Free Republic

Absolutely arrogant. For Timothy P. Schmalz, an Ontario-based sculptor, that’s really the only way to describe the renewed push to tear down statues that commemorate people who are now deemed out of step with modern morals. When a Confederate figure gets toppled in the U.S., or a prime minister who was part of brutal treatment of Indigenous people is destroyed in Canada, it says more than just disagreeing, Mr. Schmalz said. It’s a claim that we would have known better, acted otherwise. And that’s the hubris. “When one destroys or puts a Confederate statue in a museum, out of sight,...

Action Follows Last Month’s Seizure of 92 IRGC DomainsSAN FRANCISCO – The United States has seized 27 domain names that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unlawfully used to further a global covert influence campaign.As described in the seizure documents, all 27 domains were being used in violation of U.S. sanctions targeting both the Government of Iran and the IRGC. Four of the domains purported to be genuine news outlets but were actually controlled by the IRGC and targeted audiences in the United States, to covertly influence United States policy and public opinion, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration...

A spokesman for the Taliban told Afghanistan’s Khaama Press in an interview published Thursday that the terrorist group’s “war against the United States will resume … until they leave Afghanistan” if Joe Biden walks back President Donald Trump’s attempts to withdraw U.S. forces from the country. Trump initiated talks including both the Taliban and the legitimate government of Afghanistan this year to come to an agreement that would result in the end of the American military presence in the country. Afghanistan is America’s longest war, launched in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Trump administration has...

President Trump's reelection bid received a vote of support Friday from an entity most in his party would reject: the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, "We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan." The militant group expressed some concern about Mr. Trump's bout with the coronavirus. "When we heard about Trump being COVID-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he is getting better," another Taliban senior leader told CBS News. Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Saturday that they "reject" the Taliban support....

The first peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to begin in the Gulf state of Qatar on Saturday, after months of delay. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the meeting "historic" as he flew to Doha for the opening ceremony. The talks were due to start after a US-Taliban security deal in February. But disagreements over a controversial prisoner swap stalled the next stage, as did violence in Afghanistan, where four decades of war are at a stalemate. A delegation of leading Afghans left Kabul for Doha on Friday - 11 September, the day...

The University of Rhode Island recently announced plans to remove two murals depicting the events of World War II due to their lack of diversity. The decision was prompted after students complained that the mural was not compatible with the university’s values of inclusivity. According to the school’s Vice President of Student Affairs, “Some of our students have even shared with us they didn’t feel comfortable sitting in that space.”

The liberal mainstream media said NOTHING back in 2011 when loose-lips Joe Biden outed SEAL Team 6 as the heroes of the Osama Bin Laden raid in Pakistan. 16 members of SEAL Team 6 were slaughtered by the Taliban in an attack soon after Biden’s gaffe. On August 6, 2011, 30 US service members were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter they were being transported in crashed in Wardak province, Afghanistan. It was the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. 17 members of the elite Navy SEALs were killed in the crash.

A group of Taliban sustained casualties as they were busy manufacturing an improvised explosive device, roadside bomb, in a mosque in North of Afghanistan. The 209th Shaheen Corps in a statement said the incident took place in a mosque in Chahabar Bolak district of Balkh. The statement further added that a group of 8 Taliban IED experts were busy manufacturing a bomb inside a mosque in Sikandar Khel Village. The premature explosion caused by IED killed four Taliban militants and wounded at least four others, the 209th Shaheen Corps added in its statement. According to Shaheen Corps, the explosion killed...

Naseem was charged with denigrating the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad. Two years later, awaiting his bail hearing surrounded by police and lawyers, he was gunned down. Faisal Khan, a 15-year-old Pakistani, beams for selfies with lawyers and police. Thousands hail him in the streets as a “holy warrior.” His claim to adulation? Allegedly gunning down in open court an American accused of blasphemy, a capital crime in this Islamic republic. Khan is charged with murder, which also carries a death sentence. But while lawyers line up to defend him, the attorney for Tahir Naseem, the U.S. citizen, has gone...

The Afghan government released 80 of the remaining 400 Taliban prisoners Thursday, paving the way for long-stalled peace negotiations after nearly two decades of bitter and violent conflict in the country. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani got the go-ahead from the consultative assembly Loya Jirga, which sanctioned the release of prisoners in an effort to speed up talks in the war-torn nation. Some of the prisoners have been implicated in devastating bombings in the capital Kabul.

