Free Republic

Award-winning investigative journalist and interviewer Trish Wood has been blowing up conventional wisdom for decades. A television and radio trailblazer, she’s renowned for chasing organized crime bosses through Tokyo, exposing crooked religious cranks, dodging drunken teens with guns at checkpoints in war-torn Burundi, and setting free innocent men. Trish’s intrepid reporting landed exclusive guests and won her fans, accolades and occasionally, critics. Now, she is bringing to a podcast her electric interviewing style, hard-won wisdom and wicked humour, crushing agenda-driven overload with critical thinking. Trish’s deep empathy for the downtrodden but fearless questioning of the powerful creates profound moments. Neither...

How the Pentagon’s top-brass generals burned the careers of subordinates but then pivoted to lucrative careers all while losing the wars they were supposed to be winning. My new book, A Few Bad Men, details the mendacity and mad dishonesty of retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. The fact that it was written by a Marine once under his command, whom he betrayed for the sake of politics and getting to slap on another star, says volumes about this once-lionized figure. It all goes back to an incident in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Court of Inquiry trial of...

Defeated generals are sent home in disgrace, but it is most unusual to dismiss victorious ones. Kosovo: NATO’s war against Serbia ended in victory. Gen. Wesley K. Clark, was very much the victorious general of that war. So why was Clark fired? Officially, he wasn’t fired, but merely asked to step aside early. Clark was caught. The entire structure of the U.S. armed forces is built on: classic war, fought by Army infantry, Marines storming ashore, armored forces, artillery, attack helicopters, fighter-bombers that dive low to attack the enemy, as well as strike aircraft and bombers that operate more safely...

Soldiers "from every echelon" of the US military have been openly questioning why last year's violent BLM and Antifa riots weren't treated like the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a comparison which has flown sideways up the ass of the military's top enlisted leader, Chief Master Sergeant Ramón "CZ" Colón-López.In a Thursday briefing at the Pentagon, Colón-López (CZ) told reporters that some troops have asked "How come you're not looking at the situation that was going on in Seattle prior to that? [Jan. 6 riot]""This is coming from every echelon that we're talking to," CZ added.The Pentagon is freaking out bc...

Retired Adm. William McRaven wrote an op-ed article Monday in The Wall Street Journal saying he held certain conservative viewpoints but also believed in ideas like "Black lives matter." He wrote that he voted for the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, because "we need a president for all Americans, not just half of America." McRaven has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, who he has accused of harming American values and tearing down US institutions.

Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Lara Logan discussed how retired generals who are speaking out against President Trump are either “complicit” with or waging an information warfare campaign against him, in an interview with Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Daily on Wednesday. Logan reminded listeners of the Russian collusion narrative, and how many officials from the Justice Department, Director of National Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and other agencies worked together to push the idea that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. “Think about how many people it took who had to be complicit to...

On Monday, Native Americans conducted a forgiveness ceremony with U.S. veterans at the Standing Rock casino, giving the veterans an opportunity to atone for military actions conducted against Natives throughout history. In celebration of Standing Rock protesters’ victory Sunday in halting construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, Leonard Crow Dog formally forgave Wes Clark Jr., the son of retired U.S. Army general and former supreme commander at NATO, Wesley Clark Sr. This was a historically symbolic gesture forgiving centuries of oppression against Natives and honoring their partnership in defending the land from the Dakota Access Pipeline.

General Wesley Clark launched a failed bid for the presidency in 2004 after retiring from the military in 2000 after a storied career Was married to his wife Gertrude for 46 years before filing for divorce in September 2012 Now said to be dating a 30-year-old found of a fashion retail site Son from his marriage to Gertrude is 13 years OLDER than his girlfriend

Gen. Weasley Clark’s Son To Lead Veterans’ Group To Protest Dakota Access Pipeline The son of retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark heads a veterans’ group committed to preventing law enforcement from evacuating Dakota Access Pipeline protesters. The group plans to arrive at the encampment Sunday.The group will supplement the few veterans who already arrived at one of the encampments earlier in the week and and demanded that law enforcement lay down their firearms.Wesley “Wes” Clark Jr. and former U.S. Marine Michael Wood Jr. lead Veterans Stand for Standing Rock. Clark’s father was also a 2004 Democratic presidential primary...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is vetting James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who served as the 16th supreme allied commander at NATO, as a possible running mate, according to a person with knowledge of the vetting process.

