Free Republic

To blunt Russia’s aggression, the Western alliance is considering new bases, new troops, and the economic equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Will the Obama administration go along? With Russian forces entering into Ukraine, NATO is putting together a plan to place the alliance’s troops in bases behind the former Iron Curtain. One U.S. official who was not authorized to speak to the press said the presence of U.S. troops inside these bases in Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia would act as a “tripwire for Russia. If Putin considers any military action in these countries, they will know that they...

OBAMA SLIPPED INTO AFGHANISTAN FOR TWO HOURS.

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- U.S. Marines are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition that is growing but still short on manpower. They hope to retake the 10 percent of Afghanistan the Taliban holds. Some of the Marines that make up the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit helped to tame a thriving insurgency in western Iraq. Some 3,500 newly arrived troops hope to move into regions of Afghanistan now controlled by the Taliban. The Marines are working alongside British forces in Helmand province _ the world's largest opium-poppy region...

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO-led forces in Afghanistan were tricked into helping a group of U.S. vigilantes hunting for militants and who were arrested for illegally detaining Afghans, a spokesman said on Wednesday. Three U.S. nationals were arrested last week after a brief shootout in Kabul. They and some Afghan accomplices had been illegally detaining and interrogating people they believed to be terrorists, Afghan officials said. The group had asked for, and received, help from members of Afghanistan's NATO-led peacekeeping force, who believed they were members of a genuine military task force, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)...