Free Republic

I support the Quad as an initiative to contain Chinese totalitarianism. But using The Quad as a place to discuss human rights in Afghanistan or to extend the scope of the war in Ukraine does not look like good strategy to me. New Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was right to make attendance at the Tokyo meeting a high priority, but when he gets home he faces serious human rights questions which he cannot ignore if he wants to truly defend freedom from all of its enemies in Australia. Likewise Joe Biden is not consistently defending freedom in America. Leftist...

Terrorists who seize and threaten to behead foreign hostages in Iraq have elevated blackmail to a national level. They use the Internet and video cameras instead of pasted-together ransom notes to target the political stability and collective will of entire countries. By withdrawing its symbolic 51-person force from the U.S.-led coalition -- and then vaunting its surrender as a "triumph" -- the Philippine government gives these technologically innovative extremists a huge success. Manila's withdrawal is militarily insignificant. But it echoes loudly through the psychological and political realms that are the terrorists' most important battlegrounds. Six foreign truck drivers were kidnapped...