Free Republic

Now that Cindy Sheehan turns out to be a disaster for the antiwar movement -- most Americans are not about to follow a left-wing radical who insists that we are in Iraq for reasons of theft, oppression and empire -- a new spokesman is needed. If I were in the opposition camp, I would want a deeply patriotic, highly intelligent, distinguished establishment figure. I would want Brent Scowcroft. Scowcroft has been obliging. In the Oct. 31 New Yorker he came out strongly against the war and the neocon sorcerers who magically foisted it upon what must have been a hypnotized...

There have been conflicting reports about the timing of American troop withdrawals from Iraq. Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces there, has announced that the United States intends to begin a "fairly substantial" withdrawal of U.S. forces after the projected December elections establish a constitutional government. Other sources have indicated that this will involve 30,000 troops, or some 22 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq. Some high-level statements from Baghdad have indicated that the beginning of withdrawals may be delayed until next summer. On either schedule, progress is dependent upon improvements in the security situation and in the training...

SAN DIEGO (July 8, 2005) -- With cars exploding, improvised explosive devices detonating and rocket-propelled grenades screaming past your head, Marine life can be a horror flick — and Stu Segall is the Stephen King of military training. Segall’s Strategic Operations Studio recreates grisly, heart-stopping, tactical scenarios to prepare law enforcement and military personnel for “tomorrow’s threat.” That’s why Camp Pendleton-based 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company conducted their security and stabilization operations training at Strategic Ops — Segall’s movie set for producing mayhem and less-macabre modes of action-packed military training. Strategic Ops premiered its latest SASO production July 8...

The post-cold-war era has seen a remarkable ideological experiment: over the last fifteen years, each of the three major American schools of foreign policy—realism, liberal internationalism, and neoconservatism—has taken its turn at running things. (A fourth school, isolationism, has a long pedigree, but has yet to recover from Pearl Harbor and probably never will; it remains a minor source of dissidence with no chance of becoming a governing ideology.) There is much to be learned from this unusual and unplanned experiment. The era began with the senior George Bush and a classically realist approach. This was Kissingerism without Kissinger—although Brent...

[Republican administrations often pose moral and practical questions for libertarians, insofar as many jobs become available in government, whether directly employed by the White House, or regulatory agencies, as a writers and intellectuals. Is it right or wrong to accept such jobs? And regardless of who is in power, many free market economists face the ongoing dilemma of working in state-fund institutions. Freedom-minded citizens, too, face the problem of whether it is proper to work for the public sector and in what capacity. In this article from Liberty, Volume 1, number 3; December 1987, pp. 23-25, Murray N. Rothbard offers...

NEW YORK The relationship between the United States and China is beset by ambiguity. On the one hand, seven presidents have affirmed the importance of cooperative relations with China and a commitment to a one-China policy.   Nevertheless, ambivalence has suddenly re-emerged. Various U.S. officials, members of Congress and the news media are attacking China's policies, from the exchange rate to military buildup, much of it in a tone implying that China is on some sort of probation.   Before continuing on this subject, I must point out that the consulting company I chair advises clients with business interests around...

IN 1913, THE ARRIVAL IN AMERICA of a simple idea drastically revolutionized the Art World. The occasion was the Armory Show in New York, the first exhibition of Modern Art in this country, and the simple idea was this: The proper role of the artist is to express himself. That was utterly new. It turned all the preceding centuries of Art History on their head. Fast-forward to the end of the same century: that same simple idea, that the proper role of the artist is to express himself or herself, was being taught as gospel in virtually every college...

To Effectively Spread Democracy, We Must Balance Values and Geopolitical ChallengesExtraordinary advances of democracy have occurred in recent months: elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine and Palestine; local elections in Saudi Arabia; Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon; the opening up of the presidential election in Egypt; and upheavals against entrenched authoritarians in Kyrgyzstan. This welcome trend was partly triggered by President Bush's Middle East policy and accelerated by his second inaugural address, which elevated the progress of freedom in the world to the defining objective of U.S. foreign policy.Pundits have interpreted these events as a victory of "idealists" over "realists" in the...

IF George W. Bush's first term was dominated by the war against terrorism, the second will be preoccupied with the effort to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. This challenge is more complex than the first. Do we oppose proliferation because of the rogue quality of the two regimes - Iran and North Korea - furthest advanced on the road towards acquiring nuclear weapons? Or is our opposition generic; does it extend to fully democratic countries? How far are we prepared to go in resisting proliferation? Is it possible for one country alone to become the sole custodian of the...

It is unfortunate when people confuse relentlessly negative critical comments as intellectual sophistication. There is this strange fascination with a certain segment of Freepers. They seem to think if they are playing devils advocate ALL the time and making constantly critical comments about their own side, it makes them seem thoughtful and intelligent. Maybe we should have a term for this? Call it "McCainism" A metal defect that requires the victim to constantly critize their own side while NEVER pointing out where the other side blew it. Mccainism does not make you look smart. See REAL intelligence would be to...

  A Universal Mistake One of the most important of Ayn Rand's contributions to the field of epistemology is contained in the seventh chapter of her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology entitled, "The Cognitive Role of Concepts." In it she explains how the world we are conscious of is comprised of an infinite complexity of existents, events, and relationships and why it is not possible for us to comprehend this complexity simply by perceiving it. To understand it, we must "break it up," into manageable pieces we can identify and understand. This, Ayn Rand explains, is the role of concepts."The essence...

A Unipolar World Americans have an healthy aversion to foreign policy. It stems from a sense of thrift: Who needs it? We’re protected by two great oceans, we have this continent practically to ourselves and we share it with just two neighbors, both friendly, one so friendly that its people seem intent upon moving in with us. It took three giants of the twentieth century to drag us into its great battles: Wilson into World War I, Roosevelt into World War II, Truman into the Cold War. And then it ended with one of the great anti-climaxes in history. Without...

Since WMDs were not the real reason for attacking Iraq, the question of the war’s true purpose remains unresolved. Almost two months since President Bush announced that “major combat operations” had come to an end the United States appears strangely uncertain of its post-war mission. Dozens of American soldiers have died in accidents and, much more worryingly, in hit-and-run attacks by assailants unknown: mysterious “diehard Saddam loyalists,” Tehran-prompted Shiite fanatics, and bandits who thrive on chaos are all suspected. The number of “peacetime” casualties—averaging a soldier a day—may soon exceed that of combat losses suffered in March-April. The cost of...

If we are looking today for a general level of art of serious purpose, art with profound content supported by significant aesthetics, we will not find it. Contemporary art has failed. If we are satisfied with superficial, artificial art that manipulates aesthetics for empty abstract, decorative effects, then we truly live in a "golden" artistic age ... for this kind of art is everywhere. The degree of present-day artistic collapse, compared to the height of past artistic achievement, can be seen in the velocity and extent of precipitous decline during the 20th Century, increasing since World War II. In...