Where does the buck stop in the Obama administration? Will anyone take responsibility for the IRS scandal? When will we hear the whole truth? And will the president ever admit to creating a culture of hostility toward conservative groups? Does President Obama think his endless attacks on conservative groups had no effect on the IRS’s thinking? Did the IRS take years of name calling as a sign that these groups deserved to be harassed? After the president and his allies called the groups “terrorists” and “tea-baggers,” did the IRS think targeting them was what the president wanted? Were they egged...

Defense secretary targets expenditures on armed forces healthcare and departmental overhead as part of an effort to tame runaway Pentagon spending.

Nineteen months after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the war in Iraq "lost" and just nine months after Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted the war has been a "failure" because it had not brought political change leading to reconciliation, it can now be said conclusively that both were wrong. One of the great military reversals in history is close to achieving victory. That is contributing to stability in Iraq, along with reconciliation between warring factions. These conclusions are contained in a report compiled by retired General Barry R. McCaffrey after a recent visit to Iraq during which he consulted with...

One of the dumbest things about the Clark kerfuffle is that because there are so many elements of military service that people respect, the narrow critique he’s offering against McCain seems almost beside the point. I see service mainly as a testament to character and fortitude; others see it as evidence of good judgment, and others as an important lesson for a C-in-C to have (i.e. “experience”) before committing other men to war. So far as I know, McCain has never staked his own wartime ordeal to any one of these, preferring to let voters draw whatever they find most...

As far as former three-star Adm. Joe Sestak is concerned, the Democrats have just begun to fight back on Iraq. Sestak, the freshman congressman from Delaware County, is committed to getting U.S. forces out of Iraq by year's end. Calling the war a "tragic misadventure," the 31-year Navy veteran said in a floor speech that his experience says "don't double down on a bad military bet by using more troops as the president has proposed, when an increase has not worked before." Three days of debate on a nonbinding resolution are scheduled to end today with a vote.

In an e-mail message sent this week to his own supporters, Clark, who is said to be considering another run for the White House in 2008, lauded the Greenwich cable company executive for "running the type of campaign all Democrats can be proud of." "Standing up to President Bush's failed policy in Iraq, dispensing with self-serving and wishy-washy notions of 'independence,' and pledging to invest in America's future, Ned Lamont is a candidate for Senate who I am proud to endorse," he wrote. Clark also took a swipe at Lieberman, now running as an independent, saying the senator had "decided...

Please let me know what your think about Gen. Wesley Clark. It's very rare that you see a person receive such love/hate on both sides of the playing field. Liberals and Conservatives alike seem to always have mixed reviews about him. As someone who had the opportunity to personally speak to him albeit for a brief time I personally like him even if we don't share 100% of the same opinions. Many of my friends and family members were also afforded the opportunity to meet and talk to him in a very personal matter and all share similar feelings of...

...in one astonishing statement three days before Clark announced his candidacy, Clark's former boss, Gen. H. Hugh Shelton, raised the most serious questions about Clark's military record, which is, of course, all he really has to run on. Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, said: "I've known Wes a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character, issues that are very near and dear to my heart." According to military historian Thomas Fleming, "This is the most critical statement by one...

SOME FACTS ABOUT GENERAL CLARK       General Wesley Clark.  A hero.  Medal winner.  A born leader.  The man that has GW Bush ready to just give up and quit.  Really?  Not everyone thinks so.  Take, for instance,  General Sir Mike Jackson, commander of the international K-For peacekeeping force.  "I'm not going to start the third world war for you."  It seems Clark had given an order to send in troops to attack Russian troops who were in the process of taking over the airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital.  Fighting  and killing Russian troops was not part of the war plan to...

Perfumed PrinceI don't know Gen. Wesley Clark, but I have a good friend who does. My friend is, like Clark, a career Army officer who has retired.Essentially, my friend says that Clark is "the last guy in the world you want to see in the White House." He describes him as a "perfumed prince" who is so conceited he never admits he's wrong and treats subordinates like dirt. My friend, I should make clear, was never a subordinate of the general, so this is not a case of sour grapes.I'm sure you can find others who know Clark and...