Free Republic

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on drones, British lawyer Ben Emmerson, recently visited Pakistan and told me: "The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation." The New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan, drones have killed between 1,953 and 3,279 people since 2004 -- and that between 18% and 23% of them were not militants. The nonmilitant casualty rate was down to about 10% in 2012, the group says. A study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that since 2004, Pakistan has had 365 drone strikes that have killed between 2,536 and 3,577 people --...

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has pulled off in Mecca what many had thought unlikely -- getting 20 or so disparate Arab nations to unite in a common position against Iran. ... In middle-of-night, back-to-back summits at Islam's holiest of sites, the aging but still-attentive Saudi monarch got a double endorsement of his claims that Iran is destabilizing the Middle East and a backing of his call for "the international community to shoulder its responsibility. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and 21 Arab League nations present called for Iran to stop "interfering in the internal affairs" of its neighbors and...

RUSH: So Trump is over in Davos, and it isn’t going the way Drive-Bys dreamed it would go. Trump is being embraced. Trump is being celebrated. Trump is being lauded. The Drive-Bys expected Trump to be protested! They expected Trump to be shunned. They hoped for all of this, and what this presents us today is a great opportunity. You know, our all-time favorite audio sound bites — and it’s tough; I mean, it may not be the all-time favorite, but it ranks right there. It’s our old buddy Nic Robertson of CNN in Cairo (laughing) during the Arab Spring...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now they tell us. I'm looking at a headline here on Fox. Now they're telling us "Unrest Spreading Across the Middle East." How can that be? I thought the Middle East was solved. I thought we had an uprising, a democratic uprising. They got rid of that evil guy, Mubarak; and Obama went out there, did everything he could to make all this happen. --snip-- RUSH: "Well, actually Obama's views were kind of conflicting during the last week." So they're not buying the whole premise. Nic Robertson's premise is jammed right down his throat. Yet you heard,...

What will happen Monday, history will record in less than 24 hours. The atmosphere is filled by suspense over the call for demonstration. Certainly the city is not calm. There were chants of "Allah-o akbar" across Tehran. People expect something to happen. Publicly, Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Mousavi have called for a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Egypt. Nobody thinks or believes this is about Egypt or will remain focused on Egypt. No wonder that their request has been rejected as illegal. Their advisers have announced that according to Article 27 of Iran's Constitution there is no need...

(I had this piece written this morning when I caught Senator Hagel of Nebraska on CBS describing Israel’s efforts to stop the Hezbollah from killing them as a “slaughter”. I felt sick to my stomach that we have such a stupid and ignorant person as a Republican senator. Where has he been for the last 58 years, or is he an anti-Semite too? We already know that he is a copperhead.) We are being inundated with pictures and news features showing innocent women and children being killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and we are moved to act to stop...

Better late than never? On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, CNN’s senior international correspondent Nic Robertson added all of the caveats and disclaimers that he should have included in his story last week that amounted to his giving an uncritical forum for the terrorist group Hezbollah to spout unverifiable anti-Israeli propaganda. Back on July 18, Hezbollah took Robertson and his crew on a tour of a heavily damaged south Beirut neighborhood. The Hezbollah “press officer” even instructed the CNN camera: “Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians...

WHILE MANY Americans were hitting the malls looking for holiday sales a few months back, CNN's chief news executive was doing his shopping in Kuwait. At an auto dealership outside Kuwait City, Eason Jordan stocked up on Humvees and Hummers, the all-terrain vehicles that are key to hauling equipment and crews around the unforgiving landscape of the Middle East. For competitive reasons, Mr. Jordan won't disclose how many vehicles CNN bought -- leasing, he jokes, wasn't an option -- but it's safe to say the network will have some pretty big fuel bills. Buying Humvees is just one part...