their generation — Woodward the consummate insider, Hersh the ultimate outsider. In truth the differences outweigh the similarities. Though he achieved fame by bringing down a Republican administration, Woodward is no ideologue. His only bias, as far as I can tell, is in favor of his sources. Within those parameters he produces invaluable, if incomplete, accounts of government deliberations. Hersh, on the other hand, is the journalistic equivalent of Oliver Stone: a hard-left zealot who subscribes to the old counterculture conceit that a...

One of the most inspiring events of 2004 happened on the year's last weekend: the election of pro-Western democrat Viktor Yushchenko, who had to overcome everything from poisoning to voter fraud to claim Ukraine's presidency. The triumph of the Orange Revolution should dispel the quaint notion still prevalent in many Western universities and foreign ministries that democracy is a luxury good suitable only for rich countries with a tradition of liberalism stretching back centuries. Ukraine fits no one's criteria of a promising democracy: Its per capita income of $5,400 a year is lower than Algeria's or Turkmenistan's; it has a...

Start with too-friendly media, apathy and members' entrenched interests. Imagine if U.S. troops were accused of sexually exploiting children in impoverished nations. Imagine if a U.S. Cabinet secretary were accused of groping a female subordinate, whose complaint was then swatted aside by the president. Imagine if the head of a U.S. government agency and the president's own offspring stood accused of complicity in the biggest embezzlement racket in history. Those would be pretty big stories, no? Above-the-fold, top-of-the-newscast stories. Yet the United Nations has been mired in all these scandals and until just recently hardly anybody outside the right-wing blogosphere...

John Kerry is right to accuse President Bush of "colossal failures of judgment" in Iraq. These range from decisions taken in the early days of the occupation, such as the premature disbanding of Iraq's army, to more recent missteps, such as allowing Fallouja to become a terrorist sanctuary. Reading the depressing headlines, one is tempted to ask: Has any president in U.S. history ever botched a war or its aftermath so badly? Actually, yes. Most wartime presidents have made catastrophic blunders, from James Madison losing his capital to the British in 1814 to Harry Truman getting embroiled with China in...

President Bush should be praised, not damned, for seeking to export "freedom". 'The world must be made safe for democracy," US Democratic president Woodrow Wilson declared in 1917. Ever since, that imperative has occupied a central place in US foreign policy. Democratic and Republican presidents alike have seen the need to spread liberty abroad to protect liberty at home. Yet, because of the difficulties the US is encountering in Iraq, the democratisation imperative is under attack today. From both left and right, the cry has gone up that the stress on exporting American ideals is a plot by nefarious "neo-conservatives"....

Hyped reports about an Israeli "mole" in the Pentagon are falling apart faster than the Kerry campaign. It now seems likely that the analyst in question was, at worst, guilty of mishandling a classified document, not espionage. According to news accounts, the memo he's accused of passing to pro-Israel lobbyists called for U.S. support of Iranian dissidents trying to overthrow their dictatorial government. This may not be spy-novel stuff, but it does raise an important question: Why hasn't President Bush implemented the recommendations reportedly contained in the Pentagon paper? The case for action seems overwhelming in light of Bush's oft-stated...

The eyes of the political world were on New York Thursday as President Bush delivered his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. But, with foreign policy occupying center stage in a presidential election for the first time since 1972, the outcome of the election may hinge less on what the president does in New York than on what our enemies do in Kabul and Baghdad. Mr. Bush is running as the man who liberated Afghanistan and Iraq. But despite initial U.S. military victories and considerable progress toward democracy (Afghans will vote Oct. 9; Iraqis by Jan. 30), both countries...

America's enemies will be doing everything they can to cause George Bush's defeat, writes Max Boot. The eyes of the political world were on New York this week as George Bush delivered his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. But, with foreign policy occupying centre stage in a US presidential election for the first time since 1972, the outcome of the election may hinge less on what the President did in New York than on what America's enemies do in Kabul and Baghdad. Bush is running as the man who liberated Afghanistan and Iraq. But despite initial US military...

COMMENTARY With the Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded and L. Paul Bremer III back at home, it's time to ponder the future of American imperialism. Many, of course, will huffily reply that U.S. imperialism has no future, and they will point to all the troubles we've encountered in Iraq during the last year as evidence. But whatever happens in Iraq, there will continue to be strong demand for U.S. interventions around the world. Failed states and rogue states constitute the biggest threats to world peace in the foreseeable future, and only the United States has the will and the resources to...

"Survivor: Little Rock" — the reality TV show with only one contestant — is back. Bubba Bill is once again transfixing the nation with the psychodrama that is his life and times. The ex-prez wants us to know that he's been trying to figure out the source of the "demons" that led him into a dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. Not surprisingly, he's located the wellsprings of his childish behavior in his childhood. That's nice for him. But he still doesn't have a clue why he became every right-winger's favorite piñata. Asked by Dan Rather why so many people hate him,...

Max Boot: The Last Laugh? Wait for the History Books Listening to the endless encomiums to Ronald Reagan, many from people who once derided him, I couldn't help wonder whether some day George W. Bush would receive similar tributes from his current enemies. It seems unlikely, even to me, but then it seemed pretty unlikely 20 years ago that the Gipper would ever win widespread acclaim as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history. It is . . . . .

World War I was far from the most evil event of the 20th century. It is hard to compete in sheer inhumanity with the Holocaust, the Stalinist terror, the Chinese Cultural Revolution or the Cambodian killing fields. Even World War II, which we recall through a fond haze of war memorial dedications and History Channel documentaries, had a far greater butcher's bill. But if the Great War was far from uniquely terrible, it was undoubtedly the most pointless and inexplicable of all the terrible events of the century gone by and the one that set the others in motion. We...

With gay marriage on a roll, it's time to move on to another battle. For decades, social conservatives have been fighting and losing culture wars. Contraception and abortion — once taboo topics — have been enshrined into law. The rates of premarital sex, out-of-wedlock births and divorce have soared since the 1950s (though lately most of these indexes have leveled off or declined slightly). In school, prayer is out; sex education is in. On TV, characters used to say "gee whiz" and sleep in twin beds; now they curse as if they had Tourette's syndrome and flash skin as if...