An Afghan teen has been hailed as a hero after she used an AK-47 to fatally shoot two Taliban fighters — and wound several more — who dragged her parents from their home and killed them for supporting the government, local officials said. Insurgents stormed the home of Qamar Gul, a teenager from a village in the central province of Ghor, last week, officials told Agence France-Presse. They were targeting her father, the village chief and a government supporter, according to local police head Habiburahman Malekzada. When his wife resisted, the Taliban fighters killed the couple outside their home, according...

The Defense Department announced Tuesday that U.S. troops have withdrawn from five military bases and reduced the size of its forces in Afghanistan as part of the agreement reached with the Taliban in February. Pentagon chief spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement that "U.S. forces in Afghanistan remain in the mid-8,000s and five bases formerly occupied by U.S. forces have been transferred to our Afghan partners." "We maintain the capabilities and authorities necessary to protect ourselves, our Allies and partners, and US national interests," Hoffman said. "We will continue to execute our counterterrorism mission while simultaneously supporting the 38-nation...

We’ve seen this all before – the attempt to erase history through the destruction of statues and monuments to any historical event but today’s anarchy and any vestige of authority, real, institutional, or symbolic other than the authority imposed by the nihilists themselves. As columnist Charles Krauthammer once pointed out, one the first acts of the Taliban in Afghanistan was to blow up centuries-old statues of Buddha carved in a mountain cliff. They did it not because they were built by the United States or Israel or represented Western colonialism. The giant Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban...

Democrats, their liberal media, Never-Trump RINOs and Liz Cheney are very upset to hear Russia has been paying the Taliban to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. They’re not doing a very good job. ** There were 22 US deaths in Afghanistan total in 2019. ** There have been 9 US deaths in Afghanistan so far this year. ** Compare that to the 496 deaths in 2010 and 412 deaths in 2011 under Obama!Facts matter.The Taliban also laughs at these latest reports. In a new report at The Daily Beast the Taliban admits Russia has been paying them for US...

A new report raises serious questions regarding what House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff knew about bounties allegedly paid by Russia to Taliban-linked terrorists for killing American soldiers, and when he knew it. Sources told the outlet that top committee staff for Schiff were briefed all the way back in February on intelligence about a Russian military intelligence unit covertly offering the bounties to militants. But the California Democrat “took no action in response,” the outlet reported, citing those sources. What has surfaced is an allegation that Schiff did exactly what he is accusing Trump of doing right now...

In addition to the $1,000 bounty on U.S. troops, the unnamed man said Iran paid $6,000 for the destruction of a U.S. military vehicle.

The Defense Department said late Monday that there is “no corroborating evidence” to support the explosive New York Times report last week that said the Russian military offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The report sent shock waves through Washington and prompted President Trump to outright deny knowing anything about the intel cited in the report. “To date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports. Regardless, we always take the safety and security of our forces in Afghanistan—and around the world—most seriously and therefore continuously adopt measures to...

VIDEO Apparently the media didn't learn its lesson when they happily hyped the Trump-Russia collusion HOAX based on NO evidence. They are now doing a repeat performance by eagerly hyping a new Trump-Russia hoax, that he knew about the Russians supposedly paying the Taliban to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. Of course, this latest conspiracy theory is also based on no evidence since the New York Times fable about this relied on "anonymous sources." This video shows how in both cases the media was all too eager to hype these FAKE NEWS stories. Perhaps the Times can come up...

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton criticized on Sunday President Trump’s response to reports that Russian military operatives offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill U.S. troops – saying Trump’s decision-making is “not connected to reality” and bashing the president for denying that he was aware of the bounties. The comments by Bolton, whose upcoming memoir about his time in the Trump White House has drawn the ire of the president, come as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling on action to be taken against Moscow following reports in the New York Times that a Russian spy...

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused President Donald Trump of “kissing up” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Host George Stephanopoulos said, “I want to turn to that rather startling report in The New York Times [that] Russia secretly offered Afghan bounties to kill U.S. troops. It reports that American intelligence officials have concluded that Russian military intelligence units secretly offered bounties to Taliban linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan, including targeting American troops.” He asked, “Were you aware of these reports?” Pelosi said, “No, and we have called for a report to the Congress...